When It’s Not Your Fault

Ep: 258

When was the last time you were wronged, disappointed by someone, or taken advantage of?

It’s natural when something bad happens to us to want to lay blame. We want to pin the fault on someone else to make sense of the injustice.

But we often forget that we are the co-creators of our experiences. And taking on that responsibility can be empowering.

Today on The Bridge to FulfillmentⓇ, Blake shares a lesson in taking responsibility for your role in the things that happen in life. The empowerment of understanding co-creation and accepting responsibility can become the momentum you need to move forward.

In this episode, you’ll learn how to keep an open loop to leave space for the unknown to enter your life. You’ll hear stories about people who took responsibility for difficult situations, recognizing that rather than happening to them, opportunities were actually happening for them. You’ll also learn how we actively co-create our life experiences, and how you can transform misfortune into forward momentum.

“It might not be your fault, but it is your responsibility.”

What You’ll Learn:

  • How to keep an open loop (2:40)
  • The empowering act of taking responsibility (4:20)
  • Accepting your role as a co-creator (6:29)
  • How to create forward momentum (8:42)
  • Learning life’s lessons and releasing yourself from blame (10:37)

Favorite Quotes:

  1. “The kindest thing I can do is help you see reality. Help you recognize the places where maybe you’re keeping yourself stuck or small or suffering when you don’t have to.”
  2. “In every relationship and every interaction, we are co-creators. Nothing happens in isolation.”
  3. “Understanding co-creation and understanding responsibility enables you to take negative circumstances and create positive outcomes.”
  4. “Where can you take responsibility to create forward momentum?”

Additional Resources: 

Get clarity on where you are on your journey to career fulfillment, where you’re headed, optional paths to get there, and the right next step to take.

Start your complimentary, Personalized Career Fulfillment Plan by going to www.thebridgetofulfillment.com/pcfp

For programs and opportunities to work with Blake, go to www.BlakeSchofield.com

Transcript

Blake Schofield 0:05
Hi, I’m Blake Schofield, founder and CEO of The Bridge to Fulfillment®. Mom to three, USA Today Top 10 Professional Coach, and former corporate executive who got tired of sacrificing my life for a comfortable paycheck. My mission is to expand perspectives to achieve greater impact at home and work without sacrifice. This is The Bridge to Fulfillment®.

Blake Schofield 0:39
Welcome back to another episode of The Bridge to Fulfillment®. I am coming to you from my brand new place, just moved cross country about 30 hours, and in the process of getting settled. So this is one of my first podcast episodes back. And I’m really excited to start this next chapter and have you along with me in the journey. Those of you guys who have been listeners to this podcast for a long time, thank you, thank you, thank you. Please continue to share the message with those you think will help. Those of you who are new, welcome.

Blake Schofield 1:14
I’m really honored to be able to do this podcast, it’s one of the most fun things that I get to do in sharing my message. And I just have been really honored and appreciative of the guests that I have that come on, the clients who share their stories, and those of you guys who are listening and sharing this with others who can really benefit or using what I share here to help benefit yourself, your life, your team, your business. At the end of the day, when one of us improves, we all improve.

Blake Schofield 1:48
And so today I’m going to share a message, something that really has been showing up in several different areas that I’m kind of seeing in my realm and those around me. Because I believe, as I share with you guys all the time, that life is always teaching you lessons, and you’ll keep getting those lessons until you learn them. And it’s sort of like that that old adage that Oprah says versus a whisper than a knock than a bang, then honestly, the whole damn house falls down.

Blake Schofield 2:15
And what I often find is because we don’t understand that life is always working for us. And we often think life is happening to us. And we aren’t really looking at the patterns happening in our lives. And we’re unaware that we actually have the ability to change and create the life that we want. We don’t even realize that these things are happening for us.

Blake Schofield 2:39
And so today, I want to share a message that, I don’t know, might feel easy or might feel radical. Wherever it hits you today, what I challenge you to do is leave it as an open loop. An open loop is when a concept comes to you that isn’t exactly what you believe or what you’ve experienced or what you thought. And rather than immediately judging it, or rather than googling to try and figure out if it’s right, you just allow that concept or idea to sit and you give it space. And you don’t try to solve or agree or disagree with it, you just remain open to the possibility that there might be a different perspective or a different approach or a different way of doing things.

Blake Schofield 3:20
And in doing that often you’ll begin to see evidence or different things show up that can help you sort of come to a conclusion about how to integrate that or what to do with it. So today I’m going to share this lesson that I’ve so beautifully experienced and know to be true. Know to be that it’s one of the best and most empowering ways to move forward in your life.

Blake Schofield 3:41
That a friend recently posted about his story on Facebook, a client recently had a story linked the same. And I had a recent conversation about the challenge of people believing this or seeing this perspective differently. But I always believe in helping you understand that there’s so much more possibility for your life. My clients call me kind but direct. And that’s because from my perspective, the kindest thing I can do is help you see reality. Help you recognize the places where maybe you’re keeping yourself stuck or small or suffering when you don’t have to.

Blake Schofield 4:18
And today I’m going to talk about it might not be your fault, but it is your responsibility. That was the title of one of the Facebook posts that a friend of mine wrote recently, as he was talking about having gone through one of the toughest years of his life, that his business partner lied, cheated, stole money, and essentially caused him to lose a tremendous amount of money, hurt the reputation of his business, that he ended up losing a lot of personal finances so much so that he had to talk to his kids and his family about it. His sweet kids actually offered to help pay for some of the debt things that they needed. And of course he declined.

