During the last month the issue of responsibility has come up with a number of my clients. We have explored what it means to be responsible for the life each of us is creating and what it means to be responsible for the mistakes each of us makes along the way. For some of us it is easy to lay blame outside of ourselves when things go awry. Others take responsibility for problems that are not ours to solve, hanging our energies on other people's emotional coat racks. For others, the challenge lies in learning to take responsibility for our own abilities and gifts—we play small and we play it safe.

We can only expect back what we put out. Like a mirror that bounces our image right back at us, so it is with life. Where we lay blame, anger and resentment are sure to come home to nest. When we play small, opportunity will pass us by. When we spread joy, it finds a clever path right back to us.

A young boy and his father were walking in the mountains. The son tripped on a loose rock and fell hard, scraping his knee badly. He screamed "AAAAHHHHHHH!!!," and to his great surprise, heard a voice yelling right back "AAAAHHHHHH!!."

The young boy was curious, and yelled out "Who are you?"
An answer came back immediately - "Who are you?"

"I admire you," yelled the young boy, curious to see what the stranger would say.
"I admire you" came the quick reply.

The young boy began to get annoyed. This was no kind of conversation. Why wouldn't the stranger show himself? "Coward!" he yelled at the top of his lungs.

"Coward" came the stranger's swift response.

The young son was perplexed and looked to his father for help. "What's going on, Dad?"

The father smiled and tousled the hair of his beloved child. "Pay attention, my son," he said and cupping his hands over his mouth yelled, "YOU ARE A CHAMPION!"

"YOU ARE A CHAMPION!" the stranger yelled back.

The young boy was surprised but still did not understand and reached for the warmth of his father's hand.

"People call this an ECHO," explained the father. "But really this is LIFE.

"It gives you back everything you say or do. Each person's life is simply a reflection of his actions. If you want more love in the world, create more love in your heart. If you are on a running team and want more speed in the team, improve your own skill-become a faster runner."

"Oh, I get it," said the young boy. "If I want Billy to stop hitting me, I have to stop hitting him back. Right?"

"Life will give you back everything you have given to it," his father replied with a smile.

"Your life is not a coincidence. It is a reflection of you!"

If you're curious to find the link between what you give to the world and what's showing up in your life, you'll need to cultivate the courage and clear sightedness to look hard at the truth. This is not always easy! We're all quite accomplished at noticing what's not working in our lives, and a lot less skilled at tracing the responsibility back to ourselves.

Here's a good example: I began to coach a highly educated client who was in her mid-forties and living from paycheck to paycheck. Though she had a marketable skill and earned decent money, she had no savings, lived in a very small apartment, and lacked the financial resources to put herself back in school full-time. She spoke of herself as someone who was "bad with money," and told me "I have no idea where my money goes." She was truly baffled by her inability to save and to prosper.

Okay. So far this story is not that unusual. Plenty of people live from paycheck to paycheck—nothing wrong with that. Plenty of people have no savings, have accumulated debt and can't see their way to the light.

Although all of my clients pay me the first of the month, I accommodated this client when she asked if she could pay me at the end of our first month. Big mistake! In my efforts to 'help' her I inadvertently colluded in her 'poor me' story. As our first month of coaching ended, the client regretfully informed me that she would not be continuing with coaching because the financial strain was too great. She also told me that she would not be able to pay me and began once again to share the complexities of her money problems.

I stopped her story mid-sentence and attempted to connect the dots for her. Her personal financial woes were so clearly linked to the way she behaved around money. She talked and walked and breathed a "woe is me, I've never got money" story and turned it into a truth. She cheated others (though she would have never thought of herself as dishonest or a cheat) and the end result was that she cheated herself. She came from a mindset of scarcity and it became a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I would love to tell you that bathed in the light of this epiphany she whipped out her checkbook and did the right thing. In truth, she wasn't ready to take responsibility for her behavior. It was easier for her to blame the world for failing her than to point her finger at herself. She said goodbye, we hung up our respective phones, and I have not heard from her since.

*****

I invite you to take a look at your own life and see if there are a few dots you can connect. Take a look at the area of your life that presents the most consistent struggle, and see what part your actions play in the story. Ask friends to help you figure it out—what do they notice. Dig until you see the connection, and make a conscious choice to alter that behavior. The results may astonish you.

About My Coaching:
As a personal, professional and executive coach, it is my goal to bring dynamic leadership, a compassionate heart, and powerful insight to the lives of my coaching clients. I work to help clients identify and pursue what is deeply meaningful in their lives, and collaborate with them to transform vague yearnings or explicit goals into realities.

You can count on me to challenge you, inspire you and support you. I will be a relentless advocate of your dreams and ambitions and help you take bold steps with your life.

My Background:
I am an optimist with a penchant for finding solutions to complex problems in unexpected places. The daily opportunity to use my pragmatism, smarts, humor and heart to help people create lives they truly love gives me tremendous joy.

After graduating from Princeton University, I spent almost 20 years as a feature film, video and CD ROM producer guiding projects to success. By the late 1990's, I decided to channel my action-oriented approach to life into coaching, with the express goal of helping people live lives by design and not default. I completed my professional training at The Coaches Training Institute in San Rafael, California.

Call me at (310) 393-8082 for a free 1/2-hour coaching session to explore how coaching may benefit you.

Contact Information:
Dina Silver, CPCC
361 21st Street
Santa Monica, CA 90402
Phone: 310.393.8082
Fax: 310.395.7999
dinasil@earthlink.net