“No one is coming to save me; no one is coming to make life right for me; no one is coming to solve my problems. If I don't do something, nothing is going to get better.”

Why it was said

Nathaniel Branden writes this in The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem (1994), in his chapter on the practice of self-responsibility, the third pillar. Drawing on his work as a psychotherapist, he describes the moment a client grasps that no one is coming as one of the most important in therapy, and puts the realisation in the client's own voice.

What it actually means

The passage names a hope many adults keep without saying it: that a partner, a boss, a parent or a lucky break will one day put things right. While that hope lasts, waiting can feel reasonable. Branden's point is that self-esteem cannot grow on it, because confidence in yourself comes from evidence that your own actions change things. Accepting that no rescuer is on the way is painful for a moment and then freeing, since attention moves to what is within reach. Self-responsibility in his sense is not self-blame, and it is not refusing help; asking for help is itself an action. Branden was a central figure in the self-esteem movement, and later research has found self-esteem's causal effects to be weaker than that movement claimed, but the link he draws between owning one's choices and feeling capable is widely shared.

How to use it

1. 1Write down one situation you have been waiting for someone else to fix, and next to it the smallest step you could take yourself this week.
2. 2When you catch yourself saying "if only they would...", finish a second sentence that begins "What I can do is...".