Break the Habit of Fault-finding and Blaming

January 21, 2018
Emmanuel F. Silan, PhD
We can re-program our mind and liberate ourselves from negative beliefs to life-enhancing ones.

Break the Habit of Fault-finding and Blaming

Most people, especially in our country, have a nasty habit of finding faults in others and shifting the blame at the same time.

A clear majority of us are programmed to do so from the moment we were born into this world. What do we hear most from parents and adults as they raise their children? The most common words spoken aloud are "No!" "Don't do that!" "Who did this?" and "Look at what you did!" Worse is if there are other negative words attached with them like idiot, stupid, and so on.

These are further reinforced in the classrooms as our kids start their schooling. And if their parents and other adults don't model other alternatives of resolving differences, including relationship matters, then this mental model - the blame programming - will be a lifetime pattern. And it is definitely not healthy, nor the more productive one.

What we can do instead is to change our set of beliefs. And these are some of the life-changing and solutions-oriented ones:

1. We are mostly in control of thoughts, beliefs, and actions. And the moment we take responsibility for our lives - to be accountable for our actions and decisions no matter how they turnout to be - is the moment we are truly liberated!

2. There are different realities, and what we decide to be real for us - with the accompanying actions and commitment - is what is going to likely happen.

Remember, the physicists stated that there are 10 or 11 dimensions of the universe, and we only know four (3Dplus time) of them. Imagine the different worlds waiting for us!

3. Focus on what we can control, and on what we can do to change our situations. The possibilities are waiting to be explored. There's really no use crying over things that were already done. There's no time machine, yet, invented for us to go back in time and change some of our actions in the past.

4. Most often, "what" and "how" are better questions than "why." Even in the world of mental health, it is often better to focus on the possibilities - the whats and hows - than on the why. Ask less why, and ask more what and how. Try these out now for two weeks and see how this mental model will change your life for the better!

5. Focus on "what works" and ignore the nay-sayers (the "negas"). What works for you are your strengths, and it is best to develop yourself more along this line, for doing so will make you more powerful than you can ever imagine.

And don't blame the "negas" of the world, remembering how they were programmed the way they are.

6. Be at the front row of your life! You are the director of your story, so don't take the backseat and let life happen to you. You happen to life; you define and create your significance in this world.

7. Find happiness from within, regardless of your life situation. You can create a piece of heaven while in hell, even for a spark of a time. Or you can make hell out of heaven. The choice, though sometimes hard, is always on you, on us.

May you continue to have strength, fortitude, and a happy heart.


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(Cartoon by Bill Watterson)

 

About the author

Emmanuel F. Silan, PhD

NLP Coach and Counselor/ Human Behavior and Communications Specialist/ NLP Master Trainer (IN) and Coaching Master Trainer (ICI) / Organization Development Consultant/ Highly Experienced Team Building Facilitator/ Certified NLP Instructor and Master Practitioner/ has MA in Instruction Development and Technology/ PhD in Organization Development/ and currently taking Master in Counseling Psychology at  Ateneo de Manila University.