The Mindset Mentor - How To Deal With Victim Mentality

Episode Date: July 22, 2024

Today we're taking a thorough look at how to break free from the victim mindset. We'll explore its roots in childhood, how it becomes ingrained over time, and most importantly, how to overcome it. I'll discuss how overprotective parenting and constant criticism can lead to feelings of inadequacy and dependence, shaping this mindset. I'll share practical steps to help you reclaim control of your life, including the power of cognitive reframing, daily affirmations, and surrounding yourself with positive influences. Join me on this journey to unlock your full potential and create the life you truly desire. Want to learn more about Mindset Mentor+? For nearly nine years, the Mindset Mentor Podcast has guided you through life's ups and downs. Now, you can dive even deeper with Mindset Mentor Plus. Turn every podcast lesson into real-world results with detailed worksheets, journaling prompts, and a supportive community of like-minded people. Enjoy monthly live Q&A sessions with me, and all this for less than a dollar a day. If you’re committed to real, lasting change, this is for you.Join here 👉 www.mindsetmentor.com My first book that I’ve ever written is now available. It’s called LEVEL UP and It’s a step-by-step guide to go from where you are now, to where you want to be as fast as possible.📚If you want to order yours today, you can just head over to robdial.com/bookHere are some useful links for you… If you want access to a multitude of life advice, self development tips, and exclusive content daily that will help you improve your life, then you can follow me around the web at these links here:Instagram TikTokFacebookYoutube Want to learn more about Mindset Mentor+? For nearly nine years, the Mindset Mentor Podcast has guided you through life's ups and downs. Now, you can dive even deeper with Mindset Mentor Plus. Turn every podcast lesson into real-world results with detailed worksheets, journaling prompts, and a supportive community of like-minded people. Enjoy monthly live Q&A sessions with me, and all this for less than a dollar a day. If you’re committed to real, lasting change, this is for you.Join here 👉 www.mindsetmentor.com My first book that I’ve ever written is now available. It’s called LEVEL UP and It’s a step-by-step guide to go from where you are now, to where you want to be as fast as possible.📚If you want to order yours today, you can just head over to robdial.com/bookHere are some useful links for you… If you want access to a multitude of life advice, self development tips, and exclusive content daily that will help you improve your life, then you can follow me around the web at these links here:Instagram TikTokFacebookYoutube

Welcome to today's episode of the Mindset Mentor Podcast. I'm your host, Rob Dial. If you have not yet done so, hit that subscribe button so you never miss another podcast episode. I talk about neurology, psychology, early childhood development, cognitive behavioral therapy, and all of those things, how they come together to make you the person that you are. Because if you can understand yourself, you can grow yourself. And if you can grow yourself, you can improve your life. So if that interests you and you want to listen to me four times a week, go ahead and hit

that subscribe button. Today, I'm going to be talking about breaking free from your victim mindset. One of the things that I have found with being a coach and doing this for as long as I have been is that many, many, many people in this world have victim mindsets. And if you don't break free of your victim mindset, you're not going to live up to your full potential. It's like putting yourself into a mental prison. You can only become as good as you can become in that prison, but not outside of it. If you think you're a victim forever, you've basically created yourself to think that there's nothing you can do about other things. And if you're going to create the life that you want, you've got to develop the mindset of, I'm the one in control. I'm the one that can

do this. I'm going to go create the life that I want. Not, oh, woe is me. I wish that everything was better. I wish I had a better childhood. I wish I grew up in a better part of town. You can't have that mindset if you're going to be able to build the life that you want. So when we start to dive into it, I'm going to talk about where it comes from in your childhood, how it develops in people. I'm going to talk about how it usually is solidified throughout your teenage years, your adult years, all of that, and then how it actually manifests as an adult. And then we're going to talk about how to actually work through it and get rid of your

victim mindset. Okay. So just like anything else that we talk about, where does almost everything that we have inside of our mindset come from? It comes from our childhood, where the foundation of our mindset actually comes from. And so I'm going to give you a couple different examples of how it can come up in your life. Obviously, this is not every single example, but these are some very common examples that I see in people. The first way that I see that's very common for victim mindset to actually be created

is by having overprotective parents. Children with overprotective parents can develop a sense of hopelessness. You know, when the parent decides that they want to solve every problem for the child, when they want to do their homework for them, whenever the child struggles, they want to help them. And I'm not saying that you shouldn't help your children when they're struggling, but there is definitely benefit to letting them struggle and figure things out. But when the parents want to solve every problem, the child can learn that they need to depend on others versus learning that I can do it on my own. Because what ends up happening is they start believing that they cannot handle challenges themselves. And if the parent always steps in for the child,

the natural thought for the child is, I can't do this. And if I can't do this, then I'm a victim of my circumstances, which, you know, I am a parent now. And what I want to be able to help my son do is to develop the mindset of, hey, sometimes I do need help and it's good to ask for help, but I can do this on my own as well. And so this was actually demonstrated in the study that was called Parental Overprotection and Children's Social Anxiety. And it says the role of emotional insecurity. And what they found was that overprotection in parents to their children fosters emotional insecurity and a sense of helplessness in the children. So think about this for a second.

