The End of Blame

Can we stop blaming? Blaming is an unhealthy game we play to avoid losing. And blame will not deliver us to the promised land of fulfillment.

Fulfillment starts with accountability and makes blame unnecessary. I take the case that ​​

I created the issues in my life just how they showed up even when it's painful. It's an exercise that allows me to ask what happened and discover unbiased facts. This accountability exercise is not easy to do, but it's critical to learn anything that will impact your ability to self-correct.

In the book I wrote called The Promise of Fulfillment, I proposed fulfillment as a framework to think about what happens in your life. So, what could fulfillment deliver that would inform or enlighten failures and end the blaming cycle? When you blame, you're looking for a reason why something happened that doesn't include you.

Why blame? It's because you want to "get them" before they get you! So why don't you "get yourself" first by taking accountability?

Because there are benefits to blame!
1. You get to be right
2. You don't have to admit failure
3. You don't have to feel responsible
4. You don't have to fix anything
5. Nothing has to change
6. You avoid being the focus of attention by placing it somewhere else

You blame because you want to be right about what happened, and you don't realize how that traps you in limited thinking and prevents ingenuity. Picture an invisible rope looped around your ankle with the other end tied to a pole in the ground. You can only move inside the circle's circumference as defined by the rope's length and the position of the stake in the ground. And inside that circle, you're right. But what you may not realize is that you can't consider any fact that would challenge your version of what happened where you've staked your reputation.

So, how do you get the freedom to see something new? You begin by realizing what that BLAME stake in the ground costs you. With blame you:

1. Strain relationships 
2. Create an "us vs. them" mentality
3. Fear any information that could make you look bad
4. Resist questions
5. Ignore facts and feedback 
6. And, you prevent learning, innovation, evolution, breakthroughs, accountability, & vulnerability

Sometimes the only way out of blame is to look in the rear-view mirror and see what happened from a distance to get some perspective. It's never too late to own up to what happened. What you see in hindsight can grow your wisdom, intellect, and intuition. My prescription to end blame is to treat yourself and others with interest. Interest opens up a way to see failure as feedback so you can fix what's broken; blame shuts feedback down. 

So, join with me to catch yourself in the act of blaming and stop. What happens in the space when blame ends will be an evolution of awareness about what happened just the way it was and just the way it wasn't, preparing the journey forward with compassion and valuable information.

​May your day be both fulfilling and productive.