Man must cease attributing his problems to his environment, and learn again to exercise his will - his personal responsibility. - Albert Einstein

Everyday people from all layers of society are using a variety of techniques to avoid taking responsibility for their actions. These techniques can be classified as evasion, avoidance, denial or even obstruction of responsibility. They might seem to accomplish this, but they don’t help you forward in any way. And…c’mon, if you’re doing it, it doesn’t feel all that good, now does it?

In this post we’re going behind the scenes to take a look at the dynamics of why people shy away from responsibility. We’re also taking a look at what reality looks like as a result. And there’s also a sneak preview of what that reality would look like if you change the meaning of reponsibility.

Not all responsibilities are created equal

Everybody is responsible for something. A lot of the responsibilities are acquired, but the responsibility for your own life is definitely yours to take. Yet even though it’s the core responsibility, a lot of people shy away from that one too. To understand why people do this we need to understand the underlying thought processes.

Responsibility is a concept, it’s not tangible and as such we cannot see, hear or touch it. The meaning of these conceptual words (meta model words in NLP) is learned by experience, usually early in life during childhood. At one time a situation happened and you learned the meaning of that word “responsibility”. That very situation is now attached as a subconscious “video”, whenever you hear that word. New situations get added to that meaning as you progress through life, but you mainly build upon that first experience.

Unfortunately that first experience is usually a negative one. Something went wrong and someone was held responsible for it. Or maybe worse…you were held responsible for it. And you learned something: responsibility is no fun!

If you’re lucky, you learned the meaning of responsibility while you were receiving praise. Someone praised you for a good result and told you you were responsible for that wonderful result. It happens, but it’s rare. But it results in a totally different notion of responsibility and a very different attitude towards it.

The dynamics of avoiding responsibility

So it’s not a very pleasant word for most of us. It gets worse though, as we grow older we learn that being responsible for something also means that we are supposed to take control. And when we take control, we will be held accountable by someone else if it’s an acquired responsibility (e.g. your job). And we learn that being held accountable is no fun either. Painful at times even.

Chain of associations

1. Responsibility = being in control
2. Being in control = being held accountable
3. Being held accountable = painful
4. Pain = no good

The resulting chain of association gets stronger, and is reinforced by an instinctive mechanism: Pain avoidance. People are natural pain avoiders, it’s even genetically programmed into our system:

Pain is part of the body’s defense system, triggering a reflex reaction to retract from the painful stimuli, and helps adjust behaviour to increase avoidance of that particular harmful situation in the future.
- excerpt from Pain @ Wikipedia

So it’s not really the responsibility we’re avoiding, but the pain we have associated with it.

Changing the paradigm

Avoiding the pain might work on a short term. Yet at the same time we also know when we should’ve taken responsibility and didn’t, and that resulted in another not-so-nice feeling. And you’re not getting anywhere too.

It’s better to change the paradigm, to lose the association between responsibility and pain. We saw earlier on that it’s possible to have a positive meaning or association with the word responsibility. So we’re going to work on getting more of the positive associations and less of the negative. Easier said than done, right? It’s not really that hard, trust me. We’re just going to stop using the word ‘responsibility’.

The negative assocations we have with that word are too strong to ignore. We can’t just lose them, since we spent so many years training and reinforcing them. And ‘responsibility’ is a nasty word anyway, it’s so passive. It’s derived from ‘to respond’ and you can’t respond unless there’s an outside trigger. We need to find an active synonym.

Taking credit for results is an active formulation. “I take credit!” is something you can say proactively, you don’t have to respond, you can take the initiative. Good? Not yet, better but not good enough. Because ‘credit’ is a nasty word as well, with way too many unpleasant associations. Let’s replace it with ‘merit’, that’s a pleasant and positive word.

So along those lines, we will replace ‘responsible‘ with ‘meritable‘.

Now change your vocabulary!

Feels like playing with words? True, but we’re really going to replace it in our language. Whenever you hear responsible, replace it with meritable when you listen. Whenever you want to say responsibility, say meritability instead. It will feel awkward at first, but you’ll notice the impact instantly.

Suddenly things that you associated with pain, become areas where you can deserve praise for. It’s an opportunity to create, to do something good, to score. It’s fun again! And if you keep it up long enough, you will end up reinforcing positive associations that will even replace the negative associations of ‘responsible’. In time even that word will be safe to use again.

