Blaming Others Helps No One

Blaming others is the easy route.

Blaming others does not make the team better.

Blaming others skips the part where you look at what you can learn about yourself.

At the time of writing, I’m coming off a very intense game of pickup basketball through the Brodie League.

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A post shared by @ezrawithacamera

(Picture taken at the Brodie League, it’s very serious and intense)

The game was the semi-finals. If we win, we go to the championship. If we lose, our season is over.

At one point during the game, we were down by 10 points. Our season was about to end with a loss.

We were in a timeout, and a handful of teammates were in an argument about why we were in this position. The conversation quickly went from constructive criticism to blaming each other for our individual performances.

I watched morale go from a glimmer of hope to hostile.

Nearly every player on my team is a better basketball player than me, so taking the game into my hands was out of the question.

When we stepped back on the court, I went to every teammate and said “I’m going to outhustle everyone on this court, we’re still in this.”

I can’t change the scenario we’re in, but I can control how I react to it. There’s still time left on the clock, so let’s do everything we can to reach our common goal of winning.

Through a combination of defensive hustle that led to steals and a fury of three-pointers on our end, we pulled off a one-point win, and we play in the championship next week.

I can’t stress the importance of keeping a positive mindset. Your decisions should be based on information, not emotions.

This may be a story about basketball, but the same goes for your work, your romantic & platonic relationships… everything.

Please, don’t blame others for a scenario - think about what you could do better to resolve the scenario.