Life hap­pens to all of us. We have good days and we have bad days. There isn’t one sin­gle per­son in the world who is exempt from this. Every­one faces chal­lenges, some more than oth­ers but every sin­gle per­son on this earth has or will face a set­back.

I do these two things when I am faced with a chal­lenge. It does­n’t mat­ter the sit­u­a­tion. It does­n’t mat­ter the size of the prob­lem. This is what I do:

1. I spend one moment play­ing the vic­tim, not one day, just one moment. I give myself as long as an hour or as few as 15 min­utes. I almost always spend this moment vent­ing to my hus­band but when I’m hav­ing an issue with him, I do this alone or vent to a trust­ed friend. I give myself one moment to play the vic­tim. I point the fin­ger, I cry, scream, and or curse, shake my head in dis­be­lief at the sit­u­a­tion. And then…
2. I take per­son­al respon­si­bil­i­ty for my part.

“When you point the fin­ger at some­one or some­thing to blame for your mis­for­tunes, there are 3 fin­gers point­ing back at you.”

Even if I only had a very tiny 1% per­cent of con­tri­bu­tion toward my mishap, I have to take respon­si­bil­i­ty for the one per­cent of my part and grow from it. I reach deep and think of ways I could have han­dled the sit­u­a­tion bet­ter, and how I will do things the next time around.

When you blame oth­ers you excuse your­self. Every time you blame some­one about what’s not work­ing in your life, what you’re real­ly doing is assign­ing away your pow­er. What you’re say­ing is that in order for your life to change that per­son must change or that cir­cum­stance must change.

We get from life who we are and we become the per­son we are by our dai­ly actions. As my men­tor (indi­rect) Robin Shar­ma teach­es, we get to great­ness as human beings when we stop wish­ing that things were eas­i­er.

Jim Rohn said it best when he said, “Don’t wish it was eas­i­er, wish you were bet­ter. Don’t wish for less prob­lems, wish for more skills.  Don’t wish for less chal­lenges, wish for more wis­dom.”

When you are faced with a prob­lem, ask your­self, “What is my role in this sit­u­a­tion?”

All growth begins with you. What did you do or did­n’t do that played a role? What areas you can improve on? If you’re deal­ing with a breakup, if you’re hav­ing trou­ble at work or were recent­ly fired, if you’re hav­ing an issue with your spouse or part­ner or your child, ask your­self what role did you play?

Vent­ing and play­ing the vic­tim is fun. I mean, who does­n’t like to cry to a good sad song? Okay, this might just be me! But it isn’t pro­duc­tive and feel­ing good feels so much bet­ter. I’m not say­ing your sor­rows are not valid or being acknowl­edged. All I am say­ing is get a good cry in and then wipe your tears, put on some lip­stick and move on.