"Seek not good from without; seek it within yourselves, or you will never find it" - Epictetus When something goes right, we're relatively quick to point to the actions we took to get there. But when something goes wrong, we may find ourselves doing the "opposite". In comes the "blame game", where we use external events as excuses. A core tenant of mental toughness is responsibility. To accept that we played a role. But the purpose of that step, taking responsibility, is not to make ourselves feel bad, or worse, throw a pity party. The purpose is that is gives us options. When we take responsibility and look within, we now are in control. We can now focus on what we need to do to get into a better position. It opens our eyes to the path forward. If we do the opposite however, and blame the externals, we have "surrendered control". We won't have any say in the next steps, as the story we're telling ourselves is that outside events determine our path. Responsibility is a weapon. And it only comes from within.