Overprotection of a child fosters emotional insecurity and a sense of helplessness in children. And so that is a very common place where children can develop this victim mindset. And I understand most of the time, parents are doing it because they want to help their children, because they love their children, because they want to protect their children. But if you're a parent, it is also very important for you to understand there is a lot of benefit in your child struggling through something, and then figuring it out and developing their own sense of, I can do this, I know what I'm doing.

And it helps them develop emotional security and to be able to be confident within themselves. So there is a lot of value in letting your children fail and then learn and do better next time or start to struggle and then end up breaking through on something. So, you know, definitely help your children, but don't always save your children. Your children don't always need saving. Okay, so that's the first thing. The second way that is very common where people develop a victim mindset is children who face constant criticism from their parents.

That constant criticism, what children tend to do is a lot of times they internalize negative beliefs about themselves when there's constant criticism, which turns into the feeling of being inadequate. And then in turn, that feeling of inadequacy makes them find all of the reasons why they're a victim and they blame their external world instead of saying, hey, this is something that I can take control of. And they blame the external world and not the internal because it will shine a light of their feelings of insecurity and inadequacy.

And so one of the things that tends to happen is that when we develop insecurities or inadequacy feelings within ourself, we tend to want to not see those. We don't want anything to shine a light on it. And so if we feel inadequate in some sort of way, like I can't do this thing, what people tend to do is they tend to, if the actual feeling is I can't do this, it's like, well, I'm going to blame everybody else or outside circumstances instead of blaming myself. Because if I blame myself, it'll show my inadequacies. And so, you know, if you're the type of person who got constant criticism as a kid, it is common for you to develop a sense of victim mindset from it. a sense of victim mindset from it. Another very common place where it comes from is children who are neglected or abused. And when I say neglected and abused, of course, there's the immediate neglect and abuse that pops up into your head. But also there's very low levels of neglect and abuse. I have shared this before on the podcast with myself, but I didn't know until I was 32 years old-ish, some 30, 32 years old, that I had emotional neglect for my father.

And I had no idea. I was like, well, I was, you know, we had food, we had water, shelter. I never felt like there was a moment where I was neglected. And he's like, no, you have to understand that you were emotionally neglected because he wasn't there for you when you needed him. And I was like, oh, shit, I never thought of it that way. And so there is definitely the neglect and the abuse that you guys can think of, physical, emotional, sexual abuse, all of those, but there's also just other lower level sides of it as well. When we experience neglect or abuse, it can really impact a child's self-esteem, but also their worldview. I used to have a really big victim mindset, a really negative pessimistic mindset as well when I was younger.

And it's something that I had to, once I became aware of it, I started working through it. And children that grow up feeling powerless in turn feel like they're perpetually victimized. And there was a study that was called the Long-Term Impact of Childhood Abuse and Neglect on Mental Health. And it was the 30-year follow-up of the study.

And what they found was the persistent mental health issues among children who experienced childhood abuse. And one of the most common traits of these children that grew up into adults that they followed up with 30 years later is that neglected children often develop a victim mindset about the world. And we will be right back. And now back to the show. So that's another place where it can show up. And then the last one that's the most common, and of course there's other ones as well, is modeling behavior. So, you know,

children, we, as children, we emulate the behaviors that we see in our caregivers. So if a parent or a grandparent, whoever your primary caregiver was, if they frequently show a victim mentality, the child might also adopt very similar attitudes, believing that they're a victim. I actually have a really good friend and both of his parents have quite like stuck mindsets. Like they're very fixed mindset, very victim mentality, woe is me, all of that stuff. And you can see how it has developed within him. And it's something that he is working through. And so, you know, in turn, the child finds all of the ways that the world is against them. And so that's how it can tend to start in our childhood years. In our teenage years, it can be perpetuated and it can actually start to, you know, be firmed up. It's kind of like the childhood lays the groundwork.

