The Cause And Effect Equation

The Cause and Effect Equation – which side are you on?

By Paul Walmsley

When you got up this morning did you decide to be living on the cause or effect side of the Cause and Effect equation?

You may be asking “What is the cause and effect equation?”  To me it is all about taking responsibility for our own life. To expand on what I mean let’s use the following example:

You woke up this morning feeling totally exhausted from working so many hours over the last six months for your employer.

If you are on the effect side of the equation, then you see yourself as powerless to change the situation and are passing the responsibility of fixing this problem to somebody or something else. You’re in victim mode, a victim of self-imposed circumstances.

However, if you are on the cause side of the equation, you acknowledge you are the one responsible for causing the problem and also responsible for taking action to resolve it. Put simply being on the cause side means you recognise you are responsible for creating what you want out of your life. You see the world as full of opportunities rather than obstacles and you work towards the life that you want.

The truth is we are where we are in life because of the choices we have made so far, whether consciously or unconsciously. This is a hard concept to grasp because we don’t like to admit that taking responsibility for all aspects of our life is scary and can seem overwhelming.

However, realising that we are able to respond to situations and cause alternative effects or outcomes is inherently powerful.