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[00:00:00] Chris Furlong: Yo. Yo yo. Welcome back to the Further Your Lifestyle Podcast, conversations on lifestyle passions and hustles. My name's Chris Furlong. I am your host, and I'm super excited to be back here having the conversation with you, episode 102 today, and we're talking about accountability and responsibility and breaking it down around three different areas.

[00:00:18] Chris Furlong: That is, Start taking ownership, stop blaming others and continue to create the life that you want. Focusing on that stop, start, continue mentality, and we're gonna dive straight into it. So buckle up.

[00:00:32] Chris Furlong: So I recently I finished reading the book from David Goggins, his recent book never finished. Now I wrapped that up at the end of 2022. And in there there's some real clear statements around where he talks about. That we are responsible for our lives and that we need to be accountable in making sure what we want happens, right?

[00:00:50] Chris Furlong: No one else is gonna do that for you. I mean, you can tell everyone what you. And the dreams and aspirations. People might be able to give you opportunities, give you some access to things, or whatever it may be. But the reality is it all comes down to you. You are responsible and accountable for it. We cannot go about blaming others, especially in situations where we could have been the ones to take control.

[00:01:10] Chris Furlong: Now, I understand that there's things outside of our control, and it might have occurred from someone else. You know, if someone walked up to you and punched you in the. You know, and it was just out of context. You did nothing. Maybe they just mistook you for the wrong person. You couldn't have controlled that.

[00:01:23] Chris Furlong: Right? I'm talking about things where, you know, if you're going for a run and you know you need to have water with you on the go. And you didn't fill it up or you are responsible for the water for the team running and you know they've all got their water, but you didn't understand that there was going to be less amount of water stations on the running track.

[00:01:43] Chris Furlong: Therefore you didn't plan ahead. You were responsible for that. You were accountable of that. Everyone else might have more water, but if you didn't plan for yourself, that's on you. Don't blame them. And if they run outta water, that's not their fault that you don't have any water, cuz they planned ahead.

[00:01:55] Chris Furlong: Right? So those are the different things that I'm talking about. Right. I also understand that we cannot know everything. We, we , you know, we, we can't plan for everything. But what we can do is we can know what we are responsible for and accountable for, and that is ourselves. All right, so in this episode, that's what I really, really want to dive into, and it's probably gonna be through a bit of a pep talk of sorts.

[00:02:18] Chris Furlong: Really just focusing on making sure that we understand the simple facts of getting from now to where we want to be, you know, those destinations and what it really comes down to. And it comes down to those three points. As I said before, taking owner. Removing the blame and continuing to show up and make it happen.

[00:02:35] Chris Furlong: So the first one being taking ownership. Now what does this actually even mean? It gets thrown around, especially in the corporate world. You know, who's doing this? Who owns this? I want you to own this. Can you, can you finish this for me? Ladi da da. But the reality is people have different understandings of what that really means.

[00:02:51] Chris Furlong: But when we're talking about in the mindset of our own world, it's really comes down to know what you control, knowing what you have the power to regulat. Meaning that you can change the way it's directing. So for instance, I have the ability to fill up this cup or not. So if I want to have an iced coffee, if I wanna have some creamy soda, if I want to have some water, or if I want to have something a little bit stronger, I'm responsible for that.

[00:03:16] Chris Furlong: You know, I'm empowered that I have ownership of that. I can control what I put in and what I don't. That's on me. So accepting the responsibility for your. that are in your control as well. So if I put certain things in this mug, if, if you're watching this, I'm holding up a, a mug. But , if you're listening, I mean, I'm also holding up a mug if you can't see it.

[00:03:35] Chris Furlong: But essentially what I put in here and what I consume, I then need to be responsible for the outcomes of that, right? So whether it's a sore stomach or maybe it's maybe the coffee wasn't strong enough so I don't feel as awake, or maybe it was something I shouldn't be having, right? And you know, then I go do something stupid because I'm a bit delirious.

