What I Mean by Personal Responsibility
When I talk about personal responsibility, I don’t mean putting up with poor treatment or pretending everything is within my control. I can have boundaries at work AND expect my employer to do their part. I can ask for help and still ask myself, What’s in my control?
I remember when I first started picking up groups in Sydney. Pick-up day was midweek, and the meeting point was in the CBD, across the bridge, in peak-hour traffic. Miss one turn and it could take another 40 minutes to get where you needed to be. Then you had to find a park, knowing the timed spaces weren’t long enough to check everyone in and run the welcome meeting I was supposed to hold there.
I learnt pretty quickly not to drink coffee before that drive! I started arriving early and having one after I’d parked and before I met the guests. Why make an already stressful morning harder?
But skipping the coffee couldn’t fix the pick-up arrangements. So I complained. Sorry, fed back—multiple times—about how stressful and impractical the whole set-up was. Eventually, pick-ups moved to Sunday. We could wander the markets, find a park and drive in without the weekday traffic. Unless there was a marathon. Or a protest. Or the bridge was shut. Or, you know, Sydney happened.
I’m not a fan of blame culture. When something goes wrong, I try to look at my own part before deciding someone else is at fault. If I fall off a path because I wasn’t looking where I was going, that’s an accident, and a lesson for me to pay closer attention to my surroundings. I’m not about to sue National Parks over my own misstep.
I don’t find that thought punishing. It gives me something useful to do next time. And if a path really is unsafe, I can report it without being a…. Karen! Taking responsibility for my choices doesn’t mean ignoring something that needs to be fixed.
To me, all of that is personal responsibility. I changed the small thing I could change myself, and I kept speaking up about the bigger thing that needed someone else’s attention.
On another level, it also means noticing what happens inside me when things get difficult. My body often tells me I’m upset before my mind has worked out why!
Say someone calls me fat. If I’m already feeling uncomfortable in my body, that comment might hurt. If I’m feeling at home in my skin, I’m more likely to give them a side-eye and think, That’s a weird thing to say to someone.
Either way, the comment is rude. The difference is how it affects me. That’s what I mean by a trigger: a reaction that points me towards something tender, frightening or unresolved. Not every strong feeling is a trigger, and recognising one doesn’t excuse the other person’s behaviour. It just helps me understand why something has hit me harder than normal.
On my last trip, a guest became verbally abusive towards me. I’d sensed his frustration building, so I listened at first. When he began ranting and speaking to me abusively, I told him I wasn’t going to be spoken to like that, and I walked away. He needed space. I needed it too.
His words didn’t make me question who I was. I knew the things he was saying about me weren’t true. The next day, I still had to work out how to approach him so we could move forward without carrying the argument through the rest of the trip. I stuck to what had happened, what behaviour wasn’t acceptable, and what we needed from each other next. That got us further than arguing over every word said in the heat of the moment. We moved forward happily and he even gave good feedback scores!
We also never have to figure it all out alone. Sometimes I need to phone a friend or talk to the boss. Asking for support can be the action that helps me handle a situation well. Guides are expected to perform under pressure but to do that, I need to recognise what pressure feels like in my body: the tightening, the rush, the moment my thoughts start racing. If I notice it early enough, I can take a breath and decide what’s needed before the pressure gets the better of me.
And when everything feels chaotic? Sometimes I need to laugh, shake it off, take one big breath and start again.
I’m learning to notice the quieter signals too. What does a real yes feel like? What does a no feel like? How do joy, dread, discomfort or anger show up before my mind has a story about them? I don’t always catch it straight away, but naming what I’m feeling gives me a little room to choose my next step.
The words I use matter as well, especially the ones I repeat to myself. I love the saying, “Words are spells; that’s why we call it spelling.” If I tell myself I can’t cope, I feel the pressure rise in my body. When I ask myslf, What’s the next useful thing I can do? I can usually find something useful to do.
Sometimes that thing is as small as waiting until I’ve parked to have my coffee!!!
That’s personal responsibility as I understand it: knowing my part, choosing my actions, and remembering I don’t have to carry the whole situation on my own.
