When we last left Sarah, she had faced off against Jareth, the Goblin King, and had learned a lesson about fairness while having time taken away. Sarah will have to learn a few more things before she meets Jareth for the final time.

4. Don’t keep moving in the wrong direction just because it’s the way you’re pointing. Deep in the labyrinth, Sarah comes to a set of doors that she must solve a puzzle to get through. She solves the puzzle correctly, but after she goes through the door, a trap opens up and drops her down a shaft lined with hands.

Sarah: Help! Stop it! Help!
Helping Hand: What do you mean “help”? We *are* helping.
Different Helping Hand: We’re Helping Hands.
Sarah: You’re hurting!
Helping Hand: Would you like us to let go? Heh-heh…
[They loosen their grip, Sarah starts to slide downward]
Sarah: No!
[They catch hold of her again]
Helping Hand: Well then, come on, which way?
Sarah: Which way?
Helping Hand: Up, or down?
Sarah: Oh…
Helping Hand: Come on, come on.
Different Helping Hand: We haven’t got all day.
Different Helping Hand: Well, it’s a big decision for her.
Different Helping Hand: Which way do you want to go, hm?
Sarah: Oh.
Helping Hand: Yes, which way?
Sarah: Well… since I’m pointed that way, I guess I’ll go down.
Helping Hand: She chose DOOOOOWN!
Different Helping Hand: She chose *down*? Heh!
[they let go]
Sarah: Was that wrong?
Helping Hand: Too late now!

As it turns out, at the bottom of the shaft is the oubliette (where you put people to forget about them.) This is most definitely not the right way. Of course, if Sarah had been thinking, she would have asked to go up – after all, any time a booby trap opens up, you’re probably on the right path.

In my own life, I continued down the wrong path with regards to my career. Seven years ago, I got a position in the insurance industry. Over the next seven years, I switched companies, earned designations and awards, but didn’t get any happier. Every move I made deeper into the industry, was because it was the way I was pointing. I thought it was the right decision because going back looked harder than going forward. Finally, I admitted my mistake, but it took a layoff to seal the deal.

I know I’m not the only one who has continued with a career or a project because it seems like the right choice even though there is a little voice deep inside that tells us it is very much the wrong choice. Heed the lesson from Sarah and me – personal responsibility means taking the right trail, even if it’s not the way you happen to be pointing.

5. Fantasies only last so long before we must come back to reality. When the movie opens, we see Sarah rehearsing a play version of the labyrinth adventure she is to undergo later that night. She’s alone in a field, except for her dog. Later, her stepmother remarks that she doesn’t have dates, and when we see her in her room, she has toys covering almost every surface. It’s clear that Sarah is a teenager, yet doesn’t want to grow up.

As she travels through the labyrinth, Sarah is confronted with all her fantasy beliefs and shown, one by one, that they aren’t how things work in the “real world,” that is, any world outside her head, no matter how fantastical that world actually is. By the end of the movie, Sarah’s attitude matches her age and we can see that she has in fact, grown up. She still has the fantasy to play with now and then, but it doesn’t rule her life.

A couple of weeks ago, I posted a series of posts about how we can examine our fantasies to help us clarify what we really want. But, there is always that danger of not leaving the fantasy, of letting it take over our life. As adults, this happens rarely, but I know it can happen. There are times when I’ve been working on a piece of fiction writing and it takes over almost all my waking thoughts. My mind goes crazy with ideas, and you will see me spend hours jotting them down in a notebook. The crafting of fiction is very similar to playing out an elaborate daydream in your head. Fortunately, I don’t need to rescue my younger brother to snap me out of the writing fantasy, but the principle is still the same.

It’s very tempting to be constantly thinking about what we could do to reach our goals. Making goals, setting plans, and then not following through is very common. However, to reach those goals we have to take responsibility for taking action and not just planning action.

6. In the end it’s the belief in yourself and your power that wins out. Once Sarah has solved the labyrinth and made it to the castle, she still must face down Jareth to get her brother back. He offers her everything she could ever want, but she responds:

Through dangers untold and hardships unnumbered, I have fought my way here to the castle beyond the Goblin City to take back the child that you have stolen. For my will is as strong as yours and my kingdom as great. You have no power over me.

And he doesn’t anymore. She has defeated her final enemy in the labyrinth, and at the same time, has defeated her fears of change and growing up. This is an important moment for Sarah as she realizes that she isn’t just repeating a line from a play, but she is telling the truth about her life. You can hear it as her voice changes, like she is surprised: You have no power over me.

This is a very powerful moment when it happens to us as well. Whenever we work to change, we face fear. By healing a hurt, losing weight, establishing a new habit, or make another change we overcome that fear. Realizing the fear no longer has any power over us is a life changing moment.

Personal responsibility is sometimes easy, and sometimes difficult. I know that for me when it comes to self improvement projects, I often find that taking responsibility is very hard. There is a lot of fear to overcome and a strong need to continue what has been working, at least a little bit. However, taking that responsibility moves me closer to my dreams, and farther away from those activities that don’t make me happy. I encourage you to undergo your own journey of self discovery, although a labyrinth with goblins and facing down a powerful Goblin King isn’t necessary to do so. (Might be a lot of fun, though!)

