The Grundl Leadership Institute researches and teaches high-quality distinctions so that your life becomes your best teacher.
"Distinctions" refer to the fundamental activities of our thinking and acting. How we think about things and how we translate our thoughts into actions and deeds. For some time now, we have been broadcasting a new episode every Friday on Instagram TV, in which we, as employees of the Grundl Leadership Institute, share our own personal experiences with distinctions with you.
Not everyone wants to share their experiences publicly in a video right away. That's why we decided to integrate this format into our blog as well. At the beginning of October, our colleague Johanna Kersten was the first to take advantage of this opportunity and wrote and published her first blog post on the difference between "stimulus vs. response. " A great result, in my opinion.
During one of my walks during my lunch break, I came up with the idea of writing down some distinctions that I have already made in video format in a blog post. On the one hand, not everyone regularly checks our IGTV channel. On the other hand, writing things down is a process that allows me to think through the topic again and in greater depth. Today, I would like to share my personal experiences with the following distinction:
"responsibility . guilt"
"This is your fault!"
This distinction has been with me my whole life. responsibility a difficult word for me. I was very reluctant responsibility . Because in my experience, if something went wrong, I was told, "You're to blame!" or "It's your fault!" That was very stressful for me and hit me right in the gut. What a burdensome word: blame.
responsibility: pleasure or burden?
This led to me becoming less and less willing responsibility take responsibility . I even found it a burden. Even in my own circle of friends, I kept hearing statements like, "No, no—I'd rather not stick my neck out for that. I'll end up looking like a fool! I'm not taking responsibility for that." So I did well to think that way too. Right?
Over time, however, I realized that responsibility can responsibility be fun. In my volunteer work at the music association, I took on the role of youth leader, and at my last employer, I was responsible for internal training for all commercial professions. I really enjoyed working with teenagers and young adults—it wasn't a burden for me. I didn't responsibility it in the context of responsibility or think about what could go wrong. For me, the focus was on helping other people. The idea was more important to me than the responsibility that came with it.
zest for responsibility!
At some point, other topics were brought to my attention. One day, the Chamber of Commerce and Industry in our region approached me and asked if I would like to join the examination board for all commercial professions for which I was responsible for training. Shortly afterwards, we set up our own IT department internally and digitized the entire company. This raised the question of an internal data protection officer.
A little while later, the topic of safety officer came up again. Interestingly, I raised my hand and said, "Yes, I'll do it. I'll take responsibility for it." Now, you can imagine that I was feeling uncertain because of my previous experiences. What would happen if I wasn't up to the task, if something went wrong? Who would be to blame?
"That's your responsibility!"
Fortunately, I was in a great situation at the time: whenever something went wrong, my boss at the time never talked about "blame." Instead, he would say, "Jochen, that's your responsibility, so find a solution now." He thought in terms of solutions. This attitude helped me greatly to redefine the term "responsibility" and led me to responsibility more zest for that zest for responsibility .
Interestingly, I noticed the following during this time: Whenever I took responsibility something and sought and found solutions independently, my results automatically improved. This, in turn, meant that I was able to act more freely and independently. Once I had found solutions to specific problems within my area of responsibility, it didn't matter how I had arrived at those solutions. The main thing was that there was a solution.
transformation
For my part, I have transformed this distinction in my life. Today, I am very happy to take responsibility issues that make sense to me and that I believe I can fulfill. Even if they are sometimes challenging and I have to take a deep breath when something new comes my way. Finally, I would like to share with you my insight, my core statement, which has crystallized for me in this context:
"The quality of responsibility I take in my life determines the quality of freedom and results I experience in my life."
I hope you found this post useful, and I look forward to hearing your thoughts and experiences regarding this distinction. I am very much looking forward to exchanging ideas with you. A little tip: from now on, replace the word "guilt" withresponsibilityand see what happens...
Yours, Jochen Hummel
P.S. If you want to delve deeper into the topic of personal responsibility, secure one of the last places at our seminar in December: Get up!© ...and take control of your life!
Image source: ©pixabay – silviarita
