Addressing the Lie: My Unhappiness is Someone’s Else’s Fault

This is a guest post by Janet Daughtry of http://www.coachjanet.com

Most of us do want to be happy.  The problem is that we are often waiting for someone or some event to happen to make us feel better.  I find that true for many of my coaching clients. They seem to be stuck and often feel powerless over situations.  Very often they have bought into the lie that a person, a relationship or some external situation is responsible for their happiness or lack of it. If they are unhappy it is because someone else or an event or circumstance is to blame for their lot or predicament.  A person that thinks this way severely limits their options in life.

As long as someone else is responsible for your unhappiness then you don’t have to take personal responsibility for your life. It is really playing the “blame game” and too often becomes an excuse to hide behind.  In reality, what a person has really done is hand over their own emotional well-being to someone else.

The truth is all of us have the ability to decide or to choose how we will respond to the events of our lives.  The real road to maturity, to emotional and mental freedom comes taking responsibility about our choices. When we use the greatest things we possess, the ability to decide or choose, we experience real freedom.

I believe the greatest gift we can offer our clients is to ask the kinds of questions that will cause them to examine where they are in the decision making process and to take greater ownership for their choices and life.  Here are some questions to consider:

1.      What are you tolerating?

2.      What assumptions are you making?

3.      What does it mean to be authentic?

4.      Where are you giving away your power?

5.      Where are you compromising?

6.      Where might you be playing the blame game?

7.      What options do you have?

8.      What can you celebrate or be grateful for?

9.      What does it mean to be in the driver’s seat of your life?

Making choices even about our attitudes is really the best way to get a sense of ownership back about our life.  It is true sign or emotional maturity and it is the best way to get a greater sense of inner peace and integrity with oneself.

Any way you look at the matter, our lack of happiness is not someone else’s fault!  It is a decision that we make every day. Roberta Flack’s parents once advised her, “you can live in the circumstances but the circumstances do not have to live in you.” Sounds like good advice to me! Life is always about choices. When our clients begin to realize they are not powerless in this life, they take ownership of their life, make better decisions and feel more empowered to move towards their future.

Janet Daughtry is a Breakthrough Life and Leadership Coach, Author and Speaker specializing in helping women overcome limiting and sabotaging thinking. For more information about her coaching and latest product, “7 Keys To Unlock Your Life’s Potential”, visit her website at http://www.coachjanet.com