It’s not your fault

In his book, not so subtly titled, “The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck,” author, Mark Manson spends some time talking about how to handle circumstances in your life that are “not your fault.” It’s a helpful conversation because responding poorly to things that happen and you didn’t cause, have significant negative outcomes. Bitterness, anger, and even worse, I think, inaction. Stagnation.

Leading design teams for a number of years in corporate settings with many moving parts, I inevitably had to have this conversation with teammates as well as myself. How do we handle circumstances, decisions, etc., that I didn’t do, cause, agree with, or want to happen?

Mason gives this helpful line.

“It’s not your fault, but it is your responsibility.”

The ability to decide what to do next, what I can control, and then do it, is the superpower in our work and in life. Nothing that happened before is your responsibility, but everything that happens next is.

An amazing amount of growth, life-changing growth in fact, can happen in these moment un-like any other.

In brand building, these are Identity defining moment for brands and organizations. I always want to dig into circumstances and events that have happened in the life of a company or organization (even if painful) to help guide action and brand definition into the future. 

Blaming or ignoring is a death blow. Instead, confront, understand, and act. There is tremendous forward momentum and opportunity in these moments.

It’s not your fault. No. But it is your responsibility.