Hi I'm Dr. Tracey Marks, a psychiatrist and in this video I'll be talking with
you about how to break out of the victim mindset. I'll be giving you 5 ways to
recognize whether you have this mindset and 5 solutions to break out of this
mindset. And why is this even important? Because setbacks and disappointments and
hurts, they're all part of the uncertainty of life. How you respond to
these setbacks determines how satisfied you are or will be with your life. You
can't control your circumstances, but you can control your response to them. So how
do you know if you're wallowing in victimization?
Here's five ways to recognize it. Number one Most things have a negative tone to
them. You can even get to the point where you feel like life just isn't even on
your side or you've been dealt a really bad set of cards. Number two
you ask yourself why a lot. Why does everything in my life have to be hard?
Why can't people just leave me alone? Why don't people understand me? Number
three you mull over things a lot. The psychological term for this is ruminate.
Picture a cow chewing cud for hours. This is what can go on in your head when
you're thinking about your life. The script just runs over and over and
nothing seems to work out for you. I never seem to get fill in the blank. Why
bother because I always fill in the blank.
Number four you don't think very highly of yourself. You are your own worst
critic. You feel like damaged goods, which means you don't deserve very good things.
Number five, your first emotion is anger and you're often resentful of other
people's gains. An example of this may be you resent the fact that your best
friend got a seven thousand dollar bonus at work she already has nice things. Why
is she always the one who gets these things. These things never seem to happen
to you. Do any of these sound familiar to you? Sometimes you can slip into the
victim mindset only in certain areas of your life.
It can be subtle, but persuasive enough to hold you back or even lower your
self-esteem. Here are five solutions to break out of
this way of thinking. Number one build confidence by creating small achievable
goals. Think of this is like starting with one of those huge large hundred
piece baby puzzles and then moving up to the thousand-piece mega puzzle. If you're
convinced that good things never happen to you, you have to retrain your mind to
see that you can win at something even if it's something small. Then you have to
give yourself time to reflect or ruminate on these small accomplishments
with the intention on moving on to even bigger accomplishments. Number two turn
your attention to giving to others. Victimization breeds neediness and the
more needy you are, the more opportunity you have to be disappointed when your
needs aren't met. So adopt the approach of getting by
giving first. Meeting someone else's needs allows you to rise above the
victim mode by being someone's hero. The satisfaction that you can get from
loving or showing love to others gives you a reason to love yourself. And when
you love yourself, you build a hedge of protection around yourself to guard
against future hurts. Number three make a gratitude list.
You've probably heard this before but when you're in victim mode, you focus
more on what you don't have and you lose sight of the things that you do have. So
you change your perspective by spending more time counting your blessings when
you write these things down. And you can remind yourself of these things later
when you slip back into feeling sorry for yourself. So you actually have them
that you can pull them pull them out from a piece of paper and read them.
Number four get closure on your past hurts and this may involve forgiving
someone. It may involve forgiving yourself. If you blame yourself for
continuing to make the same mistakes over and over or trusting the
same wrong person, you need to do the following: you need to understand what
draws you to these bad decisions in the first place. And this will take some work.
You may need the help of a therapist or a counselor or even a good friend who
knows you very well. But once you have a good handle on your pattern you press
the reset button and you trust that you can move on to better decisions in the
future. Number five take ownership of your decisions. No one can make you feel
a certain way without you allowing it and if you're around people who make you
feel bad, maybe because they're critical of you, then you've got to limit your
contact with them because they're not helping you. And sometimes you don't have
the option of never seeing them because it's a family member, maybe a parent.iin
that case you have to set an emotional distance between you and that person to
protect yourself from always being hurt by them. So don't let past hurts define
you. Identify how you may be wallowing in victim mode so that you can put it
behind you. You have the power to rid yourself of the victim persona but it
will be a daily ongoing process that requires a lot of effort. But it does
become easier the more you rid yourself of that victim mindset. Here's a
challenge for you identify a way that you're wallowing in victim mode and
here's two ways you can start with this. Do you have a "why bother?" mindset about
because you failed at something so many times or are people always having to
give you a pep talk? If so, choose one of the five solutions
and apply it to your situation and implement it. And I'd love to hear from
you. Leave me a comment and let me know how
this worked for you thanks for watching