Victim or Victor?

In this week’s Success Newsletter, I would like to reveal simple strategies that separate the victor from the victim.

First a quick update:

“The top tips to affair-proofing your marriage”
Did you know that there are things you can do in your relationship and marriage to make it affair-proof? In fact, there are 17 things you can do which will transform your marriage and deepen the bond, connection and love:  Click to them out.

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Now, let’s talk about the simple strategies that separate the victor from the victim.

The dictionary defines victim as a person harmed, injured, or killed as a result of a crime, accident, or other event or action; a person who is tricked or duped.

Using the above definition we can conclude that a victim is someone who suffers injury as a result of something outside of their control.

Children are victims; they are helpless.

Children are dependent on adults for survival.

Adults are rarely victims since they are rarely helpless.

Of course, as defined above there are situations in which adults are victims – of crime, robbery, violence, and so forth.

On the other hand, the dictionary defines a victor as a person who defeats an enemy or opponent in a battle, game, or other competition.

In life, our greatest enemy is ourselves.

We are in constant battle with our own thoughts, attitudes, feelings, beliefs and perspectives.

And when we are faced with challenges or when we feel defeated it is easy to slip into victim mode – crying out that we are helpless or we are the object of someone else’s control or that the way our life has turned out is beyond our control, and that therefore someone else is to blame.

Being in victim mode is akin to slipping into quicksand – the more we thrash around the deeper we sink – the more we cry out ‘victim’, the more helpless and miserable we become; the more we wail that we are a victim the less chance we ever have of succeeding or changing our situation and reality.

The opposite of victim mode is responsibility – the choice to make ourselves responsible and accountable for everything that happens in our life and for the way we are going to change our outcome.

Here is a simple model offered by ActionCoach Business Coaching, called “Above the Line” whereby the line separates the victor from the victim.

These 3 qualities are above the line and result in Victory – these are my definitions and explanations of each quality, and not by ActionCoach:

1. Ownership
The dictionary defines ownership as the act, state, or right of possessing something. You possess your life and everything that happens in it, and you can make different choices. You can steer your life.

2. Accountability
Accountability refers to the fact that you are liable for the decisions you make and for the outcomes in your life.

3. Responsibility
The dictionary defines responsibility as the state or fact of having a duty to deal with something or of having control over someone. You have control over your life – unless you choose to hand that control to someone else, and even then you made the choice to do so. You have a duty to face everything that occurs in your life. Remember, you cannot avoid responsibility in life – unless you are a young child – responsibility always catches up to you. My simplest definition of responsibility is the duty or obligation you have and which you must fulfill, but which, is also uncomfortable.

These 3 qualities are below the line and result in Victimhood – these are my definitions and explanations of each quality, and not by ActionCoach:

1. Blame
The dictionary defines blame as assigning responsibility for a fault or wrong. Of course, when we speak of blame we are saying that someone or something else is responsible, at fault or is the cause of the things that have gone wrong in our lives. Read my article “Don’t whine, complain or make excuses” https://patrickwanis.com/blog/dont-whine-complain-excuses/

2. Excuses
The dictionary defines blame as the attempt to lessen the blame attaching to (a fault or offense); seek to defend or justify; to release (someone) from a duty or requirement. In other words, when we make excuses we are running away from accepting our role for the outcome; we are trying to release ourselves from fulfilling our duty or requirement for what happened, and, for what will happen next.

3. Denial
The dictionary defines denial as the action of declaring something to be untrue. Thus denial is equivalent to delusion – we are saying that what is actually happening is not happening; we are again running away from facing the reality of our lives and outcome.

When we choose to blame, make excuses or deny what is the current reality, we are also blocking and undermining all possibility of a solution; we are preventing a change to our reality and we are sinking deeper in the quicksand of victimhood. Nothing will ever change for the better while we remain in victim mode!

Additionally, whilst we choose to play the victim, we also damage and undermine our relationships. Read my article “Dealing with emotional vampires” where I reveal that the Victim is one of five types of emotional vampires:

If on the other hand, we choose to take ownership and be fully accountable and responsible for our life, then and only then, can we feel fully in control of our life; then and only then can we steer our life in a different course and change our outcomes and results.

Remember, our life is the result of every choice we have made thus far – even if that choice is the way we respond to those things that are beyond our control (the things that happened to us.)

Finally, here is a powerful mantra and teaching of mine: “I am responsible for everything that happens in my life!”

Use it and live by it, and, watch the way your life dramatically transforms for the better!

Also read  “20 Secrets of mental toughness”.

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I wish you the best and remind you “Believe in yourself -You deserve the best!”

Patrick Wanis Ph.D.
Celebrity Life Coach, Human Behavior & Relationship Expert & SRTT Therapist
www.patrickwanis.com