7 Things That Happen When You Take Responsibility For Your Life

Too many of us simply drift through our lives, allowing fate to take us where it may. But a life without commitment is a life wasted, and so it’s important to live on purpose, and to make intentional choices every single day.

This is how you build a life that is truly yours—you put it together, choice by choice.

This is what people mean when they tell you to “take life by the horns.” There’s no magic to this statement. There’s no secret trick or unknown key to a successful life. The answer is just as simple as it is hard: you have to take responsibility for your life.

This means living with what Napoleon Hill once called a “definiteness of purpose. Hill was the author of the exceedingly popular self-help book, “Think and Grow Rich,” which has been helping people reach their dreams since the 1930s.

According to Hill, a definiteness of purpose—also known as a definite chief aim—is cultivated by, first, determining your specific desire, then establishing a timeline, price, and “imperfect plan” for achieving that desire. After you figure these things out, write them down in a concise statement of purpose.

Read this statement every morning and every night, according to Hill, and your purpose will become a part of your subconscious mind, increasing your drive. Finally, begin taking consistent, daily action that moves you toward your goal.

So, you might be wondering, what happens to a person who does this? Let’s find out 7 things that will happen when you take responsibility for your life.

You'll Cultivate Courage

Taking responsibility for your life doesn’t mean you’ll never be afraid. Forging ahead with your plans and going after your dreams will always entail risk, failure, embarrassment, and hardship. But when you live purposefully, you’ll develop courage.

Courage isn’t the absence of fear—this is a common misconception. The soldier that rushes into battle might be afraid, but the key to his courage is that he rushes anyway. He doesn’t let his fear stand in between him and his goal.

When you live a purposeful life, you’ll be forced to make uncomfortable decisions nearly every day. Constantly making choices that bring you closer and closer to your dreams will pit you against every challenge life has to offer, but if you continue to make those choices despite all hardship, you’ll learn make courage the rule rather than the exception.

Don’t let yourself become mired in paralyzing fear. Conquer it one step at a time by taking charge of your own life.

You'll Abandon Uncertainty

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One of the biggest advantages of a purposeful life is that you’ll abandon that nagging sense of uncertainty that plagues so many of us. Each morning, you’ll awaken knowing that you have a plan not only for the day, but for the month, and maybe even the year.

Planning ahead isn’t a guarantee—after all, even the best-laid plans can be foiled by an unexpected illness, an accident, or other random event. But if you remember to write out that purpose statement we talked about, you’ll be ready to get back on track after each setback.

In doing so, you’ll cultivate one of the most important traits for success: adaptability. This is the ability to work around, or use to your advantage, anything life can throw at you by thinking ahead, experimenting with new ideas, and continuously learning.

Taking responsibility for your life by making deliberate choices allows you to not only leave your fear of uncertainty behind, but prepares you to use the unexpected to your advantage.

You'll Be Richer

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Napoleon Hill’s “Think and Grow Rich” includes the word “rich” for a reason. Hill promises a life rich in satisfaction through the pursuit of your purpose, but this often goes hand-in-hand with financial success.

Money is one area that far too few people actively think about. Instead of managing our funds, many tend to simply spend whenever they feel like it, on whatever they feel like. But making purposeful, informed choices about your finances can make an enormous difference in your quality of life, as well as the quantity of money in your bank account.

Consider this. How many cups of coffee do you buy in a week? How many lunches at your local fast food drive-through? What unneeded items do you grab each time you buy groceries? Are you paying bills for services you don’t use?

Most people can’t answer one or more of these questions. But if you take the time to examine your cash flow and carefully choose where your hard-earned money goes, you’ll have much more of it.

But don’t take our word for it. Try it!

You'll Be More at Peace

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Many people associate planning and decision-making with stress, but the truth is just the opposite.

By carefully selecting a goal for every area of your life and making continual, conscious decisions that bring you ever-closer to these goals, you eliminate a huge amount of stress.

Simply put, making conscious decisions makes life easier through the formation of habits. Right now, it might feel hard to hit the gym every other day, make a weekly shopping trip for fresh groceries, write ten pages of your novel each night, and plan some lovely date nights for your significant other, all while balancing the responsibilities of work or education. But if you do all of these things regularly, and with conviction, they become a part of you—they become habits.

Habits literally change your brain as you become accustomed to taking certain actions at certain times. Over time, these actions become more and more natural to you, and so it becomes easier to avoid the stress of a disorganized life.

Making deliberate choices that bring you closer to your goals won’t result in a stressful life. You’ll be more relaxed, happier, and, as we’re about to see, healthier.

You'll be Healthier

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Think the results of a deliberate life only extend to material success? Think again—your health stands to benefit, as well.

This is one area where it’s vital to take full responsibility for your own choices. Don’t leave your health up to chance by just grabbing whatever food is closest or tastiest—doing so is a recipe for illness and early death.

When you make good choices at each meal, you contribute to good health—something that is far more valuable than all the riches in the world. You’ll feel better, think more clearly, and simply have more time in your life to reach your goals.

This takes planning, focus, and discipline, but that’s what your statement of purpose is for. Making one regarding your health—including diet, exercise, and grooming—will keep you on track. And as we’ve covered, if you do this for long enough, it becomes habit.

Live deliberately, and you can have the body and brain you’ve always wanted. Start now.

You'll Have More Free Time

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Want to know one of the most well-loved benefits of living a deliberate life?

You’ll have way more leisure time.

That’s right—by working a little harder at taking responsibility for your life by planning out your days, you’ll actually end up with a lot more free time.

This comes down to organization. If you put off or forget vital tasks until the last moment at work, you stay at work longer. If you fail to do a little work each day on your leaky roof, you’ll end up with more damage that you’ll spend all weekend fixing.

Get the idea yet?

Planning, decision-making and organization help us to conquer our tasks in a timely manner, where others end up flailing madly at the last minute, wasting their precious time.

Remember—you only have one life. Plan to deliberately power through the unpleasant tasks so that you can enjoy the rest of your time to the fullest.

You'll Achieve Your Goals

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Finally, we come to the greatest benefit of all: taking responsibility for your life will help you, in the end, to achieve your goals.

This is why your statement of purpose should be absolutely bold. Set your goals high, and the worst that can happen is that you achieve something a little less.

But remember this—if you make decisions each day that deliberately bring you closer to your goals, you will achieve some form of success. Keep that purpose in mind. Use it to focus your entire life, to shape your every decision, and to keep you always moving forward.

It’s this constant forward motion that will separate your purposeful life from the lives of those who simply drift.

Few find greatness on accident. The greatest achievements in history have been the result of what often amounts to a lifetime of deliberately forward motion.

Keep yourself moving forward, and you’ll achieve your goals.