The definition of the victim mentality. Folks, I’m going to take a little bit out of the middle of the definition of victim mentality. This is the verbatim definition of victim mentality- it is an acquired personality trait where a person tends to regard himself or herself as the victim of the negative actions of others even in the absence of clear evidence. The victim mentality depends on a habitual thought process and attributions. That second sentence is right between the eyes, right where it belongs. The victim mentality depends as it has to have a habitual thought process. Habitual accurately implies duration and addiction. Yes, people can get addicted to their victim mentalities. This happens all the time and it doesn’t happen overnight. It happens over a prolonged period of time. In my personal, and professional opinion that is a thief in the night, it’s the most expensive thing on the planet. It robs people of their time their energy. The train wrecks their imagination. It keeps their breathing trapped. It’s all coming from a glitch in our language. So, if somebody gets trapped in this victim mentality and you notice them spiraling into this negative habitual conversation in their own minds, as a leader mentor coach, how do you rewrite that story with them? How do you help them shift? Is there a framework to word a conversation to help them rewrite and rewind their thought process?
Break The Spell
Yes, well, this brings up an interesting part of the conversation or a different flavor of interesting. The definition of a spell. Yeah, I’m going there. Webster’s definition of a spell is a word or a combination of words of great influence. That’s it. That means that when someone says something like, “My, you have a big nose just like me.” That is a combination of words that can greatly influence you. Just like saying “You are always a person that is awesome.” That’s also a combination of words of great influence. Folks, the first place to start if you want to break these old spells that are forcing you to see yourself as not good enough or, pick your flavor of self-sabotage, write those stories down. The difference between having a story running in your mind and having a story written on paper it’s night and day. It’s the difference between having a draft to hand in in high school or college and not handing in anything at all. Once someone writes down their stories of the times when they lost, the times of rejection, you’re literally giving yourself distance and breathing room. It’s gone from in your in your mind, seemingly infinite, looping around, kicks you in the face, and then it’s gone. What do I do with that? The two most common things that people do when it comes to dealing with their internal negative stories are either to run from it or to try and fight it. You gotta externalize it. Once the story is written down, it’s finite. You’ve got a beginning, you’ve got an end and then you can look at the words. Okay? You can look at the language you can look at the story and start to gain clarity on it. So, first things first, write the thing down and if you want extra credit bonus points for it write down the specific stories, you would just journal. So, like just basically get a journal and just start writing. It seems that the written journaling is more powerful, but either way either way, get it on paper and that’s a very good start.
Slow Down
Another thing that you can do if you want to down-regulate yourself is to talk a little bit slower. Talk about 10 to 15 degrees slower. Have a conversation with someone at a slower pace and watch what happens. Watch what happens to the way you sound. Watch what happens to how you breathe. Watch what happens to how you have access to the pauses more. You’ll be able to feel your language more. I definitively talk less, talk slower, and get so much more done. I‘ve got more energy because of it. I do that by design. I have trained myself to do that. I pay attention to what feels the best for me as far as my pace of speech and how fast I talk, or how I need to talk to keep my breath where I want it.
Get Comfortable
There are three levels to the game, folks. Let’s just talk about sales or presentation skills. There’s insecure, there’s confident, and then there’s comfortable. Most people want to get too confident because most people are insecure when it comes to presenting or pitching. I understand that, okay? I‘ve lived that and guess what? There’s a promised land past confident. It’s called comfort and when you’re comfortable on stage, everyone knows it. World-class speakers, are enjoying themself. There’s only one way to enjoy yourself and that is to feel comfortable in your skin. When you’re comfortable your audience is just as they are they’re on pucker two and they’re along for the ride it’s just it’s the same thing with sales when you’re comfortable in your skin, you create the state. Let’s go Tony Robbins here, create the state. First and foremost if you’re looking for longevity in your career, you want to get comfortable as soon as possible. That’s also mastery. I don’t know one person who has mastered anything who is breathing in their chest and hasn’t gotten comfortable with where they are and what they are doing.