Saying yes is easy, saying no is a skill. And an important skill too, because saying yes too often can get you into trouble and saying nothing is troublesome altogether. So saying no is an important skill to use on a regular basis. Saying no to yourself and saying no to others.

The skill of saying no

Saying no is often associated with negative feelings, like disappointment, anger and loss. That’s why it’s a lot easier to say yes all the time, because people like to avoid situations that evoke those emotions. But at the same time, we don’t feel proud or satisfied with saying yes. It’s a Catch-22, we don’t want to say no and we don’t want to say yes.

So often we reside to other options, but they prove to be even more troublesome than just saying no:

• Saying yes, doing yes
  This is authentic. If you say yes, do yes. People will know that you keep your word.
• Saying yes, doing no
  This is deception. You try to keep the relationship good at first, but don’t keep your word and end up damaging it in the end.
• Saying nothing, doing yes
  This is vague, but mostly if you do not answer people assume that you will say yes.
• Saying nothing, doing no
  This is vague and deceptive. People assume that you say yes, but you do the opposite. Plenty of room for an argument.
• Saying no, doing yes
  This is confusing to say the least. People will not know what your word is worth, saying no clearly does not mean no.
• Saying no, doing no
  This is authentic. If you say no, do no. You might disappoint someone, but you are clear and people will know that you keep your word.

Saying yes and saying no are the only two viable options in the long run. Saying yes is something that most people are very capable of, saying no on the other hand…

Click to continue »

Yesterday I was watching a fascinating show on Dutch television with medium Derek Ogilvie. He’s a Scottisch guy that uses his telepathic capabilities to communicate with children that can’t talk themselves (either because they’re too young, or because they have an ailment that prevents them from talking).

In the show last night he was working with a three year old that did not talk or walk yet. One of the messages he got through went something like this:

“There are so many words in your house…so many words, but nothing gets done.”

“It’s making your son confused, he thinks: if you want a new car, get a new car! If you want the house redecorated, redecorate it! Don’t talk talk talk, but do.”

“So many words, you talk but don’t decide, the words… YOU ARE WASTING WORDS!”

“There’s no fun in words, they get wasted and lead to nothing…”

Wasting words

The scene struck a chord in me, and especially the phrase “wasting words”. As a writer and a NLP enthusiast I know the power of words, and I use and choose words deliberately. What words you choose to use can make or break a message or result in an entirely different response than intended. Click to continue »

I’m only weeks away from being a certified NLP Practitioner, I will be officially recognized as someone who is capable of practicing Neuro-Linguistic Programming. There’s still lots to learn and to write about of course, and I plan on continuing my education to also get certified as a Master Practitioner.

In the past months I have taken up a battle with the presuppositions of NLP. They define a foundation of beliefs and attitudes that are necessary to really get the value out of NLP. And foundations are very important, so I took them up for a fight to see whether I choose to belief them.

They came out pretty much standing (and me too by the way). Here’s an overview of the posts and the presuppositions:

1. The ability to change the process by which we experience reality is more often valuable than changing the content of our experience of reality.
2. The meaning of the communication is the response you get.
3. All distinctions human beings are able to make concerning our environment and our behavior can be usefully represented through the visual, auditory, kinesthetic, olfactory, and gustatory senses.
4. The resources individuals need in order to effect a change are already within them.
5. The map is not the territory.
6. The positive worth of the individual is held constant, while the value and appropriateness of internal and/or external behavior is questioned.
7. There is a positive intention motivating every behavior, and a context in which every behavior has value.
8. Feedback vs. Failure - All results and behaviors are achievements, whether they are desired outcomes for a given task/context, or not.

There’s so much more to write about…there’s definitely more to come.

The positive worth of the individual is held constant, while the value and appropriateness of internal and/or external behavior is questioned.

This is one of the many NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) presuppositions and one of the original 8 of Richard Bandler.

What does NLP mean with the presupposition?
In short: The person is OK, the behavior might not be. We’re not questioning who you are, but what you do. Basically it says that NLP is free of judgment, we won’t judge you and neither should you. We do work together to see if we can get better results with internal or external behavior. It’s about what you do, not who you are.
Click to continue »