The Victim Mindset
The victim mindset is the most detrimental mindset to have in the pursuit of happiness, it is also the greatest road block to success. The problem with the victim mindset is that it paralyses you out of action through creating a torrent of excuses. If you are taking no action and are constantly complaining about your situation you will never experience true fulfilment, and will stay stuck in your self created rut forever.
Symptoms of the Victim
The victim is ultimately unreasonably entitled, the victim feels like others should support them and create the most ideal situation for them to prosper. They consider themselves a victim because others treat them unfairly, making them feel like their own potential is limited. It is a selfish mindset that fails to recognise the reality of the real world. As of 2015 the Earth is home to over 7 billion people ( more than double the estimated worlds population of 1960).
To think that you have been handed an unfair card in life is selfish, there are billions of people that live in unimaginable conditions far worse than anything most people will ever experience. If you are living in a democratic country in which you have free rein over what you can do with your life, you should not consider yourself as a victim to anyone but youself.
Take Accountability | The first Step
The fundamental mistake that those with a victim mindset always make is having a lack of accountability. They never feel like they are responsible for their situation, and hence never have control over their outcomes. This mistake contradicts everything that success entails. Research anyone who has hit their goals with full force and you will notice the underlying sense of massive accountability behind their actions.
Being accountable gives you the power that the victim mindset deprives. Accountability is the difference between being the actor of your life, and the director. It is the difference between being the cashier at a business, and the business owner. Accountability gives you power to shape your destiny, It frees you from the invisible shackles of the victim mindset by destroying petty excuses.
Be Water My Friend| The second Step
The second step to destroying the victim mentality is to assume the form of water, be formless. People tend to get stuck in the same position because they have identified themselves with it. You see this time and time again in people displaying the same negative behaviours or staying in the same shitty job. They refuse to change their perspective, and they refuse to change their approach to situations. This is a dynamic world in which we live in, no two trees grow the same, no rivers run in straight lines, and you should not maintain the rigid image of yourself that your ego has conjured.
You need to be willing to adapt to situations as they come, and accept them fully. You have to understand that you might not have complete control over the outcomes of your life, but you do have complete control in how you react to them. Bruce Lee explained how water is powerful because it is formless and capable of adapting, you too must be like water.
Take Action | The third step
The third step is the most important of the three, it is to take action. In physics energy is the ability to do work, ( to move something from A to B, requires energy ), your life is no exception to the laws of the physics. If you want to make things change and get things moving you are going to need to spend some energy. You will need to take action to get the ball rolling.
Taking action is looking for a new job that is outside your comfort zone, or saying no to people who have been taking advantage of you. Taking action is moving to a new location to get yourself away from negativity, it is also spending an extra two hours every day on your calculus homework so that you can ace the finals. Taking action frees you from the victim mindset through showing you that you have a huge influence on the quality of your life, it all starts with a choice.