The Single Most Important Step Toward Positive Change

6 min readJan 28, 2018

By PeggySue Wells

Do you rely on others to care for you?

Like a character in Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility, or Pride and Prejudice, I I anticipated that my emotional and physical needs would be met through relationship. For too long, and even when it was substandard, I relied on my parents and my spouse for emotional, physical, and financial support.

Often, after the breakup of a marriage, women settle for second best in life because that is what is left to them. Financial support may be minimal but we make do with it. I was expert at accepting lemons I shouldn’t have accepted in the first place and then I knocked myself out making them into lemonade. This is the definition of being a victim.

The victim mentality is easy to put on. There are generous perks to being a victim. We wouldn’t adopt the victim mentality if there weren’t benefits.

Ouch. I hated discovering that being a victim was not something someone else did to me as much as something I did to myself.

99-Yard Dash

Do you have an excuse and a story for everything? The victim mentality is characterized by explanations and justifications. The conversation of a perpetual victim is focused on how bad things are, how someone else has done them wrong, and the unending list of reasons why they can’t do something. They sound like a bad country western song.

When I’m a victim, I can be self-centered, focused on all the hard things that happened in my life. I get to recite my ever-lengthening list of wrongs that have been perpetrated on me to gain sympathy from others subjected to my tale of woe. Occasionally, a codependent type will respond in some way and I feel validated.

Being a victim means I don’t have to succeed or achieve my full potential. I can carve out a mediocre comfort level similar to the dip in an old mattress and stay there. I always have justification for

· sabotaging my dreams

· dropping out of programs and projects

· not quite becoming a professional

· not succeeding

I run a lot of 99-yard dashes instead of finishing the 100-yard race.

Best of all, being a victim means I place responsibility for myself on someone else. I can expect others to take care of me and then whine about how my needs have not been met. It becomes a perpetuating cycle of being a victim so I am victimized so I am a victim so I am victimized. The victim mentality is tough to remove because it’s self-inflicted. It’s the single greatest contributor to staying stuck and living below the abundant life.

Simple Solution

To stop being a victim, I had to stop blaming others and genuinely face myself. I had to acknowledge the ways I participated in the situation. Certainly some situations clearly have one party who violated major agreements in a relationship. But how I contributed, denied, enabled, ignored, and responded are entirely mine to own. If I complain that I had no voice in the financial arena of my marriage, I also have to acknowledge that I allowed that to occur.

Larry Burkett said men abuse because they can. The message here is that people — male and female — will do what others allow them to do.

The only one who makes me a victim is me. The only one who can change that in me is me. I had to look at myself and see what I’d denied about myself. It was time to see what others had seen all along. I had to put on surgical gloves, dig deep, and make repairs.

The terrifying aspect of this step was accepting responsibility for the results. Accepting that success was up to me. I also own my failures. Me. Not anyone else. I chose to no longer accept lemons from others. I chose to no longer accept lemons from myself. Moving from victim to personally responsible meant, like the sign President Truman posted on his desk when he made the decision to drop the nuclear bomb, “The buck stops here.”

The World is Transformed

But it’s more than worth the effort to move from victim to personally responsible. It’s worth it to face our fears about taking ownership and plunge into abundant life. Even if you’ve never done it before, you can become a big girl or big boy, a mature adult who is responsible for our own desires, needs, and potential.

It’s not terribly difficult. The change in attitude can be implemented in moments. Make the decision and shift. There is freedom in becoming personally responsible for our emotional, financial, mental, physical, sexual, and spiritual wellbeing. Suddenly the world is transformed from a series of all the things we can’t have or can’t do to a vast universe overflowing with possibilities.

· We can make choices.

· We can find solutions.

· We can make mistakes and learn from them.

· We can suffer legitimate victimization without remaining a victim.

No longer a ball and chain, the past becomes a stepping stone to a promising future.

Make a Choice

Our abilities grow when we stop relying on another human being, or the church, or the government to take care of our needs. No other person will ever be our savior. When we embrace responsibility for our own happiness, health, future, and provision, our conversation is positive, centered on others, ideas, and possibilities. People enjoy our company and appreciate partnering with us because we bring optimism and steadfastness to relationships and projects. We attract friends who make a lasting impact on the world.

My happiness and situation in life are, in large part, determined by my own choices. There are benefits and prices to every action that I choose. It is vital that I weigh the cost and the perk of each decision and then take action. When I find myself making poor choices, the truth is that I am receiving some benefit from this decision that presently outweighs making a different option. Ouch again.

Come Apart

Continual frustration is a sign that I’m out of sync. A personal retreat is a vehicle for getting on track with what I am created for. A conference center just an hour from my home offers one-day opportunities for people like me to “come apart.” If I don’t regularly come apart, I will come apart.

It is necessary to get alone away from the phone, the never-ending household responsibilities, and the noise of the radio, television, and computer. For those living the victim mentality, we have to remove ourselves from the drama we surrounded ourselves with. To pray. Read. Journal. Listen. Mostly listen. I set a goal and move toward it. To make a course adjustment in my settings, it’s far easier to steer the direction of a flying plane than one that is parked with the engine turned off.

We can gently and honestly take stock of ourselves. Give up comparing ourselves to others and live full blast, full out. The first and most important step is to take personal responsibility for myself.

“I do not try to dance better than anyone else. I only try to dance better than myself.”
Mikhail Baryshnikov

Looking Glass

You reflect personal responsibility when you take responsibility for your emotions. No one makes you feel a certain way any more than you can control how another feels and reacts. You choose your emotions and behavior. Are you being responsible for your emotions? For your behavior? Or do you allow your emotions and behavior to control you?

“All the art of living lies in a fine mingling of letting go and holding on.” Henry Ellis

Look Back

What is it like to live with you?

What habits and characteristics benefit you? What habits and characteristics don’t benefit you?

Move Ahead

This week, refuse to blame anyone, including yourself. Each time you are tempted to criticize, condemn, or complain, consider instead what you have to be thankful for. One friend gave up the three C’s from her vocabulary by paying a dollar each time she criticized, condemned, or complained. She put the money toward a charity. It was a win for her and the group she supported.

“One’s philosophy is not best expressed in words;
it is expressed in the choices one makes.
In the long run, we shape our lives and we shape ourselves.
The process never ends until we die.
And, the choices we make are ultimately our own responsibility.”
Eleanor Roosevelt

For You

The victim mentality is characterized by excuses, explanations, justifications, and how bad things are. Use this free list of prompts to easily shift to healthy conversations.