[00:03:51] Chris Furlong: The idea is that we need to be responsible and accountable for the outcomes that we decided to do. You know, I spoke about in her episode and not that long ago that taking no action is a decision, and we need to be responsible and accountable to that result because that's the decision we decided to make.

[00:04:09] Chris Furlong: So the other part of taking the other part about taking ownership is it can also enable us to make better decisions going forward. And that's what ownership means is because what we do now, whether it's right or wrong in terms of we get the result that we want, it's going to now further us to enable us to actually make a better decision when that pops up again, because we now have the better information.

[00:04:29] Chris Furlong: We've gone through that experience. It also can help you increase your self-esteem and your self worth if you know what you. And you know where you're going and you know what it's gonna take, you can start to then pull some levers and say, no, this is within my control. This is within my bounds to be able to make it happen.

[00:04:45] Chris Furlong: Therefore, it can give you a big bunch of confidence. We don't wanna have pride as such, you know, thinking, look at me guys, I've got this all figured out. But it could give you the motivation that you need. And at the same time, it also can enable us to step outside of our comfort zones and grow. And that's what we.

[00:05:02] Chris Furlong: So with that in mind, what does actually, you know, having or taking ownership, what does it enable? And it's a lot of kind of what I just said before, but when I was reading through this and creating this episode, I was, you know, putting down a bunch of different dot points of my own. And, you know what's really, really.

[00:05:18] Chris Furlong: Been relevant for me, but I think the first one is, well, what does it enable? It enables accountability, actions, and outcomes. Now, one thing that I like to do is, you know, obviously I share on here, but you know, when I document my small business journey on my YouTube, which is my reselling business, you know, a lot of those videos that I do, they're just as much basically pep talks to myself sharing about whatever the topic may be out to the open.

[00:05:42] Chris Furlong: But a lot of the time, To myself, and it's keeping me accountable and making me understand what are the actions and what are the outcomes that need to be happening. So it enables me to move forward. It gives me motivation, but what else does ownership enable? It enables better relationship. Why is? Because you need to interact with people to get to where you want to be.

[00:06:01] Chris Furlong: You can't just go through thinking that you can get everything covered. If you want to own something, if you want to create the life that you. You need to interact with people. You'll have to have tough conversations. You'll, you'll have to have easy conversations. A lot of time these conversations are nowhere near as bad as we think they are, but they're a bit scary leading up to them, and that's the re the reality of it.

[00:06:20] Chris Furlong: You need to be able to have conversations with people, build these relationships, because you're not gonna get very, very far just doing everything yourself. You can't get very far, but you won't be able to get to your absolute max unless you start to be able to broaden your horizons in those relat. . The other thing that it enables ownership is clear direction.

[00:06:40] Chris Furlong: when you own something, you can see where you want to take it, right? You know, I, I know that I wanna take my business to a certain level. I have ownership of that because I am in control of it. Of course, I also have to do the work that comes with it. So it can give you that sense of clear direction. But of course, along the way, things can change and you might have to adjust change and different opportunities come up, which means the direction may change as well.

[00:07:02] Chris Furlong: So how do we do this better? How do we make taking ownership or having ownership easier? How do we make it so it's simple? And I'm not saying that this will be easy, but it can make it easier. Don't get those two muddled up. But the first thing is have a vision, have an understanding of where you wanna be, and I like to call this my North star.

[00:07:19] Chris Furlong: Where do I want to be in one year from now, two years from now, five years from now, 10 years from now? Doesn't have to be that extreme. It can be a bit smaller. Where do I wanna be three months from now, six months from now, one year from now, two years from now? Bring it down a little bit. But having a vision, I think is going to enable us to have better ownership because we know what we need to do to get to where we want to be.

[00:07:39] Chris Furlong: Now, sometimes it means we might not get what we want, but it means we're still working towards. So having that vision gives us that ambition and that push to make it happen. At the same time, having the clear goals and the milestones, it really helps with that as well. But I think also remembering to stop and reflect and you can follow the same process.

