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What is something that a lot of people fear doing?..
Looking back at the times they failed with the perspective it was their fault. Taking responsibility for the fact something didn’t work out is a very confrontational thought process, especially if you have convinced yourself it was someone else’s fault.
What if I told you though, within those failures lay the reasons you are not where you want to be or have achieved the things you’ve wanted to achieve.
It doesn’t matter if those faults are big or small, the tiniest contribution can tell you a lot about where you need to improve. This requires an ownership and responsibility-based mindset. Something a lot of people don’t want to have.
If you can blame or direct problems to someone else, if you can blame the world, fate, a god for your lack of, then it makes sleeping at night a little easier. Things become a little more incongruent up top when you recognize that a lot of the things holding you back from what you want in life are either your fault or your responsibility to improve.
It's a lot easier in the office if you blame the guy who got the promotion for stealing your job, instead of looking at the effort you did or didn’t put in to achieve the results that may have got you the position.
Confrontation of Self
This way of thinking is very confrontational, it's very eye-opening, and a lot of times you'll probably deny it. However, in the case of Jacko’s extreme ownership mindset; If you take ownership for every single thing you do or don’t have in this life, you very quickly get to harness this as a tool for reflection and hindsight.
“I didn’t get the position in my team, the kid they picked is the coach's son”- ok did you do every single thing in your power to perform and improve? Were you watching recordings on film, staying back later, practicing plays or shots that others weren’t doing? Did you do the basics so much that you engrained them in your sleep?
“It’s easier for others to diet they don’t have the problems I have” – What else can you do here except take ownership. Own the body you have because you aren’t getting a new one, own the fact you didn’t seek support or coaching, own the fact you didn’t disrupt previous habit loops and you tried extreme carb-cutting with cake and cookies in your house.
“ I can't afford a coach to better my results”- really? Well, take ownership of the 100’s you waste on takeaway, drinking, buying unnecessary clothes, and video games. Perhaps the failure to achieve your physique goals was not financing, perhaps it was the lack of discipline you had with money back then. Are you willing to reflect on that and take ownership of it?
Taking Ownership
Once you take ownership to its fullest and believe it's entirely your fault either good or bad, you can map out those failures to better understand why.
What led to these failures, in this exact instance what did I do around someone else getting picked for my spot, not getting lean enough for my bodybuilding show, or failing my exam for the class.
The idea is not to feel embarrassed or cause any form of negative emotion, the idea is to take an open mind into the situation that you could have done something different to affect that outcome and achieved what you wanted.
There are still plays in the back of my mind from football games I played when I was 12-15-21 that I think “if only I did this or went here, we could have won”. That’s 17 years ago in some cases. I know, however, in those times of failure or shortcomings that I can see what not to do in the future.
For me, that was not believing in my ability and backing the plays I knew I wanted to make. How do I reflect on this? Well, I looked at why I was doing that. I was scared of stepping up, afraid of backing myself and letting others outshine me in fear I would take away from them. This led to years of me playing small.
Overcoming the Embarrassment of Owning Failures
How did I overcome this? Despite my constant imposter syndrome, I seek improvement, education, seek challenges, and put myself into positions where I can make my difference. Here you are today reading my blog that 15 years ago I'd have never dreamed of writing, because of the fact I can review those failures with an open mind and take ownership for what I did wrong.
Being willing to dive into things you’ve failed, allows you to not repeat history. It’s a trait the elite and hyper-successful have mastered. Recognizing the underlying reasoning means you can avoid repeating that outcome. The more you do that the more you reduce the chances of failing like that again.
If you are to take anything away from this, it's that ownership of your failures is a necessary pathway to growth. Exploring those failures and mapping out how they came about is the necessary step to success. Reducing the number of times you fail in the future by learning from the failures of your past is the game.!