Ever get tired of trying to come up with the right thing to say in that frustrating interaction with your friend, spouse, co-worker, neighbor, or roommate? Wish someone else could figure out how to reply to that crazy email or phone message you received? Let the Relationship Ghostwriter take some of the pressure off by crafting your next response for you. (Click here to find out more about the Relationship Ghostwriter.)

The Ownership Challenge

Whenever you see the Ownership (get it?) sail by on the website,
you’ll know we’re talking about the Ownership Challenge! (Just
like you know which menu items are spicy because of a chili
pepper drawing? Sure, if that helps you!)
Ownership means taking personal responsibility for your choices.  Taking personal responsibility for your choices is the best way to empower yourself to achieve greater satisfaction and contentment in life.  Taking personal responsibility for each choice you make enables you to control your own happiness.  That is the crux of the Ownership Challenge.

The Ownership Challenge is different from most of the self-help material out there.  Thousands upon thousands of books, websites, page-a-day calendars, television shows, and other forms of media focus on helping individuals adopt a “take ownership” approach to life’s big decisions—whether they call it “ownership” or something else, they encourage us to be ambitious, to get the job we want, the spouse we dream of, and the life we envision.  Americans take pride in being assertive, taking charge, setting big goals and going for our dreams.

The Ownership Challenge is different because it does not put the cart ahead of the horse.  It does not start on the big scale—learning to conquer the corporate world or discovering your inner diva in the next seven days.  It starts on the everyday scale—it starts with whatever choices you are making today, even those that may, at first, seem inconsequential to you.

So here’s the Ownership Challenge in a nutshell.  Make a habit—an all-day, everyday habit—to:

Step 1)  Notice the countless variety of choices available to you in response to any external situation; and

Step 2)  Notice your priorities and take personal responsibility for whatever choice you make based on those priorities.

We’ll talk about how to do this using an imagined scenario in a moment.  But, first, why try it at all?  Here’s the logic.

The Relationship Ghostwriter notices that it has a great
variety of choices when thinking about which animal friend
to spend time with this weekend.
You are happier if you feel you have the power to improve your circumstances when they are unsatisfactory.  The Ownership Challenge proposes that all of us have the power to do this—to choose from a variety of possible responses—in any given situation.  Our choices are governed by our internal preferences.  For example, if you prefer cats over dogs, you will most likely choose a cat when you adopt a pet.

As preferences (aka priorities) become less noticeable to us—as we become so used to a preference that we don’t analyze it—we often stop noticing the related choices as well.  Often we feel as though there is no choice anymore.  The Ownership Challenge insists that there is always a choice.  Our internal preferences may just give external pressures more influence over our choices.

So, if you prefer not to go to jail, you choose to let laws (external pressures) influence you—you choose to obey laws that are strictly enforced.  If you prefer to feel liked by everyone you meet, you choose to change your behavior based on what you perceive to be clues about how others judge you.  It is a choice because another person could choose to do it differently.

If you are able to notice your preferences, priorities, and choices, you can take personal responsibility for them.  You can say, “I don’t like that I have to drive 25mph on this road, but I’d rather do that than get a speeding ticket.”  You can say, “I hate taking an hour on my hair, but it is important to me that the women at this office party think I look beautiful.”  This is a major shift in your mental framework from anxious scenarios in which you have been done wrong, like, “This 25mph speed limit is bullshit,” and then, when an officer pulls you over, “This guy was out to get someone and I got screwed.”  Or, “If the women at my office weren’t so judgmental, maybe I wouldn’t be so insecure about my hair.”

When you notice your choices and take responsibility for them—when you are choosing not to speed, or to take longer getting ready—you are also in charge of changing the situation if it feels unsatisfactory.  Your unhappiness is not the police officer’s fault when you get pulled over or the women at the office’s fault for being judgmental.  They have their own priorities and responsibilities that you can’t control.  But you are not just the passive recipient of the consequences of their choices.


Think of the choices available to you as the hand of cards you've been dealt.  Not taking ownership is like choosing to play Old Maid with your life--the other players (external circumstances) get to select cards (choices) from your hand and you exert no power over which ones they happen to grab.  Taking ownership is like playing Hearts, or any other game in which you are able to consider your strategy and actively play whatever card best fits your gameplan.  Notice what "cards" you have, and strategize!

Instead, you will actively do your best to satisfy your priorities—your wants and needs—in the best way you know how to given any external situation.  If you are tired of feeling judged, you are empowered to take an honest look at your preference to feel liked by everyone you meet and ask yourself if you’d rather switch out that priority for another, such as feeling confident even when someone judges you negatively.  It may take a lot of introspective work, or even therapy.  But it is in your hands.  Taking your best shot at being satisfied, content, and happy is your personal responsibility—and who better to do the job right than you?

So that’s the gist of the Ownership Challenge.  Click here for a detailed walk-through of the Ownership Challenge in a real-life scenario.  Many more examples will arise throughout this blog.  The idea of “taking ownership” is not something that can be explained all at once—it requires a pretty significant shift in the way you frame the choices that arise throughout your day.  That said, the more you practice it, the more it will become second-nature and the less energy it will take.  Read the real-life examples and send in your questions and scenarios to get a better feel for it and see if it works for you.
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