How To Deal With Victim Mentality

The Mindset Mentor is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you find yourself playing the budgeting game? Well, with the name your price tool from Progressive, you can find options that fit your budget and potentially lower your bills. Try it@progressive.com, progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates.

Price and coverage match limited by state law not available in all states for small businesses.

Every hire matters, but time and resources are limited.

LinkedIn Hiring Pro is built for that

reality, helping you find, connect with and screen the right candidates faster. From drafting jobs to AI powered screening interviews In a conversational interface that lets

you describe what you need in plain

language, you can spend less time searching

and more time connecting with qualified talent. Hire right the first time, post your

first job and get $100 off towards your job posts@LinkedIn.com dial that's LinkedIn.com dial terms and conditions apply.

Instagram Teen accounts have automatic protections for what teens see and who can contact them, plus time management tools and Instagram will continue adding built in safety features to help create age appropriate experiences. Learn more about Teen Accounts and Instagram's ongoing work to protect teens online@instagram.com teenaccounts.

Welcome to today's episode of 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, 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 when 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 of 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 it'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 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. But when the parents wanna 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 there was actually. 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. 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 they. 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 an actual feeling is, I can't do this, it's like, well, I'm gonna blame everybody el 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. Another very common place where it comes from is children who are neglected or abused. And when I say neglect and abuse, 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 know until I was 32 years old, is some 30, 32 years old, that, that I had emotional neglect from 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, 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, you know, 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 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.

Teachers are deep into new units this time of year. IXL lets kids practice the exact skills they're learning in class. Helping lessons stick in, boosting confidence, heading toward the spring. IXL is an award winning online learning platform that helps kids truly understand what they're learning. Whether they're building math confidence, strengthening reading and writing skills, or reviewing science concepts. It covers math, language arts, science and social studies from Pre K through 12th grade with personalized interactive content that adapts to the child's level and PACE. IXL is used in 96 of the top 100 school districts in the United States. It's an easy way to Support learning as the school year moves into its most important stretch. Make an impact on your child's learning and get IXL now and the Mindset Mentor listeners can get an exclusive 20% off IXL membership when they sign up at ixl.com mindsetmentor visit ixl.com mindsetmentOr to get the most effective learning program out there at the best price. Stop paying way too much for wireless just because that's how it's always been. Mint Mobile exists purely to fix that Same coverage, same speed, just without the inflated price tag. The premium wireless you expect unlimited talk, text and data, but at a fraction of what others charge. I've been using Mint Mobile for about four years now for my business phone, and it works just as good as all of the carriers that I've ever had. Are you ready to stop paying more? For what? Ready to stop paying more than what you have to? New customers can make the switch today and for a limited time get unlimited premium wireless for just $15 per month. Switch now@mintmobile.com mentor that's mintmobile.com mentor upfront payment of $45 for three months, $90 for six months or $180 for 12 month plan $15 per month equivalent taxes and fees Extra initial plan term only over 50 gigabytes may slow when network is busy Capable device required availability speed and coverage varies. Additional terms apply. See mint mobile.com Every business is asking the same question. How do we make AI work? For us, the possibilities are endless and the guessing is too risky. But sitting on the sidelines is not an option because one your competitors are already making their move. No more waiting. With NetSuite by Oracle, you can put AI to work today. NetSuite is a number one AI Cloud ERP trusted by over 43,000 businesses. It is a unified suite that brings you financials, inventory, commerce, HR and CRM into one single source of truth. Now with NetSuite AI connector you can use AI of your choice to connect your actual business data and ask every question you ever had, from key customers to inventory trends. Plus automate those tiresome manual processes. Let's see your competitors try to do that right now. Get their free business guide demystifying AI at netsuite.com dial the guide is free to you at netsuite.com dial that's netsuite.com dial 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. Some, 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. 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, of his parents have quite like stuck mindsets. Like, they're, 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, quote, unquote, 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 academic and social pressures. How you're supposed to show up and get good grades. And if your brain is developing and you're still not getting it at some point, 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, 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 are 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 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 gonna be forever. I can't change. Just everything has, like a negative 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 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 your life.

So it's like, oh, why even bother?

You know, my life is so terrible anyways. And it's. It never works out for me anyways. And nothing ever works out for why would I do it anyways? You 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 xyz if you're the person 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 you in your life, whether it was a parent or whether it was someone in school. Or whether it was your brother or sister, or whether it was a, you know, ex, or whether it was, you know, a friend, whatever, it might have 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. 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, you know, 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. You know, if you frequently blame other people for your problems, probably a victim mindset, it's never, oh, it's never their fault, right? The victim mindset, it's 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 following. I could, 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 that, you can poke holes in that and you can find it. You can try what's called opposite thinking. What is the exact opposite of my belief, and how can I start to reprogram that into myself? You know, 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 happen, but it is your responsibility to say, these are the cars that I was dealt with. 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 going to challenge you when they see you falling back into victim mindset and say, hey, listen, I don't think you're seeing their correct. You know, 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 have positive relationships 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. Right? Breathwork, meditation, affirmations. This could literally be five minutes if you want it to be. And so you do breath work. You can go online, you can go on YouTube and you can find somebody who does three minute breathwork session or 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 breath work and then maybe five minutes of meditation and affirmation. So you do the breath work. You get yourself into a heightened sense state. You're more. 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. 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. Robdial 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 could 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 out how it relates to your life and you can get better from it. It has assignments. This is where I do my monthly Q and A sessions. There's an entire community of over 1300 people that are inside of this community that you can connect with, you can send direct messages, you can make new friends, all of that stuff. And it's way less than you spend on coffee every single day. And so if you want to learn more about it, go to mindsetmentor.com once again, mindsetmentor.com all of the information is on that page. And with that I'm going to leave you the same way every single episode. Make it your mission to make somebody else's day better. I appreciate you and I hope that you have an amazing day.

Instagram teen accounts have automatic protections for what teens see and who can contact them, plus time management tools and Instagram will continue adding built in safety features to help create age appropriate experiences. Learn more about teen accounts and Instagram's ongoing work to protect teens online@instagram.com.

Eating healthy doesn't mean you have to eat out at a pricey restaurant. Healthy Choice Simply Steamers Grilled Chicken and Broccoli Alfredo is an easy high protein meal with nothing artificial. The steam tray keeps the sauce separate so you get crisp broccoli, creamy Alfredo sauce and tender grilled chicken. That's delicious every time and it's a satisfying meal with 28 grams of protein. You can find it in the frozen aisle. Healthy Choice what having it all tastes like.