[00:07:55] Chris Furlong: When you reflect, what do I need to stop doing? What do I need to start doing, and what do I need to continue doing that works really, really well for me, but also building a positive influence. This is a very common topic across so many conversations that I have with you guys, is having people around you that's going to enable you.

[00:08:11] Chris Furlong: and that's how you can take better ownership. Why? It's because now you've got people that you can rely on. You can say, okay, I'm gonna delegate to you. You still own it, but you're giving some of the responsibility to someone else. You're still accountable to it, but you've got ownership of it. Right? But you're giving it to someone else to help you get ahead.

[00:08:26] Chris Furlong: You know, when we hire someone in a job, you know, if you are having a business and you hire someone to now take control of things. you are. You still own that, but you are giving them ownership of that as a responsibility. You still need to be accountable to it, but it enables you to then again, get to where you want to be.

[00:08:42] Chris Furlong: Or it might just be having people of like-minded mentalities enabling you to think in a different way of what you own, and it makes it a little bit easier. And some of the most logical ones that will make ownership being a lot easier is, I'm gonna say it, I said it before, is focusing on what we can control when we only focus on what we can.

[00:09:01] Chris Furlong: When we take ownership of something, it starts to make the, the focus a bit more isolated. We know what we need to be doing, we can pinpoint what we need to be doing, and we don't get, you know, distracted or fluffed up by all these things happening outside of our control. We can't do anything about them.

[00:09:16] Chris Furlong: And three other ones is celebrating the small wins along the way enables us to feel accomplished as we take on the ownership role, but also evaluating the progress. Yes, we need to. , celebrate the small wins. We need to self-reflect and think about what can I stop, start, and continue, but also evaluate on it on a regular basis.

[00:09:35] Chris Furlong: Is things working? Is this working? And that's how you can then probably start to apply the stop, start and continue mentality. And the third point there, the final third point is ask for help as needed. Right? They're very similar to surrounding yourself with people, but asking for help, you know, is going to enable you to have better ownership because you're learning.

[00:09:55] Chris Furlong: I'm not, you know, if you take ownership of something, same thing. You know, if I take ownership of this mug, what I put into it, all that, I'm accountable for it. But I can ask someone, you know, okay, should I be having water in there? Should I be having tea, coffee, milk? What about some alcohol? And get some help as needed to help direct me when taking ownership of how I'm going to.

[00:10:15] Chris Furlong: Yeah. Consume liquids,

[00:10:20] Chris Furlong: That's just the analogy I'm using cuz it's right in front of me. So I hope that gives you some, some insight. Now, the next point that we're gonna be talking about is removing the blame. And what we'll cover first is why blaming isn't the answer. And it's simple because it doesn't solve anything, right? If you blame someone else for when something has.

[00:10:36] Chris Furlong: You know, look, even if it was their, if it was their fault, right? We're trying to be talking about us taking ownership and being accountable and responsible for our own things. But sometimes circumstance happen when it is out of our control. And let's say someone hits you when you're driving from an intersection and it's their fault.

[00:10:51] Chris Furlong: You were doing everything right. Shifting the blame onto them isn't going to solve or get to get you to where you need to be. It's gonna shift the focus away from the actual issue, which may be like, okay, we need to exchange details and we need to, you know, get the insurance handling this la da, da da.

[00:11:06] Chris Furlong: You can put the blame on them. Start saying, you did this, you did that, or they'll put the blame on you. That's great. It doesn't solve anything. It's not going to get you further to where you need to be. You need to make sure people are. , you need to make sure everyone's safe and sound and no one's injured, and then start to do the due diligence of, you know, sharing numbers, sharing information so that you guys can progress to what a normal process would follow.

[00:11:27] Chris Furlong: Again, if we start blaming, it gives us a short term feel of feeling good because like, ah, I didn't do this. That's his fault. It shifts the blame, but really if whether it was your fault or not, it doesn't actually solve anything. All it does is make you. It's just a, it's just a short term feel good, but there's still gonna be that long term pain.

