What Can You Own?
Thinking about the situation you held yourself back from taking the actions you wanted to take, tell me more about that.
When you didn’t do what you wanted to do, who or what was responsible for you no taking the actions you wanted to take in that situation?
Specifically, I want you to focus on two simple aspects: external factors and internal factors.
Make two columns on whatever you are using to take notes. One one side put external factors and put internal factors on the other.
I want you to first list all the external factors that contributed to this situation that you can think of. For instance…
Were there other people present? How did they contribute to this situation?
What did they do? How did that contribute?
What did they not do? How did that contribute?
Was your past behavior a factor? How did it contribute?
Was the weather a factor? How did it contribute?
Was there something about the environment (e.g. workplace, the mall, a grocery story, at home)? How did that contribute to this situation?
Now I want you to list all the internal factors that contributed to this situation that you can think of. For instance…
What actions did you want to take but did not? How did that contribute?
What actions did you take? How did that contribute?
What was your purpose? How did that contribute?
What did you want to happen? Did you want others to react a certain way? How did that contribute?
How did you want things to happen? Did you want the action to be effortless? How did that contribute?
What was your desired outcome or expectations? How did that contribute?
How were you trying to achieve that outcome? How did that contribute?
Looking over your two lists of external and internal factors, I want you to number all the items listed as internal factors. I’ll assume you have at least three listed.
Now fill in the blanks with each of the numbered items:
- If you didn’t _______________________________, how would the outcome have been different?
- If you didn’t________________________________, how would the outcome have been different?
- If you didn’t ________________________________, how would the outcome have been different?
Which played a more significant role in creating this situation? The internal or the external elements?
If you didn’t contribute what you did, how would that have changed this situation?
Would it have mattered what anyone or anything else contributed to this situation, if you didn’t contribute what you contributed?
So to whom does the bulk of the responsibility for the sheer creation of this experience belong?
So What’s Next?
Now that you have taken ownership, the next step is to go deeper.
In the situation you’ve been working with, you wanted to take an action, or wanted to be a certain way, but held yourself back from doing so.
Why?
At the core of every choice and decision we make is a desire for a certain kind of experience. Whatever it is that you did (or didn’t do) was done for a reason and that reason was that you felt doing what you did was going to create some kind of experience.
You didn’t take the action you wanted because you got something from not doing so.
What is the REAL core experience that motivated you to do what what you did?
It’s time to find your script…