If you’re Patrick Mahomes, maybe yesterday wasn’t your best day. Congratulations surely goes out to Tom Brady and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers for winning the Super Bowl, but the The Kansas City Chiefs did not have their best day on the field—not by a long shot. We’ve all had days (or weeks or months) like Mahomes had yesterday—if it could go wrong, it did go wrong. And it certainly wasn’t all his fault.

As Monday Morning Quarterbacks we could point to a multitude of things that resulted in the Chiefs losing and we’d probably be right. Even the coin toss was apparently foreshadowing that TB would win. Most people will point to Mahomes. But it’s too late now to change anything, now we are simply judging, pointing fingers, and piling up a lot of excuses, all of which are unhealthy and unhelpful. How can we learn from Mahomes and the Chiefs about things not going exactly as planned in our lives?

Every time we point our finger at something outside of us, we relinquish our power. We cannot make changes for someone else, we can only make changes for and within us. We can blame the left tackle if we want, but we aren’t playing that position. What can we change? What can we do better? What adjustment needs to be made by us? I’m not blaming Mahomes for the loss—not by a long shot. Everyone who played a role must own their piece of the loss. And for us, whatever we are struggling with, we need to completely own our piece, as well. It’s difficult and often uncomfortable, but if we want change and improvement, that is where all the power resides. It’s time to own it.

With Gratitude,

Beth