[00:11:46] Chris Furlong: Now, when we do blame people, it actually hurts and damages relationships. When we shift the blame, when we don't have a conversation, when we just. You know, radically just say, oh yeah, it was his fault. He did it. He was in charge of it, and throw them under the bus. It's not going to help anyone, as I said before, but it does damage and hurt relationships.

[00:12:04] Chris Furlong: So keep that in mind before you just randomly start saying, oh yeah, that was his fault, and throw people under the bus. The other reason why blaming isn't the answer is it hinders your ability to actually grow. The reason why is because you will never learn. You will never actually get a chance to experience something.

[00:12:19] Chris Furlong: Now, there's times when things will happen. We wanna blame. Once we accept it, we're able to learn. We're able to get over the hump, and we're able to now move on and the next time something happens like this, we can raise a hand and says, yep, that was me, and you know how to handle it. You can work through it and you can get over it.

[00:12:36] Chris Furlong: Well, the time before we can be really successful. We need to make a lot of mistakes. Failures or whatever you wanna call them, but every time you go through it, it's like when you fall over, you get up a little quicker when you fall over the next time you know how to dodge it. So maybe you only trip and you, you catch yourself In the fall, you get a little bit better each time.

[00:12:52] Chris Furlong: So that's why not shifting the blame is actually gonna work in your favor because you're gonna be able to move forward and you're gonna be able to basically reap the rewards of that iterative learning as quickly as. Two other things of why blaming isn't. The answer is it creates a negative mindset and we don't wanna go there.

[00:13:10] Chris Furlong: It's toxic. And the other one is, it actually limits your accountability. Because if we're talking about taking ownership, that means responsibility and it also means accountability. And when we shift that, it means you are, you are free of that. You got nothing to do with it. But the reality is you probably did.

[00:13:28] Chris Furlong: And that actually again, it. It doesn't solve some of the bigger underlying issues of dealing with your own crap, but also, you know, solving the, the problem at hand or finding a solution to the problem at hand. So essentially, if we, if we sum it up, it, it's not the answer because it doesn't lead to a positive outcome.

[00:13:45] Chris Furlong: It doesn't lead to personal growth, and it can actually hinder our ability to, I guess, progress and to create a better outcome. And it just leads to those negative outcomes. So instead, , it's important for us to focus on taking the responsibility and finding the solution to the problem and getting that resolved.

[00:14:02] Chris Furlong: The fluff aside, you know, sometimes that might mean we have to swallow our pride, but that that's going to be the sure win from going through that process. So by taking responsibility, we actually enhance our self-awareness and our growth ability. And that's, that's a win-win, right? That is a win-win. So the question that you may be thinking is, okay Chris, but how can we actually go about doing this?

[00:14:23] Chris Furlong: How can we make. A little bit easier. And there's three areas that I believe make sense here. It's focusing on the solutions, being honest, but also seeking help. A lot of common themes here. And the first one being focusing on the solution. So I've already kind of touched on that, you know, why we need to solve for the solution, but.

[00:14:41] Chris Furlong: we need to ask ourselves, what is the real cause of this problem? Right? If we start chucking the blame on people, again, it doesn't solve it. So if two people have hit each other in a car accident, there's a reason why. Yes, someone might have been on their phone. Maybe there was oil on the road, maybe there was bad weather conditions.

[00:14:55] Chris Furlong: Maybe you know, there was an issue with your indicator and you didn't know. Or maybe there's, there's so many different things, but. , there is a real cause of the problem taking each person's perspective away. Meaning, you know, shifting the blame to each other. Start to understand what's actually happened and what, what has caused this.

[00:15:14] Chris Furlong: It might have means someone just wasn't paying attention, right? And yes, it's at their fault, but we don't need to go rub it in their faces. So if you can find a common ground, . If it is between more than you know, just yourself, then that, that's going to enable you to get ahead. That's gonna help you to focus on getting that solution as quick as possible.

