22. The Hardest Person to Confront Is Often Ourselves

What if the person responsible for most of your problems is… you?

In this episode of The Epiphany Effect, we unpack Theodore Roosevelt’s quote about ownership, self-awareness, and the uncomfortable truth that our habits often create the outcomes we experience. Through personal stories about productivity, sustainable habits, and personal growth, this episode explores how taking ownership can lead to better leadership, healthier routines, and meaningful change.

If you’re tired of feeling stuck or starting over, this episode is for you.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:10

Hey everyone, welcome back to the Epiphany Effect. I'm your host, Ash. This is the podcast where we explore how the words of the wise can spark insights and inspire meaningful action in our lives. Have you ever noticed how easy it is to diagnose everyone else's problems? We can see our coworkers' bad habits from a mile away. We can quickly explain why our boss made the wrong decision. And we always know exactly what someone else should have done. But when it comes to looking in the mirror, suddenly the analysis gets a little quieter. There's a quote from Theodore Roosevelt that always makes me laugh, partly because it's funny and partly because it's painfully accurate. If you could kick the person in the pants responsible for most of your trouble, you wouldn't sit for a month. Now that is one of those quotes that feels both humorous and uncomfortably honest at the same time. Because if we're being truthful, a lot of our biggest frustrations, our stalled goals, our repeated mistakes often have one common factor, us. Today's episode is about a powerful idea that sits at the center of growth, leadership, and personal transformation. Ownership. Not blame, not shame, and definitely not beating ourselves up. But the courage to ask a simple question. What part of this situation belongs to me? And as we explore that idea, we're going to talk about three things. Why self-awareness is harder than it sounds, how our own habits quietly create many of our problems, and how taking ownership becomes the doorway to real change. Along the way, I'll share a few stories, some personal, some relatable, because if we're talking about owning our mistakes, I've got plenty of material. So let's dive in. Human beings are brilliant storytellers, but sometimes the stories we tell ourselves are a little convenient. When something goes wrong, our brains automatically begin assembling a narrative. Maybe it sounds like this, the project failed because leadership didn't support the idea. Or I would exercise if I just had more time. Or my personal favorite, I would definitely be more productive if people would just stop interrupting me. Now sometimes those things are true. But here's the uncomfortable reality. We are experts at explaining why something wasn't our fault. Psychologists call this the self-serving bias. When things go well, we credit our skills. When things go poorly, we credit the circumstances. Success becomes me. Failure becomes everything else. And that's why Roosevelt's quote lands so well. It cuts right through that habit. Because when we're honest, the biggest obstacles in our lives is often not external. They're internal. Our hesitation, our fear, our assumption, our procrastination, our unwillingness to have the difficult conversation. And here's the irony: the same thing that causes many of our problems, our own behavior, is also the one thing we have the most power to change. But first, we have to see it. I had one of those days not too long ago where I ended up feeling completely drained, but also a little confused because I was busy all day. From the moment I sat down, it felt like I never stopped moving. Emails, messages, quick check-ins, bouncing between tasks, just constant motion. And by the end of the day, I had that familiar thought. I worked hard today. So why does it feel like nothing actually moved forward? Have you ever had one of those days where you're exhausted, but if someone asked you, what did you actually finish? You'd need a minute, or maybe five. Or just change the subject entirely, which, let's be honest, is also a strategy. So that night I did something a little uncomfortable. I decided to mentally replay my day. Not the highlight version, the honest version. And that's when things got interesting. Because scattered throughout my very busy day were these tiny little moments. Moments that really didn't seem like a big deal at the time. Checking my phone real quick, opening my email just in case something important came in, clicking on one message, which led to another, which led to me reorganizing my inbox like I was about to win an award for it. At one point, I'm pretty sure I opened my phone to check the time, and somehow ended up five minutes deep into something that had absolutely nothing to do with the time. And here's the thing: none of those moments felt significant. Individually, they were small, harmless, almost invisible, but when added up, they told an entirely different story. It wasn't that I didn't have time to do meaningful work, it was that my attention was being chipped away little by little, all day long. And that's when the realization hit me. The problem wasn't just my workload. The problem was how I was working within it. Now, I wish I could tell you that I handled that realization with immediate grace and maturity. Like I stood up, nodded thoughtfully, and said, ah yes, I see the issue. Time to make a disciplined change. But the truth is, my first reaction was more like, okay, but emails are important. And well, what if something urgent comes through? And my personal favorite, I mean, everyone checks their phone. It's amazing how quickly we can defend habits that we didn't even realize we had five minutes earlier. But once I saw it, I couldn't unsee it. That constant switching, that low-level distraction, that illusion of productivity. I wasn't just reacting to my day. I was unintentionally designing it that way. And that's the uncomfortable part of ownership, right? It's not always about a big mistake. Sometimes it's about small, repeated choices that quietly create outcomes we don't love. And the tricky part, from the outside, it looked like I was doing all the right things. I was responsive, I was engaged, I was busy. But being busy and being effective are not always the same thing. That was a humbling realization. But also a really empowering one. Because once I saw where the time was actually going, I realized something important. If I was the one creating those patterns, I could also be the one to change them. Self-awareness is one of the most valuable skills we can develop. But it's also one of the hardest, because it requires something most of us aren't naturally good at. Looking at ourselves objectively. Imagine if we narrated our own lives the same way we analyze someone else's behavior. Cue the movie. We see the hero or heroine say something, and the narrator comes in with a brutally honest perspective. The actor says, I work better under pressure. Cue the narrator. They don't. They just wait longer to feel stressed. The actor says, I don't have time to get organized. The narrator chimes in with, they've spent 45 minutes looking for their keys today. Which is probably why my husband