Happy Wednesday Canna Fam! Once again, the topic for this blog was chosen this week by you guys on Instagram, and this one was a close second to last week’s topic about confrontation. I was very happy to see this topic get traction, as it has been disappointing to see the lack of accountability taken throughout society these days. I was taught from a young age the expression, “It takes two to tango”, and as a result I always forced myself to look within during any fight, mistake, disagreement, or just conflict in general. It still shocks me to see how many people’s first instinct is to put blame on others, no matter what their part is in a situation. Now while I would never support that behavior, I understand someone being on the defense, and as a result failing to see their own shortcomings. Unfortunately, when we become defensive, we also then tend to project our feelings on to others which leads us to an even bigger spiral of accountability, or lack thereof. I would highly recommend if you are the type of person who finds yourself constantly defending your own behavior, maybe try to look at yourself a little and see if there is anything you could possibly improve on a bit. It may take a while sometimes, and you may not be great at it at first, but when you have had the pleasure of being accountable for multiple things in your life, it starts to feel pretty damn amazing. Now, let me give you some tips on how I embrace accountability, and maybe you will find you are ready to make a change in your life!
I believe as kids we all grow up learning what is right and wrong in a very basic sense. We learn about bad vs. good decisions, consequences, and that we are going to make several mistakes. However, I think a lot of us fail to grow up realizing that when we do make mistakes, or these bad decisions, that we still have the power to do good in these scenarios. In the past two years, I recently started realizing how powerful it is to fuck up (excuse my bluntness LOL). When you have disappointed somebody or done something wrong that maybe does not align with who you are, you now have options of how you want to move forward. I think initially most of us feel immediate denial. It can be really hard to admit doing something wrong, especially because we are normally aware of when these mistakes happen and wish we could do things over immediately. I believe acceptance is second best to the opportunity to do over, as owning your mess ups can be extremely freeing. Now accountability is an interesting thing because as much as it is a selfless act in the aspect of you are now helping others to heal if they were somehow connected to your wrongdoing; it is also selfish in the sense of it can feel really damn good to take responsibility for the things you have done! I have become so into accountability now, that it has allowed me to really cut off the people in my life who are just unwilling to ever get there, and I believe that it is crucial for overall success and happiness.
Now I want to talk about something that is closely related to accountability, and maybe it is the Canadian’s rubbing off on me, but let’s talk about saying, “I’m sorry”. While apologizing is not going to fit every scenario in which one decides to take accountability for something they have done, it will probably fit a good amount of them. What is it about those two words that can be so damn hard to say for some of us? I have seen people avoid apologizing like it is Covid-19, and I think that we need to grow as humans well beyond this way of thinking. People screw up and none of us are perfect, and if your parents said you were perfect growing up, then this blog is probably written specifically for you to learn how to take some ownership for your “perfect” self. It just is not true. We all make mistakes, we all need to be accountable for these mistakes, and if we hurt someone’s feelings in the process, then we should apologize. We try to overcomplicate things in life, instead of just taking advantage of learning from these lessons that are constantly thrown our direction. It is as if saying the words, “I’m sorry”, have now put you into this category of someone who is lesser, but really a genuine apology puts you so much further above most. It can also be really freeing if you are one to be hard on yourself, apologize to yourself too for screwing up and then forgive yourself and move forward. We do not take accountability so we can then sit and be sad about our fuck ups, no you take accountability so you can learn from it, fix it, and move the hell forward wiser than before.
Overall, accountability is crucial to successful relationships, and for overall growth in my opinion. The last thing I want to leave you guys with is that it is not in every single situation that you need to be accountable for everything. Sometimes accountability is a team effort. You can find yourself taking ownership for some of what went wrong, and still allow others to be able to own their downfalls as well. It is absolutely about balance, and the more you start to recognize where you need to be accountable, the easier it is to do so without beating yourself up for it. We are all human and being responsible for our actions is just a part of life. I highly advise moving forward if you are one of those to have a defensive nature, try to challenge yourself and be accountable for something this week. You might find yourself feeling really good, and even enjoy it. To those of you who have already mastered being accountable for your actions, kudos to you! Life is a journey, and we all just keep learning how to get better!
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