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In life, it is only natural to outsource blame. We rarely want to take responsibility for the misfortunes that befall us in life. It feels much better heaping the guilt on another shoulder, right?
You apply for a job, and you get a reply from the email address of the employer that you didn’t qualify for the position.
Do you, in those circumstances, look inward for what you didn’t do right when applying, or do you blame the employer for being discriminatory?
Society is crawling with individuals imprisoned in the victim mentality dungeon. Some of these individuals are remarkably gifted but lack room for expression because they feel they have been victims of circumstances.
They believe that fate has handicapped and there is so little they can do to turn the table around positively.
This category of individuals is commonly plagued with the “why me” mentality. They are quick to attribute blame for where they are in life to their poor education, growing up in a poor neighborhood, or even bad parentage. But is that really a worthy excuse?
To this, the answer is a loud NO! Society tends to propagate a false feeling of the autocracy of fate. But in truth, fate is one of the most malleable phenomena ever; you can shape your destiny to your specific taste.
Your life is exactly as you want it. Determined people write their stories – some of these stories with a bitter chapter one but a delicious ending.
You should commit to breaking free from this life-sapping victim mentality. But how can you achieve this?
Take charge of your life
I tell you what, if your barbecue chicken gets burnt, there are actually a million people to blame – from the manufacturer of the grate to the neighbor that didn’t greet you that morning. But is that really the way out?
In life, you have to take charge and be responsible for every event of your life. Only when you realize you are actually in control can you start to effect those beautiful changes you desire.
In a victim mentality, you think others control your life. The harm was externally triggered, so should the solution be externally triggered?
But no, the solution must be internalized. It has to come from you, from you getting into the driver’s seat of your life and driving you to your objectives.
Foster a sense of self-accountability
This is my favorite hack for beating the victim mentality. Here, you don’t pamper yourself anymore. When things go wrong, figure out what YOU did wrong – not what THEY did wrong.
By building a culture of self-accountability, you will discover how significantly you shape events. You begin to realize you are a major stakeholder in how the game is played instead of just being a helpless sideline spectator.
By holding yourself accountable, you realize that a bulk of your excuses have suddenly lost validity. You learn to prioritize better and beat procrastination.
Focus on the positives
A bulk of the helplessness that typifies the victim mentality comes when an individual binges on negativities. When you feed yourself obese with pessimism, it is natural to feel things are out of your control.
This is when you feel you are naturally disadvantaged and that the contest is skewed in favor of a selected few nobles. But your perspective radically changes when you focus on the positives.
By illuminating the positives in every event, the sense of hopelessness begins to clear off. Consequently, you get a feeling of being able to execute change.
You feel your efforts can still count. This way, you are better encouraged to take decisive steps to change the narrative for your good.
Therefore being already assured (thanks to such positivity) that you can still work things out, you see that you begin to nag far less. You discover you are now far less jealous of people compared to how you used to be.
What’s more, by focusing on the positives, your cynicism dwindles, and you begin to mistrust others less.
Let the past go
This is really a hard one, we must admit. For many struggling with the victim mentality, the chances are high that they have been unable to forgive the supposed “culprit” of the misfortune plaguing them.
Learning to forgive the people you think are responsible for your situation largely helps you move on and take charge of your destiny moving forward.
If you still hold on to the guilt, the bitterness will rob you of the sense of responsibility for your life. Letting that mental burden of hurt slide off will unshackle you from being the victim.
Start with small wins
To consolidate your emancipation from the victim mentality, you need to build confidence and belief in your independent capacity to execute changes. A sustained culture of winning achieves this.
Being that you are coming from a place where you have largely outsourced the control of your life, it will be unfair, if not unreasonable, to get you chasing mega goals outrightly.
To better help you retrieve the command of your life, you have to start with little wins or micro-goals and consolidate a winning mentality. These are the baby steps to becoming a habitual winner.
This will significantly amplify your sense of accountability. The more you win and strike things off your bucket list, the more you will feel in charge of your destiny.
Conclusively, breaking free from the victim mentality is a deliberate choice and requires a commitment to break free from it.
The earlier you take charge of your life, the higher your chances of turning things around. Start the work TODAY.
