How to Release Victim Mindset to get the life you want

Are you tired of feeling resentful and like everything is against you? If you are ready to take back control of your life, I want to show you how to release victim mindset to get the life you want. But before I start, I want to explain victim mindset a bit. Victim mindset is rooted in trauma, and developed from survival mode where a person was indeed a victim of something happening. It shifts to a mindset when that short term survival mode has now become a long-term pattern and habit.

If your thoughts tend to:

1. Focus on what has gone wrong
2. Look at who or what has done you wrong
3. Lean towards believing that you are going to fail, so what’s the use in trying

Then you may have a victim mindset. Mindset controls a lot of our life including accomplishing goals, finding joy, and having healthy relationships to name a few. Let’s talk about what it is, symptoms of it affecting your life and how you can release it and shift it to an empowered mindset using a holistic plan.

What is a victim mindset?

A victim mindset is believing that you do not have control over the way your life is, and these other people or circumstances are to blame.

Some symptoms of victim mindset:

• Feeling resentful
• Taking things personally
• Blaming others
• Lashing out when someone offers help
• Finding it hard to make changes
• Catastrophizing situations and always going to the worst case scenario

What causes a victim mindset?

• Experiencing a trauma or hardships in the past
• Having someone that you love betray you
• Using it as a coping mechanism and now is a habit

Victim mindset is usually developed as a coping mechanism and starts as a way to keep the person safe.  The problem is when it becomes the normal way to approach life we may experience the following:

• Feeling lonely and isolated
• Feeling powerlessness over life
• Thriving off of drama and feeling like life is not okay when things are calm
• Feeling resentful of others’ successes
• Having issues in relationships
• Low self esteem
• Exhibiting self-destructive behavior

How to release victim mindset:

The first step is awareness. If you resonate with some of the things listed above, start being aware of your thought patterns and be curious with yourself. It could look like “hmmm, it is interesting that I assume that bad things always happen to me” or “why me?” or “how come everyone is always out to get me?”

Here are some action steps to take:

• Take responsibility over your actions
  • This isn’t taking the blame for everything, it is realizing what is yours.
• Limit who is in your inner circle and who you spend the most time with
  • If the main people you are with also have the qualities of victim mindset, it will make it harder to shift to an empowered mindset.
• Set boundaries.
  • Be clear in your communication.
  • Only say yes to the things that align with your values.
• Ask yourself – why is this happening FOR me (instead of to me)
  • This doesn’t mean that you are happy when something negative happens, but it does mean that you are looking at ways you can grow, find gratitude and learn from everything.
• Journal
  • Journaling is a great way to process emotions. Regularly journaling can be a great way to find patterns to your thoughts and feelings.
• Have a gratitude practice
  • Every day write down 1-3 specific things that you are grateful for. Take a moment to close your eyes and remember that specific thing happening. Allow it to put a smile on your face.
• Show yourself self-love & compassion
  • Talk to yourself like you would someone that you love.
• See a therapist if you need help working through past traumas
• Hire a coach- like me 🙂 to work on how to move forward & work on mindset

I would love to hear your thoughts on this topic! Just hit reply to email me back. If you want help with mindset, I would love to offer you a free coaching session and we can talk about how to start!