Say No To The Victim Mentality

Say NO!

How do you react if your day doesn't go the way you planned? At first you might feel pain, but after your initial feelings, do you think of yourself as a victim with little or no control or power? You might slip back into a headspace where you feel sorry for yourself and it feels like the whole world is against you. Many people get stuck in this mentality from time to time. Here are a few things that may help you move out of this mindset:


See the benefits of the victim mentality

The victim mentality is addictive and can be pretty beneficial in the short term and for instant gratification. A few benefits are:

• Attention and validation - You can always get good feelings from other people as they are concerned about you and try to help you out
• You don't have to take risks. When you feel like a victim you tend to not take action and so you don't have to risk rejection or failure
• You don't have to take the heavy responsibility. Taking responsibility for your own life can be hard work, you have to make difficult decisions and it is just tough from time to time. In the short term it can feel like the easier choice to not take personal responsibility
• It makes you feel like you are right. When you feel like the victim and like someone else is wrong and you are right then that can lead to pleasurable feelings

By being aware of the benefits you can derive from victim thinking, it becomes easier to say no and to choose to take a different path.

See the long term consequences of the victim mentality

• How will it hold you back from achieving the goals you deep down dream about in life?
• How will it affect your most important relationships?
• How does it affect your relationship with yourself?

Be honest with yourself and get motivation to change by seeing how destructively this will affect your life over the next year or even 3 to 5 years from now.

Replace the victim mentality with something more helpful

Gratitude - It is healthy to recognise and accept the initial pain when something goes wrong in life and to not just paint a fake smile on your face. However, after that initial pain is gone you don't have to create more suffering for yourself. Instead, you can tap into gratitude and ask yourself: "Does someone in this world have it worse than me?" and then take a few minutes to think about the small and bigger things you have in my life that you can be grateful for.

Learning and taking action - After tapping into a more grateful frame of mind, you will be more open to getting a good answer out of this next question: “What is one good thing about this situation?” or “What is one thing you can learn from this situation?” You can then follow it up with: “What is one small step you can take to move forward or out of this situation today?” By asking these question and taking some small steps forward over and over in these situations you will build confidence in yourself and while you cannot control everything in life you can build more and more power and influence over your own life and achieve your goals!

Source: Cohen's Lifestyle Clinic