What is victim mentality and how can you shift from this to a mentality of victory so you step into your own power? Listen/watch/read for practical tips on how to make huge changes in your life!
Victim mentality
Victim mentality is when you are making excuses and blaming yourself or others for the circumstances and/or results in your life. A real-life example from my old self would be:
“I was in an abusive relationship in the past where I was controlled for years so when something happens that I can’t control I always turn to food to help me out and end up binge eating chocolate.”
This was a victim mentality because I was feeling sorry for myself and blaming my binge eating on my past relationship as if, ‘he made me do it’. Whilst it’s important to acknowledge my feelings whenever these come up, it’s ultimately up to me whether I choose to take responsibility for my feelings and actions and step into my own power or whether to stay in victim mode and crave sympathy from myself and others.
If you want to be successful, it’s time to take responsibility and realise that excuses and blame are a sign of your own insecurity.
When you’re in victim mentality you most likely have not been able to achieve any of your goals. You will most likely be going through the same self-sabotage loop as you have done for years. Maybe even buying numerous programs or hiring different coaches and then at the end when none of them has worked, you blame the program, plan or coach for your lack of progress. You may engross yourself in personal development books and whilst reading you will be thinking “I know this already”… well if you knew it already then why are you still not achieving your goals…? Because YOU ARE IN VICTIM MODE and not taking responsibility for yourself or putting any of what you have learnt into ACTION. I was in victim mode for YEARS… I am still learning as I write this how to continue to step into my own power, fully with no exceptions. I used to wait around for someone to come and rescue me, to give me everything I wanted in life. It wasn’t until I realised that I, ME, MYSELF is the only one who can give that to me. And so I am on a mission to live my life with no limitations or self-doubt so I can take full responsibility and live the life of my dreams.
Victor (victory) mentality
This is a mentality where you take 100% full responsibility for your life. If something happens that is out of your control, you take ownership of it. If a program isn’t working or your not making as much progress as you thought you would, you would just accept that you feel that way and continue with the progress knowing that it’s gonna work out anyway. That is victor mentality and it’s actually hard to come by and also hard to stay there. It’s so easy to shift back into victim mode and take the easy way out but actually doing the work and shifting to victor mode IS the shortcut in the long run…
Excellence is a habit so staying in your victor mentality is a habit you must practice daily.
Practices for everyday life
#1 MANTRA. HIGH STANDARDS – LOW EXPECTATIONS.
What I mean by this is that I expect high standards from myself and my clients for example:
Each day the standards I set for myself are for me to complete my morning routine, workout every day, spent time on personal development, spend time outside and meditate at least once a day. These are the standards I have. BUT, disappointment usually has us going into victim mode and blaming circumstances or things on our results…
Disappointment is the difference between reality and expectations
So… If I only managed to complete half of my morning routine because something with my dog took up more time than I had hoped or if the article I needed to publish today ran into my gym time which meant all I could do for exercise that day was to go on a 20 minute run then at least I am not disappointed in myself.
Victim mode would have had me thinking F it to my morning routine if my dog took up most of the time I allocated for it. I would have been pissed that I missed my workout and not bothered running and instead would have gone to the shop and ate junk because “what’s the point as I didn’t get done what I wanted to get done.” Etc etc… Can you see the difference? By having high standards for myself and doing everything I can daily to achieve these but if for some reason (ya know, like life) I didn’t get them done exactly as I planned, because I take full responsibility for my reality, I don’t hate on myself or let the day control me. I’m basically saying;
“If you always do your best (high standards for yourself) you will feel satisfied within yourself no matter what the outcome.”
#2 DAILY JOURNAL PRACTICE BEGINNING OF DAY
Now, this simple practise is so powerful and SO WORTH DOING! It took me a long time until I finally decided to take this up as a regular practice and I’m so glad I did. It gives us a chance to really check in with ourselves. Most of the time we are living in our heads and journaling gives us the opportunity to stop thinking on autopilot and to become fully conscious of what we are really feeling.
If you’re struggling with what to write I recommend writing down 3 things that you are grateful for and why you are grateful for them. This helps to take us out of victim mode because it is impossible to feel sorry for yourself when your feeling gratitude for what you have around you.
Another helpful journal prompt is starting your journal page with something like, ‘I feel’…… (eg. I feel annoyed) and then continuing with ‘The possible reasons for feeling this way are’… (eg. I am annoyed because I didn’t get up on time to complete my morning routine and so because I felt annoyed I ate loads of chocolate to make myself feel better and now I feel even more annoyed!) Then finish this with, ‘What can I learn from this going forward…?’ (eg. I understand by writing this down I can see that I went into victim mode and I let the day dictate how I felt and then acted. I then self-sabotaged by eating the chocolate to numb my emotions. Next time I could look at things differently, such as, ‘I slept in longer because I needed the sleep. I ‘m not a lazy person and my body obviously needed extra rest. Next time I will show more compassion towards myself which will eliminate the feeling of being annoyed. I will then move on with my day doing what I can to the best of my ability. It is my choice.’
#3 DAILY JOURNAL PRACTICE OR THOUGHTS AT THE END OF DAY
At the end of each day think about 3 things that brought you joy that day. It could be anything from your dog carrying his new toy around in his mouth like a baby all day (kinda obvious that that’s a real-life example from me haha!) to the gorgeous sunrise you saw this morning. Whatever made you really smile, think about it and feel blessed to have experienced those moments.
Again, this may seem a little ‘unnecessary’ but let me tell you why it is so important to do this…
Our brains naturally have a negativity bias.
This means your brain will naturally look for things that are hard, or not good enough or things that your not happy about. The reason your brain does this is not to piss you off (!) but to keep you alive! Don’t forget that our brains, although evolved over time from the caveman days, are still on the lookout for danger like it would have done when we were sleeping under the stars. So it purposely finds things wrong so that we can become aware of this and alert to it in case it could jeopardize our survival. This makes it hard for us to focus on the small wins we have each day and to remain positive. SO WE HAVE TO RE-TRAIN OUR BRAIN TO BECOME POSITIVITY BIAS!
So lovelies, let’s recap what you’ve just read so you can take full control of your life from N.O.W.
VICTIM MENTALITY shows up as excuses, blame and insecurity.
TO CHANGE FROM VICTIM TO VICTOR you have to start in your head and the way you talk to yourself (as with everything).
GET YOUR JOURNAL OUT and start writing shit down… what your grateful for, why you feel the way you do and what you can do about it and what brings you joy.
HIGH STANDARDS LOW EXPECTATIONS. Always set high standards for yourself but be ok with anything, no matter how small, that you did towards your daily goals. Hating on yourself won’t help anything and when you achieve what you set out to do, you will feel extra awesome because you didn’t fully 100% expect it all to happen!
Now go out there and shine because you are enough exactly the way you are and you can have, be and do anything you want!
