It’s (mostly) your fault.

I had a realisation mid-way through my 30’s. A breakthrough, if you will. A personal revelation that, whilst at the time was difficult to accept, has since given me huge comfort, and helped me to achieve a level of self awareness that I am extremely proud of.

Everything was my fault.

My poor health and godawful fitness.
Routine panic attacks.

A failed marriage.

The friendships I’d nurtured that no longer existed.

I'd lived that way for over a decade. Poor decisions, zero self awareness, complaining constantly.
Excuses. Blame. Not my fault.
Pretending I didn’t have a choice.

On a bright Sunday afternoon I sat down in the quiet wreckage of my life and realised that it was my fault. I was a mess. Somewhere along the way I had made the unconscious decision to burn my ambition and my self respect to the ground.

The most humiliating part was admitting to myself that I was the sole perpetrator of my own downfall.

I’ve learned that nobody is coming to save me. Not from my bad habits. Not from my poor decisions. Not from wasted time. Not from the parts of myself I’d much rather avoid.
Every change I’ve made in my life - in my health, my work, my relationships - has started with the same uncomfortable realisation; this is on me.

It's entirely my fault. 

It doesn’t matter who hurt me, what I was taught, or what was taken from me.
If I don’t take responsibility for not only what has happened, how can I control what happens next? I stay stuck.
And staying stuck is worse than failing. At least you learn from failure.

Taking ownership is fucking savage. It strips you of the most comforting story you have; that someone else is to blame. You feel naked. Vulnerable.
The second you accept that your health, your money, your work, your relationships, your time, all of it, is your responsibility, every excuse you’ve been leaning on dissolves.

There’s no “if only.”
There’s no “they should have.”
There’s no “it’s not fair.”

There’s just you, the facts, and what you choose to do next.

Blame is warm and friendly. It puts an arm round your shoulder, buys you a pint and tells you it understands you. The bad boss. The bad childhood. The bad marriage. The bad luck. Some of it may be true. But repeat that story often enough and you give your power away. Blame keeps you stuck. It feels like movement because you’re talking about it, but nothing actually changes.

That’s why most lives look identical year after year; the same habits, the same moaning, the same tired anecdotes about how unfair it all is.

Blame is cheaper than action. Ownership is expensive.

You don’t have to own everything that’s happened to you. This isn’t about self-blame. It’s not toxic positivity or spiritual bypassing.

But you must own your response.

Ownership is not fault; it’s power. 

It’s the move from “Why me?” to “What now?” It’s accepting that you can’t control everything, whilst also refusing to pretend you control nothing. That middle space is adulthood. And growth. 

Think of it as two modes:

• Passive ownership: life happens at you. You narrate. You react. You wait for the next wave and complain when it hits you smack in the face.

• Active ownership: life happens through you. You set standards. You choose responses. You move first.

The shift is invisible from the outside but seismic on the inside.

1) Language → Choice → Reality

Thoughts harden into words. Words harden into actions. Actions harden into reality. That chain either serves you or constricts you.

Watch the small moments:

• You argue with a friend or partner and end up shouting. Do you say, “I blew up,” or “He made me blow up”? One is a choice you can work on. The other is a convenient story.

• Someone shoulder-barges you on the street. You can narrate it as an attack, a personal affront, and carry that anger for hours. Or you can label it what it probably was; clumsy, human and carry on with your day. 

This isn’t about pretending everything is fine. It’s about picking the frame that keeps you accountable. If you want a practical rule: the second you catch a victim sentence forming (“they,” “always,” “never”), rewrite it with “I.” 

It will sting. 

Good. 

Pain is information.

2) Your Brain Will Follow Your Mouth

You don’t need a psychology degree to realise; repeat a word and your attention starts to orbit it. Pick a direction and your behaviour starts nudging toward it. Language is like a steering wheel.

Choose a word you actually want more of - calm, courage, clarity, and use it on purpose in the moments you usually spiral. It might feel inauthentic at first. Do it anyway. And keep doing it. You’re setting a precedent you’ll be grateful for later.

