Brian Gubernick shares three steps to escape victim mentality: stop it and notice the behavior, control what you can actually influence, and look inward instead of blaming outside factors. He describes how stress recently triggered this mindset in himself and challenges listeners to spot where it shows up in their own lives.
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Thank you for joining me today. It's Brian Gubernick, and welcome to the No Days Off podcast, where we believe that every single day brings a new opportunity to get better. Let me start by asking you a question today. Have you found yourself ever complaining maybe a bit more than usual? Have you maybe found yourself blaming others or blaming circumstances, maybe feeling powerless or helpless? Are there times where you just don't take responsibility or ownership? Maybe you've focused on problems rather than looking at solutions, or maybe, you know, it's not easy to admit, but You felt entitled to some sort of special treatment. Maybe you've struggled a little bit in taking criticism or feedback. I'm going to guess that you've experienced some of those things. I know I most certainly have. It pains me to admit it, but there are definitely times where I find myself maybe complaining a bit, dare I say whining. Hopefully it's not all that often, but I do catch myself now and again, or maybe I'm frustrated and blame others or push the blame off on others or say it's the circumstance. Sometimes I get frustrated because, you know, I don't know if I can make a difference. I feel kind of powerless and therefore don't own it. Don't own or take responsibility. Every once in a while, it's kind of a slippery slope, but I might, might get in a, in a rut and find myself focusing on problems. This sort of thing, this is a victim mentality. And I'm talking about it here today because I think that while we all know, we've probably heard the phrase victim mentality and naturally know it's not a good place to be. Odds are we've all found ourselves in that spot before. I know I certainly have. As a matter of fact, uh, I don't know, probably a month ago, um, I did catch myself in a different sort of mood or a different sort of mentality than I typically am in. There was lots of things going on. I was under a little bit of stress and I was reacting a lot more with emotion than objectivity, as I, as I try to do more, more oftentimes. I found myself, you know, for a moment feeling like, gosh, this isn't my responsibility. This isn't, this isn't for me. Someone else should run with this. In other words, I found myself with a victim mentality. And, and I'm talking about it here today. Cause again, I think from time to time we all get there. So when I was going through this, about a month ago, and I recognized it, right? I wasn't calling it victim mentality, but I caught myself complaining a little bit and blaming and feeling helpless. I saw it, I felt it, I could feel it internally. Like I could, I could, it was impacting my mood and my energy. And then I was able to kind of take a step back and label it. And it was tough to label it this, but I was playing the role of victim. And It was a victim mentality. So what do you do? What do you do if you run into that problem? And again, we're human. You know, there's so many variables in life, so many things that happen throughout our days. It's not abnormal to every once in a while fall into this mentality. So what do you do to get out of it? When I was dealing with this, I took a step back and I reflected, you know, I wasn't sure, you know, number one, I wasn't going to be hard on myself, right? Like it was happening. It was happening to me. I was behaving a way that I wasn't proud of. And I realized that. And I had to take a step back and say, okay, what's going on here? If though, if what I just described, all those, those things that victim mentality is about, those are all symptoms. Then what in fact is the problem that I need to solve for? Here's what I realized. Number one, I had to just stop it. I know that's like a funny guidance to give or funny tactic to give in terms of solving for victim mentality. But once you realize it, stop it. It's awareness, right? You have awareness around it. Now you realize that you are doing certain things that make for a victim mentality. So knock it off, just stop it. And that's, that's what I had to tell myself. Brian, stop it. Okay. Be aware. You're aware of it. Maybe, you know, give yourself a little bit of grace because you maybe were unaware of it in the moment, but now that you know, so stop it. But more tactically, I think what we have to do is start with looking at the controllables. What can I truly control? I've got to control the controllables. See, a lot of victim mentality We start thinking around the things that aren't within our control and they start weighing on us. But I'll tell you what, take a step back and ask, what can I in fact control? I have to control the controllables. That doesn't necessarily solve for this victim mentality, but it does start on the journey to course correcting. So number 1, stop it, bring awareness to it. Number 2, control the controllables. And then number 3, and this has kind of been a mantra here at No Days Off for the past year or so. For me, I had to look and think more mirror, less window. In other words, life happens for you. It doesn't happen to you. You've got to take extreme ownership, as our friend Jocko Willink would say. You own it. So more mirror, meaning looking at myself and determining how I can change, and less window, which would be looking at others and wondering how they could change. See, to me, that was really what victim mentality looked like in my world. I was looking at others instead of looking within. So I share this with, with, with you today, because if you are a high achiever, if you are part of the No Days Off Nation, if you're aiming to get better each and every day, you will find yourself having some degree of victim mentality at some point. Now, I think, again, acknowledging that we're all going to experience it, what are the best of the best do? They get out of it faster than everybody else around them. They acknowledge it. They accept responsibility for their actions, for their behavior, for the mentality that they're currently in. And they ask themselves, what do I do to change? And for me, change was about just stopping it. I'm aware of it now, stop it. Looking at what I could in fact control and control the controllables. And then lastly, just looking more in the mirror and less out the window. What can I change internally? What could I change as a person, you know, me personally, versus how could I ask others to change around me? So for today, the focusing question for you: where do you show up from time to time with this victim mentality? Where is it showing up in your world right now? Maybe it's within your business. Maybe it's within your peer group. Maybe it's even within your family. You're showing up. I've called you out on it now today, respectfully. There's probably a couple of these things that I touched on. That you are personally experiencing. Now that you're aware, what can you do to change the direction or that mentality altogether? I gave you a few recommendations, but I guess, you know, based on my own experience, but I'm going to guess you have some of your own. I think we overcomplicate this. To me, it's just a function of knocking it off, controlling what I can control, and looking in the mirror a lot more than I'm looking out the window. Hopefully this makes a difference for you today. I really appreciate you listening. The No Days Off Podcast. Do me a favor. Remember, every single day brings us an opportunity to get better at something. So let's get after it.
