You know that person in your life who blames everyone else? That’s what this blog post is all about. We’re going to explain the difference between being “at cause” versus “at effect”.
Here’s the easiest explanation. Being “at cause” means that you take responsibility for being THE cause of what happens in your life. Being “at effect” is the opposite. It means you think of everything that happens to you as THE effect of some other cause.
This comes from a wonderful model called Dilt’ Logical Levels. We’ve done an entire podcast on this model, and we published a YouTube video all about it here. But for simplicity, the very bottom of the Logical Levels model is called “environment”. A person is either “at cause” or “at effect”, and we always teach people to be at cause.
It’s far better to see yourself as the main driver of what happens to your life. The alternative is to have no control and believe that no matter what, other people dictate your life. Honestly that’s a totally crap way to live. Stop that.
But sometimes people misunderstand us. Perhaps they suffered for horrible verbal abuse in a relationship. Maybe they were assaulted, or the victim of some other crime. When they hear this model they say something like, “Are you saying it was my fault that I got assaulted?”
Of course not. When we tell people to be at cause, we’re talking about a belief around the present and the future. And we’re talking about an analog spectrum. Obviously you can’t control every single thing in your life versus being controlled in every single area. That would be like an on-off switch, and would represent something that is digital in nature.
We’re talking about analog. Think about shades of grey. You can’t control everything. You can’t guarantee you won’t be the victim of a horrible crime. But there is so much you CAN control, and this is stuff that has the power to make your life amazing, and reduce the risk of harm at the hands of others.
You should not blame yourself for every crappy thing that has ever happened to you. But you should take responsibility for most things, and build up your own knowledge, skills and other resources to drive the quality of life that you want.
Hypnotists - you need to understand this to do the best possible job of helping your clients. This is one of the core principles we teach in the Mike Mandel Hypnosis Academy
And for everyone else - we teach personal development to everyday people who do not want to become hypnotists. You’ll find our program to be highly enjoyable and immediately actionable. Check out the Personal Growth Membership here,