3) Health

Nobody is coming to drag you to the gym, to cook for you, to put down the bottle of wine for you. No clever fitness app, no January plan, no partner’s ultimatum can live inside your body and do the reps for you. 

Ownership here is boring and brutal: pick a time, pick a plan, show up. Treat your body like a loan you can’t afford to default on. If shame comes up, use it for fuel - not to punish yourself, but to refuse to live another year in a body you avoid looking at.

4) Work

In this climate, hating your job is practically a hobby. The stories are endless: useless manager, office politics, the “market.”

Fine. Maybe all of that is true.

But unless you’re willing to build an alternative - skills, portfolio, second income, a new network,  you're handing your future to people who don’t care what happens to it. Taking ownership at work means making a plan and sticking to it.

5) Relationships (with care)

You don’t control how other people treat you. Full stop. People end up in cruel and abusive situations through no fault of their own.

Ownership here is not self-blame. It’s the opposite; it’s protecting your safety, drawing hard boundaries, asking for help, and, when you can, choosing a different path.

For everything short of harm, ownership looks like this: say what you mean, enforce the standard, stop hoping people will read your mind, and stop tolerating what empties you. You don’t get the relationships you want. You get the relationships you tolerate.

6) Time

“I don’t have time” usually means “I chose something else.”

Open your calendar. That rectangle of boxes is your true values. Not your Instagram bio. Not your intentions. Your week.

Ownership is putting the important thing in the boxes first - health, deep work, family. Start making  and defending those boxes like your life depends on them. Because it really does.

7) Filters, Not Fate

Your mind is always interpreting what’s around you. You can’t choose every event, but you can choose the story you tell yourself about it.

Try this:

• Spot the filter. “Everyone’s against me.” “Nothing ever works.” “Typical.”

• Label it. “That’s my drama filter. Loud, but not true.”

• Swap it. Choose a headline that keeps you moving: “Unpleasant, not catastrophic.” “Hard, but solvable.” “Next right step.”

It will feel contrived. Keep doing it. You’re not lying to yourself; you’re choosing clarity over panic.

8) The Embarrassment Tax

Taking ownership rarely feels noble. It can often feel humiliating. You have to admit you’ve been complicit; the delays, the lies that you told yourself, the afternoons you doom scrolled, the months you drank your way out of feeling.

Let it burn. Sit with it. Write about it. Journal it. Embarrassment is the cost you pay to get your agency back. Most people avoid it and stay stuck. Pay it once, properly, and you won’t want to pay it again.

9) What Ownership Gives You (slowly)

• Confidence that isn’t performative. You trust yourself because you keep promises to yourself.

• Problem-solving instead of catastrophising - your first move becomes “Okay, what can I do?”

• Resilience - setbacks become information. Not identity.

• Alignment - your days begin to look like your values, not your vices.

None of this is overnight. It really does compound. Tiny choices, boringly repeated, until they become unconscious.

Protocol

Practice makes perfect. 

• Run the mirror test.
  Before reacting to a message, a problem, or a person, pause and ask; What part of this is mine? Not to take blame, but to take back agency. You can’t fix what you won’t face.

• Change one passive habit into an active one.
  If you start the day scrolling, choose instead to read, write, exercise, or plan - anything initiated and created, not consumed. Passive mornings breed passive days.

• Track your language for one week.
  Every time you say “they,” “always,” or “never,” make a mental note of it, or write it down. Those are often unhelpful words. Replace them consciously; trade ‘they’ for ‘I,’ ‘always’ for ‘sometimes,’ ‘never’ for ‘not yet.’ By Friday, you’ll hear them before they leave your mouth.

• Reframe one daily irritation.
  Someone interrupts you or talks over you, the meeting runs late, a friend cancels last minute; practice picking the story that keeps you composed. It’s not “toxic positivity.” It’s emotional discipline.

• Choose one area of neglect.
  Health, money, relationships, focus. The one you keep postponing. Take one measurable action this week - something boring, small, and unambiguous. The following week, do the same, and again, and again until it compounds. Consistency, not heroics, helps rewire identity.

If you want your life to change, take ownership of it. Today.

Take care

- James