put one of those key hook things up for us by the back door. But this is where growth begins. Not in perfection, but in curiosity. Ownership doesn't mean we blame ourselves for everything. It means we ask better questions. What could I have done differently? Where did my assumptions lead me wrong? And what pattern keeps repeating? Those questions are powerful because they move us from reaction to reflection. And reflection creates the space where real change can happen. For a long time, I've had a habit that causes me a lot of stress. Saying yes to almost everything. Projects, meetings, requests, opportunities. If someone needed help, I was usually one of the first to volunteer. I love helping people. Which sounds great until my calendar starts looking like a game of Tetris that's about to collapse. Color coding and all. For the longest time, I blamed the workload or chalked it up to the season of life that I was in. But eventually, I had to face the difficult truth. I was being my own worst enemy. The problem wasn't that people kept asking. The problem was that I kept saying yes. And once I acknowledged that pattern, something shifted. Because suddenly the solution was no longer outside my control. It was a decision. Here's the remarkable thing about ownership. At first, it feels uncomfortable. But if you stick with it, it becomes empowering. When we stop blaming everything around us, we claim something incredibly valuable: autonomy. Think about the difference between these two mindsets. Nothing will change unless other people fix it. Versus, there are things I can change starting today. One mindset feels stuck, the other creates movement. And that's why some of the most effective leaders share a common habit. They ask themselves one simple question. What could I do differently? Not because everything is their fault, but because focusing on what you control is far more productive than obsessing over what you don't. Roosevelt's quote isn't about self-criticism. It's about self-honesty. It's a reminder that growth begins when we stop defending our behavior and start examining it. And when we do that consistently, something powerful happens. We become more adaptable, more resilient, more capable of learning. In other words, we become the kind of people who don't repeat the same mistakes over and over. And maybe that's the real gem hidden in Roosevelt's quote. The person responsible for most of our problems is also the person capable of solving them. I came across an idea recently that stopped me in my tracks. It said something along the lines of, we tend to build habits based on what we can do on our best days, when we should actually be building habits based on what we can do on our worst days. And I remember reading that and thinking, well, that feels a little too accurate. Because when I look back at the habits I've tried to build, especially around health, they've almost always been built with my best day version in mind. You know that version of you, right? The one that wakes up energized, has the perfect day planned, motivation is high, time feels abundant. That version of me has created some really ambitious plans. We're going to work out five days a week. We're going to meal prep everything. We're going to be completely disciplined starting tomorrow. Best day me is really impressive. Best day me is also not always in charge. Because real life doesn't consistently operate at best day levels. There are long days, unexpected schedule changes, low energy, sick kids, just life. And what I started to notice was a pattern. I would build these great routines and then break them. Not because I didn't care, not because I wasn't capable, but because the habits I created required a version of me that didn't show up every day. And for a while, I told myself the usual things. I just need to be more disciplined. I need to try harder. I need to be more consistent. But after reading that idea, I had to pause and ask a different question. What if the problem isn't my discipline? What if it's my design? That question changed everything because it shifted the focus from trying to become a completely different person to building something that actually fits my real life. So instead of asking, what's the ideal routine? I started asking, what could I realistically do on my worst day? Not my best day, not my most motivated day, my worst day. The day where I'm tired, short on time, mentally checked out. What will still count? And the answers were much smaller than I was used to. Not a full workout. Maybe just moving my body for a few minutes. Not a perfectly planned meal. Just making one slightly better choice. Not the all-or-nothing mindset. Just something. And I'll be honest, at first it felt almost too small to matter. Like, is this even going to make a difference? But here's what I started to realize. Consistency doesn't come from doing big things occasionally. It comes from doing small things repeatedly, especially on the days you don't feel like it. Something interesting happened when I lowered the barrier. I stopped starting over. You know that cycle where you're on track, then something disrupts that routine, and suddenly you feel like you have to restart from scratch. That started happening less. Because now there was always a version of the habit I could still follow, even on my worst days. That's where the shift really happened. I stopped measuring success by how perfectly I executed the plan, and started measuring success by whether I showed up at all. And over time, those small moments started to build. Not dramatically, not overnight, but steadily, and more importantly, sustainably. That's the power of ownership. It's not just recognizing where we've been getting in our own way, it's choosing to adjust, to redesign, to meet ourselves where we actually are instead of where we wish we always were. Because when we do that, change stops feeling like something we have to force, and it starts becoming something we can actually maintain. So, how do we practice ownership in everyday life? Here are three simple habits. One, ask the ownership question. When something goes wrong, ask, what part of this situation belongs to me? Even a small insight can unlock change. Two, look for patterns. One mistake is random. The same mistake three times, that's a pattern worth exploring. Three, choose progress over perfection. Ownership isn't about beating yourself up. It's about improving one step at a time. Let's come back to Roosevelt's quote. If you could kick the person in the pants most responsible for your trouble, you wouldn't sit for a month. It's funny, but it's also deeply insightful. Because every once in a while we all need a moment of honest reflection. Not to criticize ourselves, but to grow, to learn, and to recognize that the most powerful changes in our lives begin with a simple realization. The person with the greatest ability to improve our situation is staring back at us in the mirror. And the good news? That means the power to move forward has been there all along. Thanks for listening to the Epiphany effect. If today's episode sparked an epiphany for you, share it with someone who might appreciate the conversation. Because sometimes the most powerful epiphanies begin with a simple moment of honesty. And sometimes they begin with a quote that makes us laugh first. Until next time.