[00:15:31] Chris Furlong: A key thing that you can do though, is reframe the negativity and look for the positive swings, right again. If yes, it might have been someone's fault. It's say, it's okay. We're okay, no one's injured. You know, let's look at this as a positive outcome. You want to, you know, deescalate the situation. I'm obviously referring to more of a car accident, but you do, you want to deescalate it and say, okay, let's take that aside.

[00:15:53] Chris Furlong: It doesn't actually make any difference to it. This is the problem we now need to solve for because the, the mistake or the error or the fault has already occurred. We can't change. The only thing that can change is how are we going to fix it? How are we going to amend it? How are we going to manage it?

[00:16:05] Chris Furlong: How are we going to find a solution? The next one is being honest. Now taking ownership means owning up to your mistakes. So being honest, being transparent, and being willing to have the conversation. But I think where we forget here is actually learning to listen and hear other people out. You know, we can talk, we can say all these different things and say, yes, I was wrong.

[00:16:24] Chris Furlong: Here I am, I'm being open. But also getting that feedback, getting. Back and forth conversation from someone else, especially if other people are involved in it. And if we make our own mistake and we are the only person that it's impacted, well, the only person you can listen to is yourself, have a souk, and then get over it, right?

[00:16:39] Chris Furlong: But you do need to bring in and listen from other people. But if you do make a mistake and other people are giving you insight, other people are giving you feedback it's worth listening to. Third point is seeking help. Now, there's nothing wrong with asking for help, especially when you are doing it.

[00:16:55] Chris Furlong: And you need to understand you are not alone, right? So asking help and for support is a key way that is going to enable you to make this a little bit easier when, when removing or avoiding the whole blame game situation. And sometimes that might mean you need to seek some counseling or find a, a safe place to be able to, you know, just let yourself be free and get out of it.

[00:17:14] Chris Furlong: And that's okay, right? Some, you could even read some self-help books or, you know, just to gain some fresh perspective. But to be honest, you know, you can't be in a situ. And then just expect that you can just walk away and say you need time to figure it all out. You do need to give some level of context of what needs to happen, right?

[00:17:32] Chris Furlong: And it might mean you need to step back and just have a think and clear your head before you can go ahead and start to resolve and get into solution mode. But actually, you be transparent about it, as I just said before. And it might mean, okay, we need more help on this. How am I gonna solve for this? I need.

[00:17:46] Chris Furlong: And find someone that can help you solve it. So, in short, if I re quickly reflect on removing the blame is it requires you to focus on solutions. It requires you to be honest, and it requires you to seek help. It seems simple, but by using these different tips or I guess, you know, ways of working, I guess we can shift our focus away from the blaming or, you know, getting confused or getting worked up and actually start working towards taking responsibility for the.

[00:18:12] Chris Furlong: That, that have occurred and actually finding a positive outcome or solution in getting it rectified. Now, the third point that I wanted to bring into this whole conversation was showing up and making it happen. Now, once we have figured out what we are responsible for, meaning what are we taking ownership for?

[00:18:28] Chris Furlong: And once we know how to manage the blame game, and to put that aside, we want to continue to show up and we want to continue to have that iterative approach of rinse and repeat and getting things done and actually growing and learning. Yeah, making mistakes, but getting back on our feet and moving as quickly as possible.

[00:18:44] Chris Furlong: So that's what we're talking about now. And my answer to this is, as I just before iteration, is the answer. And it's important to understand why persistence and consistency is crucial for success. You see, once we have learned from something that we've done, We can leverage it, we can build momentum from it, we can snowball it, we can use it to build our skills.

[00:19:04] Chris Furlong: We can use it to get better knowledge, and then we can make better decisions down the line if that was to occur again. And by continuing to show up, we can replicate this model as quickly as possible and we can increase, I guess, our accountability because. Now we're able to say, okay, now I'm going to do this because I know how to handle it.

