Create Your Life by Overcoming a Victim Mentality

Do you feel as if you are a victim in life? Perhaps you feel as if you cannot get away from your upbringing or the way you were taught. Maybe you feel as if you have no control over who you are or what you do. If this is the case, then you can create your life by overcoming a victim mentality.

What causes my feeling like a victim?

It is hard to say. We are each unique and the reasons can be varied. It is my belief that it doesn’t matter why as much as what you do with the realization that you feel like a victim.

I am not saying that it is not helpful to know the why. You can identify the fact that you were abused as a child or you were treated unfairly by a teacher, whatever it might be, but what you do from here on out is what is most important. Often, the reasons are vague and varied anyway.

What do I do with it?

Realizing that you feel like a victim is the first big step. Just knowing that this is a problem in your life can be the biggest hurdle. Once you have identified your victim mentality, you can begin to work at ways to get rid of it, or lessen the effect it has on your life.

You may not be able to know what has caused you to have this victim mentality, but you can understand the areas in your life where it is most prevalent. Perhaps you feel most like a victim when you are at work, or maybe it is at home. Whatever the circumstance, once you know what the conditions are, you can begin to watch yourself in these situations. When you spot yourself taking the role of the victim, remember that it is not true; you are only a victim when you allow yourself to be.

Know that you can control your own thoughts. You can believe yourself to be a victim or in control of your thoughts. You must differentiate between being in control of life and your thoughts. You cannot control life. You cannot control other people or how they behave toward you. You can control how you react to life and other people. You can let them control you, or you can refuse to allow what they say or do to unfavorably affect you.

How do I create my life?

You must know what it is you want. Picture in your mind the person you wish to be. Know what that person is like and how he or she behaves. Once you have that firmly in your mind, you can begin conforming your life to the vision of the person you would like to become. When you find that you are not living up to the vision, do not be overly critical of yourself, just start again. It may not feel like it, but you are making progress. It may be slow, but each time you start again, you are starting from a different place.

Believe that you can be that person, think like they would think and act like they would act. Understand that even though you were conditioned to have the victim mentality, it is up to you to accept it or reject it, you can create your life.

Here’s to You!

P.S. Here are three books from Amazon that deal with being a victim. They are all rated highly. Check them out and see if one of them might help you to change.



Finding Your Bootstraps: 11 Steps to Overcoming Victim Thinking. As the title says this book outlines eleven steps in overcoming your victim mentality.

Confronting the Victim Role: Healing from an Abusive Childhood deals more with how you became a victim, what were the things in your past.

Breaking Free from the Victim Trap: Reclaiming Your Personal Power deals with a combination of the past and what to do about it now.