Leadership Coach Explains Why People Who Assume Everything Is Their Fault Are Often The Most Psychologically Healthy
It would be easy to think the opposite is true, but assuming everything is your fault can be a really good thing.
PeopleImages.com - Yuri A | Shutterstock Do you walk around carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders? Sure, thinking everything is your fault sounds like it would be a bad thing, right? How could it possibly be healthy to assume that much responsibility? It's like you're riddled with guilt all the time!
Turns out, feeling like everything is always your fault might not be such a bad thing. Yeah, you heard that right! According to leadership coach Olesya Luraschi, all that self-blame might actually mean you're psychologically healthy.
A leadership coach said people doing the best psychologically think everything is their fault.
“I asked one of the most mentally well people I know what their secret is, and you won’t believe what they told me,” Luraschi said. “Their answer was, ‘I just assume everything is my fault.’” This may sound counterintuitive, but Luraschi argued it was psychologically sound.
“And this is not the way that most of us would think because we think assuming that everything is our fault … is not a good way to live,” she said, understandably. “But psychologically speaking, when it comes to, like, psychological research, this stands up because we … know that having an internal locus of control, which means that you think that you have a lot of agency and control on the world, is one of the biggest determinants of success and of mental well-being.”
The key is that thinking everything is your fault also means that you bear responsibility for fixing everything.
“And so if you think everything is your fault, then in many ways that actually is psychologically very healthy because if everything is your fault, you’re actually able to provide the solution for everything as well,” she continued.
“You’re able to have an impact on everything,” she stated. “And obviously, this is sort of an extreme way of thinking, but I think just running the world through this filter can be so helpful because essentially what you’re doing is you’re asking yourself, ‘What control do I have in this situation?’”
“It’s against shifting the focus to yourself,” she described, “and shifting the focus to what agency you have in the world. So it’s kind of this concept of, like, extreme ownership, if you’ve heard about it before.”
While thinking everything is your fault can be helpful, it does come with drawbacks.
“If you’re hoping to change the way that you think and have more success in your life, adopting this mental filter — ‘How is it my fault?’ — can really help,” Luraschi revealed. However, she clarified that this doesn’t mean you should think badly of yourself.
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“At the same time, I just wanna caveat this by making sure that you don’t use this as a way to judge yourself or to put yourself down,” she insisted. “So it’s not meant to do that. It’s meant to inspire you and to, um, make you feel very in control. So hopefully, that distinction helps.” It was good for Luraschi to include this disclaimer, as many people would easily take it as permission to blame themselves for everything bad that has happened.
Extreme ownership is a popular concept in the world of psychology.
Extreme ownership has become very popular due in part to the book "Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win," written by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin. Willink spoke with infrastructure software company BuildWitt’s CEO Aaron Witt and President Dan Briscoe about the topic of extreme ownership.
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They said, “According to Jocko, extreme ownership means ‘that you’re not going to blame anyone else or anything else when something goes wrong. You’re going to take ownership of that problem, and you’re gonna get it solved.’”
This follows what Luraschi said. Extreme ownership is all about taking responsibility so that you can begin a resolution. Put it into perspective. You have a dinner party planned, and a day before the event, you go grocery shopping. Lo and behold they don't have your favorite cheese that they always carry. Is it your fault? Not really, but frame it like it is. What's the resolution? Next time you are planning to have a dinner party, shop earlier than the last minute and have a backup plan if the item you want isn't available. Sure, it's a rudimentary example, but you get the drift.
While this is “an extreme way of thinking,” as Luraschi said, it might just be the missing link that will help your mental well-being the most.
Mary-Faith Martinez is a writer with a bachelor’s degree in English and Journalism who covers news, psychology, lifestyle, and human interest topics.