Self-responsibility and self-care are critical to increasing your value. What is self-responsibility? Being responsible for ALL of your words, actions, choices and reactions. People often want to blame outside events and other people, but that makes you a victim. To be valued is to be fulfilled… to be your own best friend. If you take responsibility for yourself, you have power and authority in your life, which means you have value. Other people cannot give you lasting value, only you can by treating yourself with care. Self-care is about taking care of yourself emotionally instead of looking for someone else to do it. It is about healing what ails you.

If you blame your partner for breaking up with you, that speaks to a lack of responsibility. It takes two to tango, so pointing the finger at him/her for all the problems in your relationship is a powerless position. How did you contribute? What can you own up to? You always play a role in how relationships unfold. When you feel the bottom falling out of any situation and want to blame someone or something, stop and ask yourself how you participated in getting here. EMPOWERMENT can only come through responsibility, never through blame. No one can give you something you refuse to give yourself.

When you’re in charge of your choices and taking care of yourself, life is limitless; it can be as amazing as you want it to be. To take responsibility for your life, look at where you are angry or frustrated. Then look at the choices you made to get where you are. This is difficult if you don’t like your choices and have spent a long time blaming others. It’s easier to put that onus on someone else, but that’s not how you reach true happiness and joy. Owning the role you play in your own life is a much more empowering position because only then can you start to change what isn’t working.