Sense of Self

“Part of having a strong sense of self is to be accountable for one’s actions. No matter how much we explore motives or lack of motives, we are what we do.”
—Janet Geringer Woititz

Excuses and blame are often what we use to explain away our indiscretions. However, when we know who we are and choose our actions well we most often do the right thing and when we don’t we are able to say so.

It’s really not possible to live our lives making decisions and taking action out of a place of good judgment if we haven’t first learned who we are, how we operate, and why we do things we do. When we have learned these things about ourselves, and only then, are we able to control our behaviors and stop the patterns of failures.

It sounds simpler than it is. Most of us who are recovering from various things need at least a little help. Often it takes many hours in therapy to learn these things about ourselves. When we know what makes us tick we can better control things that are ours to control and not try to control those things we can’t.

In addition, we are able to set boundaries with others when we know what our boundaries are. We know when to say no and when to say yes. We know which behaviors from others we cannot tolerate and are able to say so when they occur. We are accountable for ourselves and we don’t place blame on anyone or anything unless there really is a reason.

Getting to really know ourselves can be painful at times. There may be things that happened to us in our childhood that spun us into some negative behaviors as adults. But to continue to blame adult behaviors on childhood events is not how we learn better behavior. We can work through our issues and come out stronger on the other side.

None of us is perfect, and nobody reaches that status, but growth comes with work and life runs more smoothly.

Get to know what makes you tick and you’ll find ways to do things differently that have been problems in your life.