{"id":44042,"date":"2018-02-06T10:19:19","date_gmt":"2018-02-06T15:19:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.umw.edu\/lcpw\/?p=44042"},"modified":"2018-02-06T10:19:52","modified_gmt":"2018-02-06T15:19:52","slug":"44042","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.umw.edu\/lcpw\/2018\/02\/06\/44042\/","title":{"rendered":"More Power to You! The Great News about Personal Responsibility"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Beth Williams, Vice President of Human Resources at Hilldrup<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cYou must take personal responsibility. You cannot change the circumstances, the seasons, or the wind, but you can change yourself.\u201d Jim Rohn<\/p>\n

\"woman<\/a>I have great news!! It turns out we are responsible for everything in our lives, the good, the bad and even the ugly, isn\u2019t that fantastic?\u00a0 \u00a0I realize this proclamation may be met with a furrowed brow and perhaps a touch of skepticism, however I assure you, this really is great.\u00a0 It\u2019s great because the moment we accept responsibility for our lives is the moment we cease to be a victim, giving our power away to others.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve had people say to me \u201cmy life is terrible right now, and you\u2019re telling me I\u2019m responsible, how is that a good thing?\u201d.\u00a0 Because it means if you had the power to make it terrible, you also have the power to make it wonderful. \u00a0Still skeptical? It may help to think of it in the reverse: if we aren\u2019t<\/em> responsible for our behavior and our results, then someone or something else is, which means we have no power or freedom to change \u2013 ugh, that\u2019s a depressing thought.<\/p>\n

Not only is this concept of personal responsibility empowering, it\u2019s absolutely necessary for true success and happiness. \u00a0\u00a0In my 20+ years as a Human Resources professional, and seven years as a certified life and leadership coach, I have seen chronic blaming, complaining and excuse-making derail many careers and cause much personal turmoil.<\/p>\n