Blake Schofield 4:57
And then he talked about what his business colleague did was not his fault. He didn’t make those choices, but that it was his responsibility. And that the power of taking responsibility over that circumstance had enabled him to come out stronger in every way possible to have improved his business, to have the best quarter he’d ever had, to have developed a stronger and better relationship with his family, to have a more solid foundation for how he ran his team and his business that was more aligned. And in a way that he could protect things like that from happening again. It wasn’t his fault, but he took it as his responsibility.

Blake Schofield 5:35
Now, this is radical, because in our world, we very easily can feel like a victim, this thing happened to me, this person did this thing to me. And when we do that, we victimize ourselves, we take away our power, and we put the power squarely in the hands of someone else. You know, he could have just blamed the other partner and stayed stuck. Because with somebody who takes those actions, perhaps he doesn’t think anything is wrong with those actions and waiting for that person to apologize or see that what happened in the same way, may very well not happen.

Blake Schofield 6:16
But by him choosing to take responsibility, he looks at what he can do, what he missed or didn’t see, and where there was co-creation in the process. Now, what do I mean by this? Well, this is what I mean. In every relationship and every interaction, we are co creators. Nothing happens in isolation. And unfortunately, what often can happen is that we believe that it’s just the other person’s fault. Or on the flip side, if you’re someone who’s highly empathetic, and somebody who goes out of their way to help people, often, you can end up taking 100% of the responsibility while not holding the other person responsible to their co creation.

Blake Schofield 6:56
And so this understanding that we are co creators and everything is really powerful. So when circumstances happen, like what happened to my friend, he can look and say, “How did I co create this?”, or “Where is my responsibility?” And in looking at that, then he gains the power back, he’s empowered to see the ways of which he maybe abdicated responsibility, didn’t look at red flags that maybe were coming up, or maybe didn’t have the right systems or communication in place to have avoided this problem. It puts him in a position where he can create positive change from a negative circumstance that happened.

Blake Schofield 7:39
I want to say that again. Understanding co-creation and understanding responsibility enables you to take negative circumstances and create positive outcomes. It enables you to be empowered, create the life you want, to no longer tolerate people, circumstances, and things that are not in alignment with your value system, or what you want to create.

Blake Schofield 8:04
As I mentioned to you, when I see things, right, they tend to happen in multiples. It’s not just one thing, because how we do one thing, is how we do everything. And what’s happening in part is also happening in whole. So the same week, I end up having a conversation with one of my clients. And she had a very difficult situation that had happened within her business and was very frustrated with her team. Very common for leaders, very common for parents, very common in general.

Blake Schofield 8:33
But as we started to dive deeper, and I said, Okay, how is this situation working for you? And where is your co-creation? And therefore, where can you take responsibility to create forward momentum? When we started diving into it, it became very clear that there were some significant gaps in terms of how things were structured or set up. And as a result of that, it created ambiguity on the team, and also ambiguity on whether it was incompetence, or somebody just didn’t understand. And those types of circumstances actually could create much, much greater risk than what this business owner actually had based on this incident.

Blake Schofield 9:14
And so my commentary to her was, this looks bad, because you’re gonna lose, let’s say $500. But what I actually think is by you understanding co-creation, and getting to the root cause of this and solving this, I think this will make you hundreds of 1000s of dollars, if not, you know a million dollars over a course of a period of years. So what looked like, she was a victim. What looks like somebody else’s fault, when she could look at co-creation and she could take responsibility will enable her to make a massive positive impact in her business and with her team.

Blake Schofield 9:51
And because I know how we do one thing is how we do everything, I also recognize that the opportunities that she’s seeing in her business likely are also mirroring other opportunities she has in other relationships. Which means as she begins to learn those lessons she’s being given and apply different tactics and strategies, she will not just see an improvement in her business, she will see an improvement in her personal relationships, friendships, etc.

Blake Schofield 10:18
This concept might seem foreign to you, or if you’ve been around my world long enough, maybe like, Yep, I got it, Blake, I’m applying it.

Blake Schofield 10:29
Wherever this concept hits for you, I share it with you because I know it to be incredibly powerful. When we understand and can take personal responsibility for our co-creation, when we can see that we aren’t victims, that life is always working for us, and we’re just being given lessons. And we can begin to learn that those lessons will keep coming until we learn them. So the faster we’re able to learn those lessons, remove the judgment, guilt, shame, frustration, blame, anger, move through those emotions, and get to a place where we can see more clearly, we can be empowered by the things that happen to us.

Blake Schofield 11:09
So not just do we have the wonderful things that are unexpected are the wonderful things we plan. But the things that are difficult or challenging or unexpected, that weren’t the way that we wanted them to be. We can use those as launch pads to get better, to create more resilience, to have a stronger foundation, to have more peace, more joy, more impact, more safety and security in our lives, our relationships, our businesses.

Blake Schofield 11:38
So today, well, maybe I’ll say this. So this week, I want to encourage you, when you are faced with a circumstance that feels bad, when your mind immediately goes to you feeling like you’re a victim of and that somebody else is at fault. I want to remind you of this.

Blake Schofield 12:00
Stop, create some space, process through whatever emotions that your feeling, acknowledge that you’re feeling anger or frustration. Surrender and release those and then stop and ask yourself, How is this circumstance working for me? And where is my responsibility and co-creating it? How can I use this, to take action to be empowered and move my life forward in the way that I want to?

Blake Schofield 12:30
That simple process will just begin to show you a glimmer of what’s truly possible for your life, for your relationships, and for truly everything that you want to create in your life.

Blake Schofield 12:45
Thanks so much for joining me. Until next time, have a great week.