It's kind of like putting down the concrete and the concrete tends to be firming up over time through a lot of different ways. One of the ways that really throughout, you know, childhood, throughout teenage years, that victim mindset can really be firmed up in life. And in your mind is bullying. You know, kids can be vicious. If you guys remember middle school and high school, some of the kids are just so vicious, right? And children and teens who are bullied develop a sense of helplessness and a belief that they're targets. And this experience can really start to solidify their victim mindset. And it makes it harder for them to break free of those patterns. Another thing that can really make somebody start to feel a little bit more of the victim

mindset is, you know, academic and social pressures, how you're supposed to show up and get good grades. And, you know, if your brain is developing and you're still not getting it at some point, you know, just because everybody develops at different times, you might think, I'm not smart enough, the world's against me, and so on and so forth. Social pressures as well, you know, with having to fit in and all of that stuff. And so when a child is failing to meet academic or social expectations, it can make them feel like victims of circumstance or beyond their control. Now, how does this happen as an adult? How does it manifest as an adult? You know, like

the ways that it shows up as an adult. There's five ways to tell that you have a victim mindset. This is from Dr. Tracy Marks. And so I'll go through them and then I'll go through a couple other ones besides just the ones that she has. Number one is when you think of things, everything has a little bit of a negative tone to it.

Like there's this feeling that life is not on your side. Everything happens to me is the feeling versus everything's happening for me, right? Life is just not on my side. I was just dealt a bad set of cards in life. There's nothing I can do about it. This is the way it's going to be forever. I can't change. Just everything has like a negative tone to it. So that's the first thing. tone to it. So that's the first thing. The second thing is you ask yourself why a lot. Why? Why me? Why is this always happening to me? Why am I always the person that gets heartbroken? Why do I always, why am I always the person that this type of guy is, I'm attracted to this type of guy and they always do this to me. Why, why, why, why, why? It's just very victim tone to it, right?

So you ask yourself why a lot. Why does this happen to me? Why does this always happen to me? All of that. So that's the second way is you ask yourself why a lot. Number three is that you ruminate a lot. You know, you just tend to find yourself overthinking and only thinking about the negative in life. And when people say that they have a problem with overthinking, nobody has a problem with overthinking the positive in life. If you were overthinking all of the positive things in your life, you would have no problems because you'd be like, this is amazing.

I'm so grateful. I'm in such bliss. But when you say you overthink, what it means is that you're overthinking all of the negative in your life. So it's like, oh, why even bother? You know, my life is so terrible anyways, and it never works out for me anyways, and nothing ever works out for why would I do it anyways? You just sit around and ruminate and overthink on those types of thoughts really often. The fourth thing is that you don't think very highly of

yourself. You are always your own worst critic. I don't deserve this thing. I don't deserve X, Y, Z. If you're the person, the I don't deserve it type of person, you know, you don't think very highly of yourself. And I want you to understand this, is that I want you to think about the person who was the biggest bully to in your life, whether it was a parent or whether it was someone in school,

whether it was your brother or sister or whether it was a, you know, a ex or whether it was, you know, a friend, whatever it might've been, the biggest bully that you have in your life. And I want you to understand that if you're the type of person who you're your own worst critic, you're way more of a bully to yourself than that person. You are in an abusive relationship with yourself. And so if you don't think very highly of yourself and you talk down to yourself

and you're very critical and you struggle to have any self-love or any of that, you are in an abusive relationship with yourself. And so that can be very common with someone who has a victim mindset. The fifth thing that can show that you might have a victim mindset is you get angry very quickly and you're often resentful of other people's gains. So a great example is like your friend, your best friend gets a $10,000 bonus at work and you resent your best friend for getting that bonus and you think to yourself, well, she always gets nice things.

She already makes a bunch of money. She makes more money than I do. Why don't I ever get lucky like that? She's just so lucky. I'm just so unlucky. So those are the five ways that Dr. Tracy Marks says. Other ways that it can tend to manifest is blaming other people for everything that happens in your life. If you frequently blame other people for your problems, you probably have a victim mindset.

It's never their fault, right? The victim mindset is it's never their fault. And so what we tend to believe is if we have a victim mindset, we believe never their fault. And so, you know, what we tended to believe is if we have a victim mindset, we believe that external forces caused our misfortune, right? Another way that it shows up is lack of accountability. People who are victims often struggle with taking responsibility for their own actions. And so, you know, all of their problems are, you know, are just exist because of something else. It's not my fault that all of this is this way. Another way that it shows up is pessimism, right? Negativity. When I was a very pessimistic

person, I could find a hole in anything, right? And I used to just be so negative. And so that was just a part of my victim mindset that I developed over years. There's also a psychological state that's called learned helplessness, where individuals believe that they have no control over their circumstances. And so that leads them to just not do anything and just a lot of inaction. Well, I can't do anything about it, so why would I want to do anything, right? And so there was a study that was done that was called Learned Helplessness in Humans. And it highlighted how life events can foster a sense of helplessness.

