'You Got to Look in the Mirror and Say, 'Maybe, You Know What? Maybe I'm the Problem.'

The painful task of looking inward and taking ownership of issues

No one likes to do it but sometimes it’s necessary though: looking in the mirror, either literally or figuratively, and realizing that, “Hey, maybe it’s not other people who are the problem. It’s me.”

Let’s be honest, not everyone can-or-will bring themselves to understand and believe this unwanted truth and put the responsibility of the problem on their own name and back. It’s a burden and embarrassing, if not, yes, shameful.

If and when we can do it though, we should find some way to feel good about it. Why? We are being being honest with ourselves, we have developed clarity about reality and we’re exhibiting great character muscle because what we’re doing is accomplishing one arduous task, beating how our mind would prefer to work, even it it’s not in our best long-term interest.

Most people do everything they can and at all costs to avoid looking inward when it comes to problems, disputes, conflicts or crises. It’s always some other reason or other people to blame. In their mind, it’s never them.

When we think like that, we might be protecting our ego and painting the world as we prefer it to be but we’re lying to ourselves and moving away from what is healthy and helpful to our human interactions and well-being and our future best life.

This is not a how-to article. It’s merely an acknowledgement of the quote in the headline that I recently came across that resonated with me and inspired this newsletter commentary.

Please don’t take it as preaching. Really. The fact is I too have had to, many times, look into that mirror, real or figurative and come to realize that if I didn’t carry all of the responsibility for a problem (and there were certainly times that was true) then I did certainly carry a part of it, whether it was large or small.

The point is if we live long enough, we all have to face cold reality that we can be and are the problem about something, maybe something significant.

Michael Toebe writes “Reputation Notes” and is the founder and specialist at Reputation Quality, a practice that serves and assists successful people and organizations in further building reputation as an asset and responsibly, ethically protecting, restoring or reconstructing it.

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