It's easy to blame your troubles on such influences as the weather, the government, the economy, the media or the culture. Yet it can be exceedingly difficult to do anything about those things.

Instead, step up and accept responsibility for all the factors that affect your life. When you take responsibility, what you get is control.

Even if you didn't create the situation, look first to yourself to create a positive and successful response to it. Even if the challenges you face are not your fault, begin to treat them as your responsibility and you will begin to have control over them.

See your future not as the inevitable result of your past. Visualize your future as the best, most positive, most valuable, most creative response to your present possibilities.

Your future can be so much more than a mere extrapolation of your past. Take responsibility, and your future will express the best of who you are.