Is it just me, or do we seem to live in a world that believes we are entitled to all things fabulous?

The truth is, we do have a right to all things fabulous.  It’s completely within our power; however, we give that power away when we assume other people, certain situations, and society as a whole owes us something.

Here’s today’s lesson:  nobody owes us anything.  It’s up to us to create something fabulous for ourselves.  We are responsible for our successes and our failures.

Yes, responsibility.  And you can throw in work, too.  Nobody can do it for us, so we may as well get used to the fact that if we’re miserable, or if things haven’t turned out quite the way we wanted them to, we have only ourselves to blame.

Ouch.

Let me share a little story…

Years ago, as a middle school teacher, a parent of one of my students took me to task because his child did not receive any sort of recognition during the end-of-the-year awards ceremony.  “But he’s such a great kid!” the parent proclaimed.  The parent was right; his son was a nice kid, but his grades were ‘ok’ at best and he missed a great deal of school for various reasons (illness, visiting grandma, paper cut, etc.) He wasn’t involved in any extracurricular activities, nor did he volunteer for any community service offered through the school.  “It’s just not fair,” the dad went on, “that ‘so-and-so’ walked away with every major award offered this year, and my kid got nothing!”

‘So-and-so’ worked incredibly hard for those straight A’s.  ‘So-and-so’ committed himself to his education and to his school community.  ‘So-and-so’ never made excuses; he went out there and made it happen. ‘So-and-so’ didn’t expect anything other than to learn and to grow as a student and as human being.

I learned a great deal from ‘so-and-so’.

I learned that in order to create something truly fantastic, we must, each of us, take responsibility for doing so.  We, like ‘so-and-so’, have to get out there and hustle to figure out what it is we want out of life and then determine the steps we must take in order to achieve the results we want.

That means we must stop playing the blame game.  Within each of us lies the power to make life better.  For whatever reason – fear, lack of awareness, or perhaps even laziness keeps us from asserting that power.  In order to achieve true happiness and success, we must choose (yes, choose) to take responsibility for our lives.

Results don’t lie.  Take a look at what you’re currently producing.  You’re in great health, or you’re not.  You’ve got solid relationships, or you don’t. You’re happy, or you’re not.    It’s time to get real with the results; if you don’t like them, change your behavior.  Realize that only you have the power for creating the wonderful life you deserve.  You, like my former student, can turn out to be one fabulous little ‘so-and-so’!

Photo Credit © Jose Antonio Sánchez Reyes | Dreamstime.com

Beth Newman is an image consultant and life coach based out of Houston, TX.  For more information, please visit her website at www.newmanimage.info