The word responsibility is a combination of two words: "Response" and "Ability". The ability to respond correctly in certain events distinguishes the outrageous success from the mediocre. You can't control the external events and circumstances that happen to you. But one thing that you do have 100% control over is, your attitudes. Your attitudes, decisions and responses define results. Read below to learn how we can be responsible and take ownership of our lives and the future. 

 

The Event + Our Response = The Outcome

An event is something that happens to us daily. Whenever an event happens it affects us, be it positive or negative. Events in our lives tend to dictate and be the masters of our emotions, daily lives and the future. This becomes a problem when you realise that we actually have no control over these events. Most events are at best, random and unexpected. If events were random and it dictates our feelings and lives, it means that we are victims of chance. However in the book "The Success Principles", Canfield challenges and overhauls this helpless mentality with the formula, E + R = O.

 

Events in itself, doesn't mean Anything

Events are empty. Whether your car breaks down or get dismissed from your job due to company restructuring; you simply have no control over these events. Another good example would be your genetic make-up. If you were born with a greater tendency to develop hypertension, do you really have the control to rectify your genes and DNA? The answer is no. Brian Johnson from the Philosophers' Note gracefully puts it -- "An event happens. The event is, in itself, neutral. To get all fancy-pants-Buddhist about it, the event is "empty." It has no meaning in and of itself." 

 

Response-Ability

The difference between mediocrity and outrageous success is not based on events. You cannot assume that one person is more successful than another, just because the events that occurred to him was more favourable than the other. Everyone has equal opportunities and whether one becomes more successful than another is not based on "luck".

Once an event occurs, we respond. We always have a choice as to how we respond to certain events. And it is always the mixture of the Event and our Response that determines the Outcome. Again, nobody has 100% control over the events that occur to them. But one thing that we do have 100% control over is the way we respond to these events. 

Victimised people perceive the formula to be: E = O. They feel helpless and victimised whenever something wrong happens to them. These people are complainers who do not take ownership over their lives. Letting random chains of events dictate their futures. 

Successful leaders and entrepreneurs understand that Events do not determine Outcomes. It is ALWAYS, a mixture of events and our responses that determine outcomes (E + R = O). We must take 100% responsibility in our lives and take ownership and don't let random events dictate you.