- Total personal responsibility. Taking total personal responsibility begins with cutting short the habit of complaining.
- Complaining isn’t so good for you. Complaining distracts from problem solving, wastes time and energy, and it leaves you and the important people in your life feeling bad. It also keeps you in the victim seat.
- Forming powerful requests. Taking personal responsibility means forming powerful requests instead of complaining. Powerful requests are those that are specific and actionable. By forming powerful requests, you become a solver, taking control of your outcomes and your life, rather than contributing to the problems around you. This also boosts your credibility and signals that you are a powerful player.
- Do your homework before looking outside yourself. Approaching problems with clarity about what you want and need is the first step towards forming powerful requests and, through the skillful use of such requests, achieving effective solutions and delivering success. Also important is using that clarity to identify where you might be the one best able to fulfill the request you need to make.