If you have stories of your own “A Ha!” moments, please share them below. Or, if you have any comments or thoughts to add to the discussion, I would love to hear them as well.

Self improvement starts with personal responsibility. No one else is going to change us for us; we have to be the ones to change ourselves. When Sarah enters the labyrinth, her attitude is very much one of entitlement. She believes the real world should leave her alone to live in her fantasy world. She is in for a rude awakening when she has to rescue her baby brother, Toby.

1. You have to be take responsibility for your own actions. Sarah was at fault for her brother being kidnapped by the Goblin King. She took responsibility for that, but only after trying to convince the Goblin King that he had misunderstood her. Once she was resolved to navigating the labyrinth, she headed down to the gates. However, she hadn’t shed her tendency to blame others yet.

When Sarah first approached the gates to the labyrinth, she met Hoggle. She asked him if he knew how to get into the labyrinth.

He gave her evasive answers until she said in frustration, “Well, it’s no good asking you anything.”
He replied, “Not if you ask the right questions.”
She thought for a moment and asked, “How do I get into the labyrinth?”

With this, Hoggle showed her the gates. Sarah realized she was asking him to give her the answer, and expecting he would help her just because she deserved it. It was when she took responsibility for needing to enter, that he agreed to show her how.

So many times we do the same thing. We will expect someone else to do for us what we should really do ourselves. Rightfully so, they don’t always do what we want them to do. At the same time, we blame other people for not giving us the answer we want, declaring that the problem is with them, rather than realizing that the problem is with us.

I know I’m guilty of this, especially when it comes to exercise. It’s easy to make excuses: I don’t have anyone to exercise with or I agreed to exercise with someone, but they bowed out or I can’t afford a personal trainer. However, the truth is that I’m the one who needs to exercise, and it’s not someone else’s responsibility to get me to do so.

As Sarah learned, it wasn’t the Goblin King’s or Hoggle’s fault that she needed to navigate the labyrinth. She expected that things would go her way simply because she wanted them to. However, life doesn’t work that way. We have to take responsibility for getting things done, not just expect them to because we want it. When we take responsibility for our actions and not blame others, we will get much farther in life.

2. You can’t take things for granted. Several times throughout the movie, Sarah is reminded that she can’t take anything for granted. She believes that the labyrinth is dark and dank because it appears so on the surface. She takes for granted that the creatures she meets will be evil, like the Goblin King. However, things aren’t always as they seem. For instance, Ludo is big and scary, but he becomes a friend.

She thinks the labyrinth just goes on and on without any openings. However, a friendly worm tells her, “The labyrinth is full of them. It’s just you ain’t looking right.”

She hits a dead end and turns around to retrace her steps and finds someone changed her marks. Then, the dead end (that was behind her) switches and now the dead end is where there was empty path before. Things move all the time in the labyrinth, and not all creatures are scary. She can’t take anything for granted.

We do the same in real life. We take for granted that we will always have our job, even if we don’t like it. We take for granted that we will have the weekend free to do housework. Then we get released from our position, or the car breaks down and spends the weekend in the shop. We make plans and a friend goes into the hospital and we need to be there for them. We can’t just take it for granted that things are going to go the way we want them too, or that it seems like they should. We need to keep an open mind.

Life gives us surprises, just as the labyrinth gave Sarah lots of surprises. Once she was willing to be more open minded, things went much smoother, just as it does for us when we are open to possibilities.

3. Life isn’t always “fair”. Sarah has a big problem with thinking things should be easy and fair. She yells at her stepmother for making her babysit Toby because it’s not fair that she has to babysit “every weekend.” She marks her way in the labyrinth, then gets all bent out of shape when someone changes those marks. Finally, she has a confrontation with Jareth, the Goblin King, and he takes several hours away from her time to make it through.

She yells, “It’s not fair!”
He responds (with one of my favorite lines from the movie), “You say that so often. I wonder what your basis for comparison is?”

The truth is, that life isn’t fair. Rarely do things go the way we think they should. Others get promotions that we “should” have gotten. We have to clean the house more often than our spouse. Kids are always sure that someone got a bigger piece of candy than they did. Whether these things are true or not, life isn’t fair.

When we are kids, our parents teach us to be nice, to share, and to treat everyone equally. Fairness is a great ideal, but like any ideal, doesn’t work out all the time. And, like Sarah, we really don’t have a perfectly fair life to use as a basis for comparison when something goes wrong.

Really, it wasn’t fair that the goblins changed her marks, or that Jareth took away time. However, as she finally realizes, “No, it isn’t [fair], but that’s the way it is.”

When Sarah makes that statement, she has made one of the important changes she makes throughout her adventures. She has stepped up and taken responsibility for her actions and is no longer blaming someone, even if that someone is the world. In the same way, we must take responsibility and stop blaming others for not taking action on changing ourselves. Self improvement isn’t easy, but it doesn’t get any easier if we delay.

Tomorrow, I will present 3 more lessons on personal responsibility that I pulled from the movie. In the meantime, I encourage you to leave me your thougths below in the comments.