And if you feel like something happened to you and that you're helpless because of that thing happening to you, it tends to reinforce your victim mindset. And so, you know, this shows up in many different ways. If you're going to create the life that you want, you have to be the one that's in control of it. And so how do you control the victim mindset? How do you essentially start to pull it out from the roots? Well, the first thing is, are you a victim? Do you think you have a victim mindset? If you do, you need to become very aware of it and you need to become

aware of when it pops up. When it pops up, you then need to go to step two, which is you need to challenge that victim mindset. You need to challenge all of your negative beliefs. Question, I say this all of the time because it's one of the most common parts of cognitive behavioral therapy. Question the validity of your thoughts, right? So question and challenge those negative beliefs. There's a thing called cognitive reframing where when I find a belief and I find something I believe in, I need to poke holes in that thing to see if it holds water. And anytime you find a belief, it pretty much never

does. Right. And so it's like, if you think negatively about yourself and you're constantly thinking the world is against you and all of that, you can poke holes in that and you can find it. And you can try what's called opposite thinking. What is the exact opposite of my belief? And how can I start to reprogram that self, that into myself? You know, if you, if you have thoughts like I can't do this, you can say, you know what, I can do this and I can learn and I can grow from this experience. So you want to challenge your negative beliefs. The other part of it is you want to start to develop a sense of taking responsibility. I want you to understand this. The things that happened to you when you were a child

are not your fault, but they are your responsibility. All too often, I talk with people that are 40, 45, 50 years old, and they're still blaming somebody for something that happened in their childhood. Okay, that happened 30 years ago, 40 years ago, 50 years ago. It's not your fault that those things happened, but it is your responsibility to say, these are the cards that I was dealt. I'm going to do what I can to make the best life that I possibly can. So you need to learn to take responsibility as well. The next thing that I would recommend

is get around other people who are supportive. So find positive relationships. Get around people who are supportive, but also challenge you. They challenge your thoughts. They want better for you. And because they want better for you, they're gonna challenge you. They challenge your thoughts. They want better for you. And because they want better for you, they're gonna challenge you

when they see you falling back into victim mindset and say, hey, listen, I don't think you're seeing that correctly. Also, are these people that you're surrounding yourself with, are they getting better themselves? Because when they get better, it motivates you to do better as well.

And so find people to surround yourself with that are positive and develop relationships with them. And so find people to surround yourself with that are positive and develop relationships with them. And then the last piece that I recommend is every single morning doing breathwork, meditation, and affirmations. Breathwork, meditation, affirmations. This could literally be five minutes if you want it to be. And so you do breathwork. You can go online. You can go on YouTube and you can find somebody who does a three-minute breathwork session, a five-minute breathwork session. And then you meditate, and as you meditate, you develop these affirmations. So you have a set affirmation that you're going to be saying over and over and over

and over and over again, and you're starting to try to reprogram the story, the narrative that's going on in your head. So it could be three minutes of breathwork, and then maybe five minutes of meditation and affirmation. So you do the breathwork, you get yourself into a heightened state, your brain kind of calms down for a second, you're more in your body. Then you start saying stuff like, I'm in control of my life. I'm a powerful individual. I'm taking small steps every day to create a great life. My past is not my fault, but my present is my responsibility. Whatever it is that you feel like you need to program into yourself, and you do this every single morning right when you wake up so that

you start to reprogram the way that you think. And so I want you to understand victim mindset is very, very common. If you have it, no big deal, but it is your responsibility to start to work through it because if you want to improve your life, you're going to have to get rid of the victim mindset. So that's what I got for you for today's episode. If you love this episode, please do me a massive favor. If you've ever gotten any value from any of these podcast episodes, there's other people in your life that I'm sure would also benefit from hearing it. So if you do me a favor, share it on your Instagram stories and tag me in it. Rob Dial Jr.

R-O-B-D-I-A-L-J-R. I'm sure there's someone who follows you out there that's never heard of this podcast and this episode can definitely help them So if you would do that, I would greatly greatly appreciate it Also, if you love this podcast, you'll probably love something I have called mindset mentor plus for every episode that comes out of the mindset mentor Mindset mentor plus listeners get a whole lot more to help them integrate every single episode into their life And so when you sign up for mindset mentor plus you're going to get detailed worksheets that you can print out, that you can underline, that you can highlight, that go even deeper into every single episode that I put out. It's got journaling questions so you can figure

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