Millionaire Mindset series 9: Accept full responsibility for everything in your life

One of my mentors once said, “You Can Be Rich, Or You Can Be A Victim. You Can’t Be Both”. What he meant was that people have to get rid of their ‘victim mentality’ in order to succeed and become rich. No blaming. No complaining. No excuses. Too many people try to justify their failures, their fears, and staying in their comfort zone, by playing ‘the blame game’.

Financial decisions based on a solid sense of personal responsibility predictably lead to financial prosperity. But to become responsible with money we must first learn how to avoid feeling guilty about unproductive decisions so we can move on to positively exercise self-discipline with all our money decisions. It is my responsibility to know and ask the kind of questions I need to ask to get the information I need to make good financial decisions. And I must accept responsibility for the consequences. Indeed, I would say that this is true even if I get taken in by a fraud.

Responsibility is not the same as blame. We do not need to feel guilty for making a less than satisfactory decision. We do need to accept responsibility so we will be able to feel in control of our destiny. After all, if we think someone else controls our lives rather than ourselves we can never take action to move ourselves toward any of our goals in life, including our financial goals.

When we do accept responsibility for ourselves and for our financial decisions, we will be able to learn from our mistakes and determine not to repeat unproductive choices. When we know we are in control we understand that we have the capacity to make better decisions when faced with a similar situation in the future. In fact and this is even more important—even when we make good decisions the fact that our achievements are recognized as being a result of our choices means that we can learn from them equally. Consequently, we can make even more productive decisions the next time.

If something doesn’t work out right they don’t accuse others of causing their failure. They think like Thomas Edison who didn’t consider any of his nonworking light bulbs to be failures. Instead he said he just eliminated 10,000 things that wouldn’t work before he found one that did.

Blaming others means that your life is at the mercy of other people, happenstance, fate, bad luck, etc. rather than in your own hands. How can you take control of your life and shape your life the way you want it, if your life is at the mercy of other people?

The more you understand about how money works in the real world, the more successful you will become in making good money decisions. Never quit learning—accept personal responsibility for your financial decisions. Keep your eyes and ears open, stay alert, and become responsible with money. Discipline with money will change the course of your life.