Cause and Effect
In order to truly achieve all the success that you desire, you must take complete responsibility for every result you get. This is a far more attractive proposition than it may seem at first. Look at Figure 4.1. The expression states that cause is greater than effect. What does this really mean? When living our lives on the effect side of the equation, we are not taking responsibility for our results. We tend to blame others, our environment, and the circumstances around us for the results we achieved. In essence we are giving away our personal power. Conversely, when we live on the cause side of the equation, we accept full responsibility for every result we get. Whether the result was good or bad, we accept that we created that result. This is personal power. Our personal power is taking full responsibility for the results we produce instead of making excuses for what happened.
What Does This Mean to You
It is almost impossible to solve a problem with the same mind-set that created it. For this reason, most effective solutions occur after you shift your thinking. Responsibility is the perspective that you are the creator of events and circumstances. So, in order to improve external events, results, and circumstances, the first step is to change the emotional and psychological dynamics that created them. If you keep thinking the same way, then you will keep getting the same results. In this book you will be learning a wide variety of methods to change your internal ways of thinking about, feeling about, and perceiving yourself and the world. These methods and tools, used daily, will take you far beyond the momentary jolt a motivational speech provides. Perhaps you are not completely convinced that you are the cause of the internal and external circumstances in your life. “You guys just don’t understand,” you might be thinking, “i’ve got some real problems.” We authors know about the real problems. We have seen the lines at the unemployment office and people having their vehicles repossessed.
How to Reliably Produce Results You Do Not Want
Knowing how to create results you do not want is much more useful than it appears at first, because conscious awareness of the process that produces such results enables you to avoid the behaviors that create them. If you have results that you don’t like, if you are broke, depressed, and upset, knowing what you do to create this result could be an important step in changing things. Obviously, the strategy described next is not a resourceful way to run your mind
Take it personally
Take everything that happens personally. At the extreme, conclude that everything happens is an indictment of you. Assume that people who reject you have it in for you. See the world and the people in it as hostile or, at least, uncaring. Blame your condition on external circumstances. Blame puts you at effect of external circumstances and renders you helpless. Compare yourself to others frequently and unfavorably. Complain about the people around you to anyone who listens and to some who don’t. Rely on this complaining as a temporary respite from misery and as an opportunity to justify unhappiness or lack of accomplishment. Stay with work you don’t like and expect the money to make up for the dissatisfaction. Assume it is your responsibility to fix things that are beyond your control, including the feelings of others. Avoid asking for what you want.
Consider it pervasive
Allow the negative attitude created by taking things personally to pervade other areas of your life. For example, allow setbacks at work to affect your close relationships and allow upsets in your family to detract from your performance at work. Increase the pervasiveness even more by listening to country western music or rap, so that your negative thinking gains rhythm and melody, thus becoming easier to remember. Then seek to reenforce .
Summary
Make all of this permanent by thinking it will never change—or by thinking you are too old to change or you will change after you have more education, a better job, get married, get divorced, have children, move to California, or the children grow up. In your relationships, refuse to give other people what you know they want until you get what you want from them. These three p’s are an excellent strategy to follow if you want to become broke, depressed, and upset. Surely all of us engage in the three p’s some of the time. Now that you understand the p’s you can catch yourself engaging in these behaviors more quickly than before
