This week’s challenge is all about THE PRACTICE OF SELF-RESPONSIBILITY, one of the six pillars of self-esteem (from the book with the same name) which self-esteem can be broken down to. It’s about you starting to take responsibility for your life, actions and all that follows because of that.

Because we are on an intense self-esteem building journey, and the results has personally so far fundamentally changed me as a person – my own results clearly highlight Self-esteem as the no. 1 thing to grow yourself to a whole new level.

So, in this video we’ll go through the meaning of self-responsibility and what actions this week’s challenge entails to grow our self-esteem.

How The first three Pillars of Self-Esteem relates

So, we have come to the third pillar, out of the book the six pillars of self-esteem by Nathaniel Branden. Now just because you haven’t seen those videos on The Practice of Living Consciously and The Practice of Self-Acceptance, it doesn’t necessarily hinder you from taking on this week’s challenge, just know that if you want to reach true self-esteem, you need to take the time and give those two areas the proper attention as well. People are in such a rush to develop and get through books with deep content, but a process like this can’t be rushed. It requires deep and focused attention at one thing at the time; action, reflection, conclusion, adaptation. When you start to grasp the importance of a higher consciousness, you can see clearly how that is where the change process starts, and how self-acceptance follows and self-responsibility follows in that order. It’s insights you have to experience on your own, over and over again.

Now, with that being said, you can jump-cut your way straight to self-responsibility as you actually can’t get to self-responsibility without going through the first two steps. It’s just that they are automated, and we can make them work much more effective, which will serve our self-esteem greatly. Above all, we’ll start to pick up on the subconscious things that otherwise might be lurking in the background, yet still having a great impact on our lives.

So what does it mean to be Self-responsible?

Basically, it means to be able to respond ideally to all situations we face in life; stepping up and take ownership and responsibility for what happens to you and how you chose to live your live. Not being reactive to what is thrown in front of you, but living a proactive life where you have control and dictate the direction of your life path. Not putting the blame on external factors and not feeling bad or a shame because the way you want to go about life isn’t a match with friends, family or the social norm.

“The practice of self-responsibility entails these realizations:

I am responsible for the achievement of my desires.

I am responsible for my choices and actions.

I am responsible for the level of consciousness I bring to my work.

I am responsible for the level of consciousness I bring to my relationships.

I am responsible for my behavior with other people-coworkers,

associates, customers, spouse, children, friends.

I am responsible for how I prioritize my time.

I am responsible for the quality of my communications.

I am responsible for my personal happiness.

I am responsible for accepting or choosing the values by which I live.

I am responsible for raising my self-esteem.”

(Branden, 1995, p.105)

To exemplify how all these three pillars come together, I’ll give you a personal perspective, I’ve been doing this channel of mine for over a year now. And from day one I’ve been a shamed of it, been hiding, not mentioning what I spend almost all my spare time with, not sharing my work on social media; why? Because I’ve feared what other people will think of me, of what I’m doing. That I’m being weird, or that the things I’m putting out is rubbish. Exposing my true naked self, with all its faults and imperfections included.

Know that I didn’t realize this was the case until lately, the story I was telling myself was that the people I didn’t tell, wasn’t my target audience anyways. That it would make it easier for me to create stuff if as few as possible of the people around me knew what I was up to. But so when I started this Self-esteem building focus, with consciousness first out, I begun to become aware of the uncomfortableness I had in relation to this. I stopped supressing my emotions through external inputs to keep my mind occupied. And when the week of self-acceptance embarked, truly taking in the emotions stirring up in my head, feeling the, and then accepting them. I learned that there are so many things not owning, not living up to, or doing the wrong way. So now, when the focus goes on to taking self-responsibility, it means I have to stop these behaviours. It means I need to start taking action in directions that is unfiltered and pure me. I have to start being proud of what I’m doing, and make sure that I do the best I can, as this is my strongest purpose in life right now. I need to help my sister, and I can only do that by grasping this area to it’s fullest.

Because this is what self-responsibility is all about – living the life you owe it to yourself to live; being a proactive person in contrast to a reactive one; planning ahead; dealing with tuff situations because it is what needs to be done. It’s about living the life you truly want to live – taking responsibility to fulfil your potential and not waste it way as a result of being paralysed of fear or pure laziness. Without blaming external factors for not doing so. Not being a shamed for who you are, acting the way you truly want to act. Following your heart. Every day.

We should however note that there are some things we can’t affect, as they are external factor beyond our control. Now this is a delicate topic, as many people in fact use this as defence for arguing that they don’t have to take responsibility. You may not be able to have any impact on the global economy, but blaming it for your failing business and doing nothing about it – is not the way to interpret this. Applying full self-consciousness and self-acceptance will take you far; and hence also highlights the strong connection between the pillars.

“In stressing that we need to take responsibility for our life and happiness, I am not suggesting that a person never suffers through accident or through the fault of others, or that a person is responsible for everything

that may happen to him or her.”

(Branden, 1995, p.109)

Just as Nathaniel Branden finishes of this chapter of his book – No one is coming! IT S UP TO YOU TO MAKE THE NECCESSARY CHANGES. YOU ARE THE ONLY ONE THAT CAN TAKE CONTROL OF YOUR LIFE. Even if someone else would come, the motivation can only come from within, and that will never be handed to you on a silver plate.

The Objectives of this week are (In the order of prioritization):

#1 – Do the sentence completion exercises described below, morning and evening throughout the week.

• Self-responsibility to me means-
• At the thought of being responsible for my own existence-
• If I accepted responsibility for my own existence, that would mean-
• When I avoid responsibility for my own existence-

“The power of the method is that it generates shifts in the consciousness and orientation of the individual without lengthy “discussions” or “analyses.” The solution is largely generated from within. If you keep a journal and over time write six to ten endings for each of these incomplete sentences, not only will you learn a great deal but it will be almost impossible not to grow in the practice of self-responsibility. The best way of working is to do the week’s stems Monday through Friday, then do the weekend stem If any of what I have been writing is true, it might be helpful if 1- and then move on to the next week’s stem on Monday.”

(Branden, 1995, p.115)

#2 – Choose one area in your life, preferably the one that needs the most attention, to take responsibility for and give some extra attention to this week. If you were to invest 15 minutes per day this week – what area would those precious minutes go to and why? What small action would you take? Getting started is the hardest part.

 #3 – Journal and reflect throughout the days, try to be as aware as possible on what’s going on your mind and how it relates to the context you’re are in. Reflect & analyse; how are you acting, how are you feeling and what are you thinking – and why? Super important step in order to make this Self-esteem development happen effectively.

Final words

Thank you for watching my fellow Self-Esteesteamers, and If you want more of this, make sure to subscribe and hit that bell so you’ll get notified when I’ve put together a new video for you guys! Also don’t miss out on my three weeks of rejection therapy challenges vlogs for some inspiration to go out there and dare to do what you truly want to do!

See you in the week!

/Alexander 🙂