Taking Responsibility

The first step in changing your life is taking responsibility for where you are now. 

Recognize that you are the only person who can change your life and your circumstance and that no one else can do it for you. You have the ability to respond to events as they happen. You cannot control what life throws at you. You can only control the choices that you make in response. So you are responsible to make the best choices you can and keep learning so that you expand the range of choices available to you. This will allow you to make better and more informed decisions later in life as you grow and gain more experience.

Do not Blame yourself or others

Taking responsibility is not the same as blaming yourself or other people, for anything that has gone wrong in your life and up to now. 

Everyone (including you) makes the best choices they can according to how they perceive the world at the time and with the tools they have learned to survive up until then.

So it makes no sense to feel guilty about things you have done in the past, because at the time you were doing the best that you could, with the knowledge that you had. 

It also makes no sense to be angry at others for not knowing better at the time, when they made decisions that might have affected you. 

You are and remain responsible for your own happiness. Never build your happiness on someone else's behaviour. You are responsible for your own life and what becomes of it in the future.  We can never change the past. We can only make the choice to change our future.