Helen Keller
How do you react if something in your life doesn’t go as you wish?
Well, at first you’ll probably feel pain of some sort.
But what happens after that? What do you do after the initial pain?
Do you think of yourself as a victim, as someone with little or no control or power?
Do you slip back into a familiar headspace where you feel sorry for yourself and where you feel like someone – or the whole world – is against you?
I used to get stuck in that destructive and self-esteem sucking way of thinking quite often. And I know that many people get stuck in it from time to time.
Or more often than that.
So this week I’d like to share 3 steps that helps me to move out of that headspace and replace it with something better.
Step 1: Recognize the benefits of the victim mentality.
The victim mentality 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.
But it may not last for that long as people get tired of it.
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, for instance, rejection or failure.
Don’t have to take the 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’re right.
When you feel like the victim and like someone else is wrong and you are right then that can lead to pleasurable feelings.
In my experience, by just being aware of the benefits I can derive from victim thinking it becomes easier to say no to that whenever such thoughts start to creep up and to choose to take a different path.
Step 2: Ask yourself what the long-term consequences of this will be.
The benefits above can be quite addictive.
But what will the long-term consequences of getting stuck in victim thinking be?
- How will it hold you back from doing the things 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 12 months and over the next 3 or 5 years.
Step 3: Replace the victim thinking with something more helpful.
To not create a vacuum where all those thoughts about being a victim used to run around for hours upon hours you need to replace the negative thought habits with something more useful.
Like for example:
Gratitude.
After that initial pain is gone – or smaller – you don’t have to create more suffering for yourself.
Instead, tap into gratitude.
I sometimes do that by asking myself this question to zoom out on my situation and to gain a more level-headed perspective:
Does someone on the planet have it worse than me right now?
Learn and take action.
After tapping into a more grateful frame of mind my mind also becomes more open to getting an optimistic answer out of my next question.
It’s usually something like:
What is one thing I can learn from this situation?
Then I follow that up with:
What is one small step I can take to move forward or out of this situation today?
Ask yourself: How can I give value to one person in my life right now?
Help this person out in some way by being kind, by listening or by doing something practically for example.
By doing so you’ll feel more powerful again. You’ll create more happiness for the other person and you’ll feel better about your day too.
Forgive.
I really like this quote about forgiveness from Catherine Ponder:
“When you hold resentment toward another, you are bound to that person or condition by an emotional link that is stronger than steel. Forgiveness is the only way to dissolve that link and get free.”
You don’t have to forgive just because it is something you “should do”.
You don’t have to do it to be the better person either.
You can do it just for yourself. For your own well-being and freedom.
Release yourself from the agony and focus your limited time and energy on things that will make you happier.
Henrik Edberg is the creator of the Positivity Blog and has written weekly articles here since 2006. He has a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Gothenburg and has been featured on Lifehacker, HuffPost and Paulo Coelho’s blog.
Comments on this entry are closed.
Hey there!
I just stumbled onto your blog and I love your articles and writing style! I would love to come to your site and contribute a guest blog if you would have me aboard, please feel free to check out my writing style by checking out my personal blog, I think many of my posts would mesh well with your messages and ideas… but onto this great post of yours!
SO many people identify with being the victim, with being a pawn in some game of life that they cannot control, it is truly impossible to reach your potential and improve yourself drastically when you believe there is some sort of outside force holding you back. Until you realize that the only forces holding you back are the ones you create in your mind, it is very tough to do much of anything in life.
We must first learn to change our thoughts and how we view the world, only then can we change our lives!
Thanks so much for this great post!
Good morning Shane
I think your writing style is also great! i believe it comes with practice and by putting your head and heart in to it!
Happy writing!
thanks so much Henrik! Step number one is a real eye-opener. I appreciate your blog
Thank you!
It can be all too easy to play the victim, to place blame than to just accept it where it belongs. To take responsibility is tantamount to admitting guilt for some people and they would rather do anything but accept guilt for anything… so the most important part is taking responsibility to then learn from it.
Cool post! I think one of the easiest ways to get out of this “victim thinking” is to man up and take responsibility for the situation.
It’s so easy to just blame everything on external forces, but by taking on the role of the victim, you’re essentially telling yourself and the world that you have no power over the situation.
This is just what I need. Thank you.
Love your site Henrik! Very inspiring
Thank-you Henrik, I especially liked the last point you made about forgiveness. I have never seen it so eloquently summarised, why we should forgive in order to dissolve the emotional link that holds us back.
Good morning Henrik
Thank you so much for wonderful writing! two minutes back, before reading it i was feeling as a victim of saying Yes to a colleague for taking over her job responsibility but now i am at peace so thanks once again…
warmly
Thanks for a great blog – I follow by email.
Have you read the book Mindset by Carok Dweck? It goes into great detail about this fixed mindset and how it can hold you back. It also shows the benefits of a growth mindset as you have mentioned about lessons and the opportunity to grow from each setback.
Continue the writing!
Very important discussion here. It’s often easier to pity yourself than work towards making your life better – but you have to fight the urge to take the easy way out. Thanks so much for your insight!
Love this post, great job, keep it up!!
Henrik, I enjoy your good advice, but never really liked it when my husband says that others have it worse, so I should be happy. I agree you should be grateful, but there is more to it than thinking of other’s misery. I find that enjoying nature can help. Anne Frank, in her diary, often wrote of victimization. She wrote that when she was miserable, her mother would tell her others were suffering more and she should be thankful not to be sharing in it. “I don’t see how Mummy’s idea can be right,” she wrote, “because then how are you supposed to behave if you go through the misery yourself?” I love her answer and re-read it often: “Go outside to the fields, enjoy nature and the sunshine, go out and try to recapture happiness in yourself and in God. Think of all the beauty that’s still left in and around you and be happy!” Her message is so powerful! Best of all, it works! Go outside, feel the breeze on your face, look at the sky, hear the warble of birds, smell the fresh air, touch the bark of a tree. See if within 5 minutes you don’t feel so much better! This wise young lady wrote “… I’ve found there is always some beauty left — in nature, sunshine, freedom, in yourself, these can all help you. Look at these things, then you find yourself again, and God, and then you regain your balance. And whoever is happy will make others happy too. He who has courage and faith will never perish in misery!”
You should focus on positive things when practicing gratitude. Be thankful for the positive things or situations you have, not being in a better situation than someone else. When you’re grateful for something it attracts more of that into your life. So if you are grateful for a slightly better situation than someone else then that’s what you will attract into your life.
There is fine-line between self-pity and modesty. Modesty is a sign of great people but self-pity is opposite
Thank you so much for this nice article.