5 Reminders That Accountability Leads to Happiness

1. Complaining gives away leverage

It blows me away that people don’t realize that complaining about someone is actually giving them mental leverage over you.

As I reflect on it, the reason I don’t complain is probably more out of competitiveness than anything else — I just don’t want to give you the satisfaction that you have any say in how my life is going to play out. No one has say — not my teachers, not the current state of political correctness, nothing.

This isn’t coming from a negative place, or wanting to secretly hurt other people that have hurt me. It’s about coming from a place of confidence and control.

2. Blaming yourself isn’t the same as judging yourself

People are scared to be accountable because they don’t understand the difference between believing everything is your fault and not “judging” yourself.

Truth is, the line between that confidence and insecurity is super thin. And it comes down to how quiet you can get in your own head.

When I tell you that I don’t care what anybody says about me, including my wife, my mom, and my kids — it’s true. If my mom called me right now and told me “I’m disappointed in you”, I’d contextualize it real quick. It would hurt my feelings, but at the same time, I know that my mom doesn’t have full context.

Even though she knows me better than 99% of people in this world, she doesn’t know everything. No one has full context my intentions but me. It’s the same reason I don’t judge other people. I don’t have full context on them, either.

That mindset is game changing. If you can get to that place, you stop allowing other people’s opinions to affect you.

3. Complaining about other people makes you feel helpless

When people start looking for other people to be at fault — whether it’s the government, their aunt, or their boss — they always lose.

Blaming other people makes you feel helpless. It makes you feel like you’re a victim of what happens around you, and it’s very ROI negative.

4. Owning your weaknesses takes away their leverage

One of my favorite movie scenes is the last rap battle in 8 mile, where Eminem disses himself before the other guy can. He owns all his weaknesses, and it leaves the other person with nothing to say.

When you expose your insecurities … when you’re accountable for everything…. you take away the leverage they have over you.

I proudly talk about passing on Uber twice. I proudly talk about being a D and F student. I can’t wait for more bad things to happen to me because I’ll just own up to them. Nothing’s going to kill me.

5. Blaming yourself leads to the outcome you were looking for by blaming others

A lot of this comes down to not being afraid to lose.

I’m not afraid of losing because I don’t care what you think about my loss. I don’t allow any of you to judge me, and I don’t judge other people.

The reason so many of you are afraid to fail or go after the things you want to try is that you’re afraid of what other people are going to say. My losses are my losses. They’ve got nothing to do with you, so I just don’t care what you have to say about them.

When you blame yourself without judging yourself for losing, you put yourself in a position of control.