As I start writing this blog, I am aware of three things:

• Most people avoid taking full responsibility for things OR people take responsibility for things that aren’t even related to their involvement.
• While everyone says they want “choice,” very few people are comfortable actually making a decision and standing on it with confidence.
• When people are comfortable with choice, it is usually a direct connection to core values, beliefs and confidence in the choice.

These observations may seem obvious and yet, sometimes the obvious needs to be stated. I am continually fascinated by the number of times I witness conversations where individuals will answer a question related to a choice with, well, what do you think? Are we worrying what the other person will think of a choice once it is stated or do we just want someone else to take responsibility for the choice being made? Maybe it’s both.

Let’s go a little deeper.

Sometimes our choices can get us into a little hot water. I’m thinking of things like speeding, “little white lies” that don’t become so little, not following through on something…you get the idea. We make a choice and then, well, there may be a consequence. I would love to survey law enforcement with how many times when someone is pulled over for speed, there is a litany of reasons. Bottom line here-were you speeding? What would it look like to take full ownership here? I got pulled over almost two years ago. Although I didn’t realize it, I was speeding. I was driving home from an out-of-town training. I had the music cranked, singing at the top of my lungs and didn’t see that my foot had gotten a little heavy—about 8 MPH over the limited. I saw the lights and pulled over. The first thing I said was, “I’m sorry. How fast was I going.” The officer told me and I said, “You’re right, I was speeding.” I acknowledged and waited for the ticket. He gave me grace and a warning since I hadn’t had a ticket in over THIRTY years. I took full ownership of the choice to speed.

Where are places in your life where maybe there is “partial” ownership happening?

Is it things like:

• Self-Care
• Time Management
• Conversations
• Commitments 

It’s SO easy to come up with excuses and not take a full on responsibility for the fact that we are making a choice. We are choosing to say yes to one thing and no to another. There is choice in everything. Even the choice to do nothing. The cold hard question is: are we willing to take full on ownership of this choice?

I believe we are living in a world that loves to put blame somewhere. It has to be someone’s fault. Who is someone? Sometimes this comes because we have difficult emotions, such as when we are grieving. Sometimes it is because it’s hard for us to look at our own self. Sometimes we get caught up in judgment cycles. I could go on and on.

I’m inviting us, today, to explore what taking full ownership of choice looks like in our own lives. Where are we at the half fill line? What does the full line look like? I’d love to hear your thoughts on this.

It starts with each one of us, friends. I’m right here with you.