Don't let the blame game rob you of your motivation.

In the model for self motivation, a detractor is anything that robs you of your motivation. And, just as different things motivate different people, so too do different things rob the motivation of different people. Consequently, we all have our unique detractors.

There are, however, some detractors that are more universal. One of these universal detractors I call the blame game. Although in the media it is more commonly related to politics, many of us do the blame game in our personal lives as well. The blame game is what happens when you look outside yourself for the causes of your problems.

Here are some of the things you might hear when the blame game is being played:
That other guy didn’t do what he was supposed to do.
It’s the economy.
My car wouldn’t start, so I couldn’t …
I don’t have enough time to…
I couldn’t get my computer to work.
My dog ate my homework.

In the blame game sometimes we blame other people and sometimes we blame circumstances. The reason we play the blame game is to excuse ourselves, to avoid responsibility for our own perceived shortcomings.

One of the problems with the blame game is you spend time excusing mistakes that would be better spent correcting them. The bigger problem with the blame game is that when you blame other people or the situation, you are admitting that you are not in control, that these other people or the situation is in control. This means you are giving up your power. Giving up your feeling of power adversely impacts your motivation because it lessens your confidence in your competence, your successability.

Furthermore, when you give up your control, you turn off your creativity; you feel that nothing you can do will make a difference, so why come up with new ideas.

The fact that sometimes there may be some validity to the finger-pointing doesn’t make finger-pointing any more effective.

The solution is simple. Be aware; take charge of your life. When you find yourself playing the blame game, pause and ask yourself, “If I couldn’t use that excuse, what would I be doing differently?”

Then go ahead and do it.