There is no shortage of the horrible things that we have all had to endure while the world moves on, unmoved by our troubles, discomforts and tribulations. It can be a very cold place. That said; nothing happens without cause – this is the immutable law of action-reaction. Our troubles are caused by something or someone: 

There is the mean boss who simply cannot stop micro-managing us, the colleagues who simply will not rest until they sabotage every single one of our projects, the spouse who has no idea what love, friendship, compromise, support and collaboration mean in any language. 

Let us not overlook the noisy neighbour next door, the government’s inefficiencies… It is their fault – all of them. They are responsible for our undue suffering.

Look at some point – hopefully sooner rather than later for you and all concerned, you get to understand that the choice to become a victim of circumstances is a personal one, no matter how many people make this unfortunate choice. The only person that you have full control over is you. 

Other people however close to you have this same power within themselves. This is the reason why making others do things that they do not personally want proves difficult. 

It is the very reason why change is an uphill task – everyone exercises their right to self-management or not. Repeat after me; "This is called independence”.

The truth is that the massive and irreparable damage that we can do to our personal and professional lives by perennially blaming others is immense. 

What all the real or perceived people, things, places and situations do to supposedly sabotage our forward movement are simply the punctuation marks of the self-defeating statements that we make in every situation where we see it fit to give up our power to an obstacle. 

If it is the only thing we do, we must grow to a healthy level of self-awareness. This is when we take a candid and sometimes painful audit of our abilities as individuals.

I urge you to compare your abilities to the requirements of what it takes to achieve success – whatever success means to you. This is an independent exercise. 

That means looking at how to fill the gaps in your shortcomings, not blaming others for the reduced success caused by the said shortcomings. You owe this to yourself. Yes, the world can be a big, unfair place. That notwithstanding, we must each strive to arrive at the focal point of living. 

The point at which we seek more to understand what value the world requires us to add to it before it is appeased enough to add value to our lives in equal measure. We must purpose to come to terms with the world doesn’t owe you and I any favours. It just is. 

We can choose to view it as unfair, or seize the opportunities that it presents to us and proceed to create abundance out of them.

We are not only made to inherently desire advancement, we come in-built with the ability to create it. 

Our capacity to apply ourselves to create advancement to the intensity of our desire is our personal power. There is no road to advancement that does not involve a lot of heavy-lifting.

Like any skill or ability, we’ve got to develop an in-depth understanding of exactly what personal power is, and exploit its fullest potential. In my experience, it is the progressive people who are willing and ready to put in the work required. 

Personal power is to be approached as an inner knowing to be enhanced rather than a problem to fix. If you’ve already done this, you are in great wins in quick succession. The feeling never goes away. 

It is the reason why you will not settle for less. If you do not have it, do invest in some help to develop it. I guarantee that you’ll be glad you did.

The writer is an expert on attitude and human potential.