How do you live your life?
At cause or at effect?
It is so critical for you to understand the difference between the Cause & Effect.
I remember that when I was a child, my father asked me one time if I was responsible for something that had just “happened to me”. I won’t tell you what is was….
At the time I was furious, defensive, and annoyed with his question. I did not want to face the real truth.
After all I thought, the event was just “one of those moments”. It was not my fault. I was playing a “Blame Game”.
Looking back now I realise that at the time I was playing a “Victim” to the situation.
Being in that “Victim” space is not a good position to be in.
Instead of taking the responsibility for yourself it seems a good idea at the time was to blame someone or something else. That way you don’t feel so bad about it. In other words, you’re passing your responsibilities to someone or something else. And you’re no longer in control of your problem.
I am sure you understand what I mean, we all do it right?
So let’s look at Cause & Effect in more detail.
Firstly, Let me tell you this, there are far too many people in the world living their lives at the ‘Effect’ most of the time rather than at the ‘Cause’
Which side of the equation are you on?
Are you the Cause or are you the Effect?
Being at cause means that you are decisive in creating what you want in your life and take responsibility for what you have already achieved or will achieve. You view the world as a land of opportunity and you take actions towards achieving your desires and dreams. If situation did not turn out as how you would like, you take appropriate action and seek other possibilities. To the end, you know you have choice in what you do and how you react to people and those events that happened around you..
In our day to day lives we have a choice to be the “CAUSE” of events. Or we can merely react to the “EFFECT” of events.
Which would you rather?
If you are at effect you may blame people or circumstances for your bad day or for what you have not achieved in your life. You may constantly feel powerless and most of the time depend on others in order for you to feel good about yourself or about life .
Being in Effect, means things just happen to you and sometimes it means you are playing the victim, “the poor me” that I chose to play that time when I was a child talking with my father. I wanted people around me to feel sorry for me.
From my coaching experience I met many people who are trapped in the “Blame Game” like “If only my parents, understood me and helped me achieve my goals and dreams or show my the quickest way to get what I wanted, then my life would be better than now”.
But here’s the thing… Playing the ‘”Blame Game” will never move you forward to where you intended to be. It will set you back as you let everything around you consumed you and eat you up. And really, how much fun is that? for you to believe that someone else is responsible for your happiness. If you are living your life at effect quite often you see yourself or live your life as victims with no choices whatsoever. In fact you do have choice and you have chosen not to choose but to be responsive to whatever is happened or given to you.
Choosing to be at Cause is an active choice. It really is a decision and an action. You take full responsibility for your destiny. It can give you more choices and opportunities as you will explore different options to improve or change your situation right now. In other words, it has the effect of actively empowering you to create your lives in each moment.
As a Business Lifestyle coach, I see some clients stuck in the Effect side. They’ve been there for a long time. It’s a comfortable, familiar place to be for some. Being in the Effect is easy, you don’t have to take action, just blame your circumstance on the other things around you. It’s never YOU.
Being in effect means you often feel like you’re disempowered by your life’s events. Not in control.
Now I’m not suggesting blind optimism. Not every one starts in the same place, and there’s real and systemic disadvantage in the world. All the “secrets” and “affirmations” and “visualisations” will not move someone out of poverty. Nor am I saying there aren’t genuine victims in the world. I’m discussing victimhood, and cause & effect in the context of your Business LifeStyle.
I am talking about practical and honest assessments of your current situations, and real action towards making lasting change.
So, how exactly can you go from being in effect to being at Cause?
Make a conscious decision to be aware of whether you’re in Cause or Effect
Handling all situations as if you create everything in your life is a great starting point.
So if something not so positive is coming your way, ask yourself this question;
“If I really did create this, what could the ‘bigger purpose’ be?” As tempting as it may be, your head chat will say to you, “Impossible, there’s nothing ‘bigger’ or positive about this event..”
Reframe your thoughts and look again. Then ask the next question:
“OK, I know that I can’t see it directly, but if I could, and if there was something to be learned from this, what would it be?”
Sometimes, you need to step out from your situation and be an “Observer” looking in at the situation from a third person perspective. Then you will see the situation in a different perspective and you could realise that what you may need is to change from being the victim to being in control and take positive action.
These questions are a great starting point to get you focused in the right direction (consciously and unconsciously), setting you up for finding new answers or finding alternative solutions.
And Do I always live my life at cause?
No not always, but I can say majority of the time I live at cause this is because I ‘ve made a conscious choice everyday to be at cause, by practising everyday I am able to quickly identify those times when I am falling into the effect. I am also able to explore other ways to achieve my outcomes or ask others for help, without being a victim to their answers. I realise that I always have choices in my life by taking charge of my own Business LifeStyle by taking positive action.
Remember this:
‘There is no failure only setback,
There are no unresourceful people, only unresourceful states’
So live your life at Cause”
~Vinh Van Lam
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Contact Vinh direct:
vinh@artshine.com.au , +61 410 636 138
