The Victim Mentality

Aziz Patrawala
Checkmate
Published in
4 min readAug 28, 2021

The worst mindset that you can have. Sadly a lot of people have this mindset so here is how you can come out of this mindset.

Photo by Tamara Bellis on Unsplash

What is the victim mentality?

The victim mentality is essentially people who think everyone/everything is against them, they are the people that play the victim whenever a bad situation arises. ( e.g your dog died so now you think the world is a cold cold place that hates you.)

They basically think anything that happens to them is never their fault and there is always someone to blame. Makes sense now why it’s called victim mindset right?

Check if you have this mentality

Before you stop reading this because you think you dont have the victim mentality, try this out and prove to yourself whether you do or don’t have the victim mentality.

The last time a bad situation arose what did you do.

A. Blame someone else

B. See it as an opportunity to learn from what happened

C. Acknowledge that you made a mistake/error and learn from it (essentially take accountability)

D. Think that life is against you and the world is just a bad place and that you have bad luck

p.s(if you are arguing in your head and making an argument as to why what happened wasn’t your fault and no part of the situation was you or that life just doesn’t like you, you have victim mentality.)

If you choose A or D you probably have the victim mentality.

Changing your mentality

Here is how you can change it. Before we start, just know that it won’t be necessarily easy to change, your mind is comfortable playing victim mentality because it’s easy, you will have to push hard to truly change. It all comes down to how bad you really want to change.

  1. Change your mindset to the universe is conspiring for you to succeed, that every bad thing that happened is a learning experience and makes you a stronger and better person. (you really have to believe this for it to work)
  2. Next time something bad happens, stop and see how you can learn from the situation, essentially look for the bright side.( e.g your date canceled on you last minute? The bright side is you now got all this free time etc. It can essentially be anything that you gain from what happened that is positive. Again strongly believe that the universe is conspiring for you to succeed, if that girl or boy didn’t show, she or he probably isn’t the right one and the universe is helping you not waste your time with people who won’t help you, even if at present it doesn’t seem that way.)
  3. If you go into victim mentality, don’t beat yourself up about it, remember that the universe is conspiring for you to succeed, and look at it as a way to really figure what you can do next time so you don’t go into the victim mentality.
  4. Know that things won’t change overnight, since it’s a habit for you to go in to victim mentality it will take time and effort to fully change.
  5. Know that once your internal circumstances change your external circumstances will also change. It’s like how can you expect others to love you when you can’t love yourself. Why would others change if you can’t even change yourself, don’t wait on others, work on yourself.
  6. Next time you catch yourself thinking about how life isn’t fair etc, think to yourself, dam right life isn’t fair, now what can I do to get myself in a better place. Then do what’s needed to get yourself in a better space.
  7. Do more research on this topic, I can only write so much in an article. If it is truly important to you to change, you will find a way no matter what the external circumstances are.

Here is an example of changing your mindset. I will use the dog dying example.

Instead of thinking the world is against you and life hates you and wants you to suffer, lean into the pain and start reflecting on how there may be a learning experience. Maybe you have not dealt with death before and the universe wants you to experience it for some reason.

You now need to try and reflect on what the learning is and remember that the universe is conspiring for you to succeed, so the dog dying is truly for your own highest and greatest good. You may not know why now but eventually you will.

I am not saying to not cry or to not release your sadness, you can do all those things, just don’t fall into the trap saying it wasn’t my fault, I’m so powerless, life hates me, etc etc.

For everyone reading this article and knowing they want to change, I applaud you, acknowledging you have the victim mentality is a massive step in the right direction. I hope you’re able to achieve what you want and truly better yourself and your life.

Goodluck

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Thanks All

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Aziz Patrawala
Checkmate

Empowering you to have success, but also happiness and fulfillment