Wazzup Pilipinas!?
Work and life: ideally, they exist in a state of harmony, making up a mandala of proper meals, exercise, time with loved ones, infused with making deals, and growing exponentially. Of course, this ideal is merely an idea. It exists as an object of knowledge and it might not actually represent your true life happenings.
Personal responsibility is another challenging facet. Large life projects can especially bring a load of tasking decisions. Think about a work environment: responsibility for any corporate event differs according to your position in a firm. Some people will take on a few stressless tasks, while others have to outperform themselves on a regular basis.
What this tells us is that context is important. Finding the balance between life, especially when it is personal life with hot Asian girls or European women and work will depend on where you are in the world, and who surrounds you. All too often there is an imbalance. One aspect might be pulling harder than the other. Perhaps you’re spending long evenings at the office, or out networking, and by doing so neglecting your family or perhaps some basic tenets of your health. The reverse is also possible, with nothing really happening and the slow decline beginning to set in as you focus on something in another sphere that’s caught your eye.
With this in mind, we want to provide some pointers, tips, and advice that could help refocus your mind on your responsibilities, thus improving yourself, your business, and your life. First, we want to define responsibility, to give it some color and some shape, and to set your mind off wondering too.
What is responsibility?
Responsibility can broadly be described as a state, or an action, that relates to duty. More specifically, this duty has to do with aspects of control, whether it is undertaken as a collective or as an individual.
Moral responsibility relates to making judgments about behavior, and to what extent someone is culpable for their actions. In a business sense, this is crucial. In current times we have many challenges in public health, socio-political affairs, and with regard to the environment.
With this idea in mind, how can responsibility be engendered in our business and in our daily lives?
1. Take proper stock
This aspect doesn’t merely have to do with inventory. Taking stock of our lives is something we should do periodically. If we do this too often, we’re straying into rumination territory - an action that is correlated with depression and other manifestations of poor mental health.
Finding the correct amount of ‘stock taking’ in our lives is something we all personally grow into. It’s common for many business leaders to have a daily journaling practice. This method of taking stock is simple to start with. Write a page (or two, or even three) on what your goals are every day, this process is non-linear. You’re writing about the future, but also taking note of the past in order to do so. The action is dynamic and requires thought. There are a million great introductions to journaling online, whether that’s bullet-journaling, or something more Stoic like Marcus Aurelius’ daily pages - just like we described above.
2. Understand what irresponsible behaviors look like
Of course, we can be easy on ourselves when we self-assess. We can excuse certain behaviors and traits, without really understanding they’ve got the potential to create problems. In a workplace, irresponsible actions might look like this; a lack of interest in work, disdain for the team, blaming colleagues for mistakes. Deadlines are frequently missed, challenging projects are avoided, complaining and moaning, and regularly making excuses.
Once you’ve identified irresponsible behavior, you can start to assess and understand why it happens, and where it can be fixed. It’s an opportunity to turn the ship around.
3. Make decisions
Inertia is a killer. In a literal sense, if we’re sedentary for too long, that plays havoc with our physical and mental health. However, decision inertia is something that we all struggle with from time to time. Not being able to choose between actions leads us to a state of inaction. And this inaction can be mentally challenging.
In order to relieve ourselves of this burden, it’s helpful to remember that in life, most of our decisions are not one-way. We may struggle to make decisions because we’re scared of the consequences of not being able to undo the act. However, most of the time, our lives are bi-directional. We can recover from mistakes if we make them, and we should take action rather than let life happen to us.
4. Don’t be afraid of conflict
When we’re not being responsible for our actions, we can just hope these things go away with time, or we can be proactive. In some cases, being proactive could mean making certain members of staff redundant. But this is not what any good manager or entrepreneur wants - we should want our success to be felt across the board (not just the director’s board).
Proactive behavior in the workplace and in your business should start with a discussion. Sometimes these discussions will require bravery and firmness, and it’s possible that they may bring conflict to the table. However, difficulty is normal in the beginning and should not be taken as a sign to quit.
Start by talking to the individuals involved. If there is no clear and obvious responsibility taking place in your business, then consider these discussions as a preventative measure. It’s better to keep healthy than to recover from illness, right?
Find out if there are personal problems that could be affecting the situation in your business. Although we expect our employees to conduct themselves professionally, we know that personal turmoil does not always respect working hours. Be a supportive leader, and listen.
After you’ve had discussions, you need to back them up in some paper. Get the points down in writing so they can be referred to later. Be extremely sensitive around any personal information that is disclosed, and ensure that you take all necessary steps to keep it private.
5. Learn to say no
Being static is no fun, but neither is being overworked. It may seem like a good idea to commit to that networking lunch, to go and have a drink with that old colleague, or to accept every invitation that comes your way. However, the art of saying no is the one all successful people have to master at some point.
If you’re usually a very ‘yes’ orientated person, this might be difficult at first, but it’s possible that your problems are stemming from burnout. In this case, you need to recharge so you can re-master your responsibilities and shoot for success once again.
All in all, responsibility is a process. It requires refinement and is not always easy to discuss or solve. What will stand your business in good stead is a commitment to improvement, and an understanding that difficulty is something to work through, not run away from. It’s a mindset shift.
Ross is known as the Pambansang Blogger ng Pilipinas - An Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Professional by profession and a Social Media Evangelist by heart.
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