[00:19:20] Chris Furlong: I know how to control it. You can take bigger responsibility, you can take bigger ownership of it. So we can create good habits. We can now learn how to overcome and work through setbacks. It makes it a little bit easier. So when we put in the reps of learning, it increases our motivation and our resilience, and that's really what we're trying to.

[00:19:40] Chris Furlong: The other thing is, as we continue to show up, is it builds a sense of accomplishment, and we get to own that. We get to take that home. We get to be a little proud about it and say, yep, I, I did this, I did this. But we also have to be responsible for when things take a dip and when things aren't working in our favor.

[00:19:54] Chris Furlong: So, you know, we will naturally learn better problem solving skills. We'll naturally learn how to handle future challenges, but how to be resilient, you know, and know what to do when things get tough. It also reinforces why learning through repetition is. Because it has that snowball effect. It enables us to get the ball rolling, get momentum, and see things happen.

[00:20:15] Chris Furlong: So the big question again is how do we make this easier? How do we make showing up and being consistent easier? Well, it's a lot of the same stuff guys. It's a lot of the same stuff. It's setting realistic goals. . It's creating a routine. It's leveraging the tech, the apps, the systems, or the people around us.

[00:20:32] Chris Furlong: It's having someone to support you and it's celebrating the wins, whether it's small or big, and you need to have that in the plan. But most of all, it's also about having fun. Once you have those things, you can now execute and you can take action, and you can go do the work. You gotta do the work, but all those things is going to enable you to do.

[00:20:50] Chris Furlong: That little bit easier. So let's quickly recap the whole episode. What have we been talking about if we sum it up? We've been talking about tagging ownership means taking responsibility for your actions, your decisions, and your outcomes. Removing the blame means focusing on solutions rather than blaming others and avoiding self-criticism and continuing to show up and to make you know, make things happen.

[00:21:11] Chris Furlong: It actually involves a couple of things. It involves being persistent. It involves being co. And we have to do this within the realms of learning, growth and progress. So my call to action for you is this, embrace these principles in your own life. See how you can apply them. But most of all, start taking ownership of your situation.

[00:21:30] Chris Furlong: Wherever you are right now, whatever it is that you're doing, see what you can do to take better ownership. Focus on the solutions rather than blaming others, right? So if you are dealing with a situation at the moment, remove. , assume that it never happened. Focus on what is the thing that we now need to fix.

[00:21:46] Chris Furlong: And then you can work on committing to being consistent and persistent with the action. How do I now move forward? How do I now take this and make sure it never happens again and get back to the momentum, right? And this is how you'll make a real difference in your life, and you'll achieve your goals.

[00:22:02] Chris Furlong: You need to maybe set some goals, but you will achieve your goals if you've got goals set by applying all these principles and you will live a more fulfilling and rewarding life. It's that simple. So go out there and make it happen. Now, before we wrap up, I do wanna say let's let's continue the conversation.

[00:22:18] Chris Furlong: If you do want to continue the conversation, if you've got something that you wanna say about this, a question or a statement or it could be an opinion, an insight, or maybe you just wanna share. You know, all in between of what I've just mentioned. By all means. Please then jump over to speakpipe.com/further your lifestyle and you can drop a little voicemail there and you can leave a message and.

[00:22:38] Chris Furlong: I'll look to include it in one of the upcoming episodes. We can continue the conversation. All right, team, really do appreciate you being here once again, and if you enjoy these episodes, please go ahead and share them with someone else. If you think there's something here that resonates with you and that could resonate with someone else, it would mean the absolute world to me.

[00:22:55] Chris Furlong: If you could share that with someone else and send it to them and say why it would actually be a good episode for them to listen to other. Hit the like, hit the subscribe button, follow the podcast, leave a review if you want, or you can leave a comment or you can jump over and drop a message over on Speak Pipe.

[00:23:10] Chris Furlong: Appreciate you being here. It's always an honor. You have a wonderful day. Cheers.