So how can a person begin to take personal responsibility? \u00a0It just takes a few small first steps that are simple and very powerful:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Look at the situation and ask, \u201chow am I causing this or allowing this to happen?\u201d. Do this without self-judgement or self-blame, be curious, kind and honest with yourself.<\/li>\n
  2. Focus your attention on the result you would prefer and the choices you could make in order to achieve your desired result. These choices may require that you change your behavior \u2013 including what you say and how you say it and your thoughts about the situation.<\/li>\n
  3. If the choice doesn\u2019t give the results you want, you can look to understand what happened and what action you can take next.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    I have one more piece of good news:\u00a0 much of this is simply awareness, so the next time you hear yourself complaining, stop and consider what it is that you would prefer. Then think about one step you could take toward creating what you want.\u00a0 \u00a0Best wishes, and more power to you!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    by Beth Williams, Vice President of Human Resources at Hilldrup \u201cYou must take personal responsibility. You cannot change the circumstances, the seasons, or the wind, but you can change yourself.\u201d Jim Rohn<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":92,"featured_media":44043,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"umw_cb_additional_links":[[]],"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_advisory_expires_time":"","_advisory_meta_include":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-44042","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-blog","8":"entry"},"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nMore Power to You! The Great News about Personal Responsibility - Leadership Colloquium at UMW<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.umw.edu\/lcpw\/2018\/02\/06\/44042\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"More Power to You! The Great News about Personal Responsibility\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"by Beth Williams, Vice President of Human Resources at Hilldrup \u201cYou must take personal responsibility. You cannot change the circumstances, the seasons, or the wind, but you can change yourself.\u201d Jim Rohn\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.umw.edu\/lcpw\/2018\/02\/06\/44042\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Leadership Colloquium at UMW\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2018-02-06T15:19:19+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2018-02-06T15:19:52+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.umw.edu\/lcpw\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/21\/2018\/02\/businesswoman.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"960\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"640\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Andrea Cordray\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Andrea Cordray\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.umw.edu\/lcpw\/2018\/02\/06\/44042\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.umw.edu\/lcpw\/2018\/02\/06\/44042\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Andrea Cordray\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.umw.edu\/lcpw\/#\/schema\/person\/d5dd706e365b40de51655d8168964a17\"},\"headline\":\"More Power to You! The Great News about Personal Responsibility\",\"datePublished\":\"2018-02-06T15:19:19+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2018-02-06T15:19:52+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.umw.edu\/lcpw\/2018\/02\/06\/44042\/\"},\"wordCount\":441,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.umw.edu\/lcpw\/2018\/02\/06\/44042\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.umw.edu\/lcpw\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/21\/2018\/02\/businesswoman.jpg\",\"articleSection\":[\"blog\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.umw.edu\/lcpw\/2018\/02\/06\/44042\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.umw.edu\/lcpw\/2018\/02\/06\/44042\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.umw.edu\/lcpw\/2018\/02\/06\/44042\/\",\"name\":\"More Power to You! The Great News about Personal Responsibility - Leadership Colloquium at UMW\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.umw.edu\/lcpw\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.umw.edu\/lcpw\/2018\/02\/06\/44042\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.umw.edu\/lcpw\/2018\/02\/06\/44042\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.umw.edu\/lcpw\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/21\/2018\/02\/businesswoman.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2018-02-06T15:19:19+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2018-02-06T15:19:52+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.umw.edu\/lcpw\/#\/schema\/person\/d5dd706e365b40de51655d8168964a17\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.umw.edu\/lcpw\/2018\/02\/06\/44042\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.umw.edu\/lcpw\/2018\/02\/06\/44042\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.umw.edu\/lcpw\/2018\/02\/06\/44042\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.umw.edu\/lcpw\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/21\/2018\/02\/businesswoman.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.umw.edu\/lcpw\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/21\/2018\/02\/businesswoman.jpg\",\"width\":960,\"height\":640},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.umw.edu\/lcpw\/2018\/02\/06\/44042\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.umw.edu\/lcpw\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"More Power to You! The Great News about Personal Responsibility\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.umw.edu\/lcpw\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.umw.edu\/lcpw\/\",\"name\":\"Leadership Colloquium at UMW\",\"description\":\"University of Mary Washington\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.umw.edu\/lcpw\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.umw.edu\/lcpw\/#\/schema\/person\/d5dd706e365b40de51655d8168964a17\",\"name\":\"Andrea Cordray\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.umw.edu\/lcpw\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/86da089c8c4b72d14f12795d7eee0f34f9fee06448505d6bc1aad2a71e9a9cd0?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/86da089c8c4b72d14f12795d7eee0f34f9fee06448505d6bc1aad2a71e9a9cd0?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Andrea Cordray\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.umw.edu\/lcpw\/author\/acordray\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO Premium plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"More Power to You! The Great News about Personal Responsibility - Leadership Colloquium at UMW","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.umw.edu\/lcpw\/2018\/02\/06\/44042\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"More Power to You! The Great News about Personal Responsibility","og_description":"by Beth Williams, Vice President of Human Resources at Hilldrup \u201cYou must take personal responsibility. You cannot change the circumstances, the seasons, or the wind, but you can change yourself.\u201d Jim Rohn","og_url":"https:\/\/www.umw.edu\/lcpw\/2018\/02\/06\/44042\/","og_site_name":"Leadership Colloquium at UMW","article_published_time":"2018-02-06T15:19:19+00:00","article_modified_time":"2018-02-06T15:19:52+00:00","og_image":[{"width":960,"height":640,"url":"https:\/\/www.umw.edu\/lcpw\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/21\/2018\/02\/businesswoman.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Andrea Cordray","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Andrea Cordray","Est. reading time":"2 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.umw.edu\/lcpw\/2018\/02\/06\/44042\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.umw.edu\/lcpw\/2018\/02\/06\/44042\/"},"author":{"name":"Andrea Cordray","@id":"https:\/\/www.umw.edu\/lcpw\/#\/schema\/person\/d5dd706e365b40de51655d8168964a17"},"headline":"More Power to You! The Great News about Personal Responsibility","datePublished":"2018-02-06T15:19:19+00:00","dateModified":"2018-02-06T15:19:52+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.umw.edu\/lcpw\/2018\/02\/06\/44042\/"},"wordCount":441,"commentCount":0,"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.umw.edu\/lcpw\/2018\/02\/06\/44042\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.umw.edu\/lcpw\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/21\/2018\/02\/businesswoman.jpg","articleSection":["blog"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/www.umw.edu\/lcpw\/2018\/02\/06\/44042\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.umw.edu\/lcpw\/2018\/02\/06\/44042\/","url":"https:\/\/www.umw.edu\/lcpw\/2018\/02\/06\/44042\/","name":"More Power to You! The Great News about Personal Responsibility - Leadership Colloquium at UMW","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.umw.edu\/lcpw\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.umw.edu\/lcpw\/2018\/02\/06\/44042\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.umw.edu\/lcpw\/2018\/02\/06\/44042\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.umw.edu\/lcpw\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/21\/2018\/02\/businesswoman.jpg","datePublished":"2018-02-06T15:19:19+00:00","dateModified":"2018-02-06T15:19:52+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.umw.edu\/lcpw\/#\/schema\/person\/d5dd706e365b40de51655d8168964a17"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.umw.edu\/lcpw\/2018\/02\/06\/44042\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.umw.edu\/lcpw\/2018\/02\/06\/44042\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.umw.edu\/lcpw\/2018\/02\/06\/44042\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/www.umw.edu\/lcpw\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/21\/2018\/02\/businesswoman.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.umw.edu\/lcpw\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/21\/2018\/02\/businesswoman.jpg","width":960,"height":640},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.umw.edu\/lcpw\/2018\/02\/06\/44042\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.umw.edu\/lcpw\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"More Power to You! The Great News about Personal Responsibility"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.umw.edu\/lcpw\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.umw.edu\/lcpw\/","name":"Leadership Colloquium at UMW","description":"University of Mary Washington","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.umw.edu\/lcpw\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.umw.edu\/lcpw\/#\/schema\/person\/d5dd706e365b40de51655d8168964a17","name":"Andrea Cordray","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.umw.edu\/lcpw\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/86da089c8c4b72d14f12795d7eee0f34f9fee06448505d6bc1aad2a71e9a9cd0?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/86da089c8c4b72d14f12795d7eee0f34f9fee06448505d6bc1aad2a71e9a9cd0?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Andrea Cordray"},"url":"https:\/\/www.umw.edu\/lcpw\/author\/acordray\/"}]}},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.umw.edu\/lcpw\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/21\/2018\/02\/businesswoman.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.umw.edu\/lcpw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44042","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.umw.edu\/lcpw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.umw.edu\/lcpw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.umw.edu\/lcpw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/92"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.umw.edu\/lcpw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44042"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.umw.edu\/lcpw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44042\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.umw.edu\/lcpw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44043"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.umw.edu\/lcpw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44042"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.umw.edu\/lcpw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44042"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.umw.edu\/lcpw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44042"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}