Never blame others
Blaming others is easy1. There is a pull to do this.
But once the blame is passed on, what exactly does it do to solve the problem at hand?
Fault-finding missions have unkind impacts on you and others. Rather than empower, they drain. Rather than help us focus on responsibility, they shift the focus on finding who to blame.
In most cases, no one is entirely to blame for anything. And unlike blame, responsibility works differently. Instead of being a large pie that can be distributed like slices of pizza, responsibility are like smaller boxes of pies - each with an owner.
We take 100% responsibility. It's not shared. The number of pies we take responsibility for may be more than one. Others may have similar pies as us. But we can't pass those small boxes in our custody to someone else.
And if the responsibility isn't truly ours to take? Nudge the person who should. Not by blaming them, but reminding them of what pie is theirs and what pie is yours.
When dealing with yourself, it’s kind to remember that you don’t need blame to take responsibility.