In order to be able to devote some time to our calling, we first need to get control over our day’s activities. One of the most common, unproductive thought patterns we see is thinking that we’re not in control. We use language like, “I have to …” or “I can’t…” as if we don’t have any choices. The truth is that we always have choices – lots of them.
Yet many of us go through life just reacting to external circumstances. We feel forced to go down a certain path, like life is happening to us. This is known as victim mentality.
The benefit of victim mentality is that we don’t have to be responsible for anything. We can always blame someone or something else. We may think and say things like: it’s that other driver’s fault; my boss is making my life miserable; I’m late to work because of traffic; the Great Recession made me lose my house.
This kind of thinking costs us dearly, though. First, it takes us out of the driver’s seat of our life. We are always at the mercy of someone or something else. Second, we’re powerless to fix anything. For example, if our problems at work are our boss’s fault, we are stuck waiting for him or her to fix the problem. We’ve relinquished responsibility and put our boss in the driver’s seat of our life.
There is a quote from the musician, John Lennon, which illustrates this type of victim mentality:
“Life is what happens when you’re making other plans.”
I guess even successful folks can still get caught up in victim mentality.
Is it any wonder that this type of thinking affects how we spend our time? When we engage in victim mentality, we aren’t in control over our own time. We are at the mercy of circumstances and other people.
Let’s talk about the alternative. We’ll call this “empowerment mentality.”
This alternative is to see that we have contributed to the situation. Now, this is different from blaming oneself. It is just seeing that we have made choices. And instead of trying to assign a value to these choices, right or wrong, good or bad, let’s just look at them as neutral.
When we stop using victim thinking, we use a different phrase. We say, “I choose to…” because we have control over our life. Perhaps we don’t control everything, but we do control some things – a lot of things. We would say things like: “I choose to remain at work where I don’t get along with my boss; I chose to leave for work at the last minute which left no time if there was traffic; I chose to stop paying on my mortgage and didn’t look for other options, so the bank foreclosed on me.”
Again, this is not about assigning blame. Don’t play the blame-shame game, not even with yourself. It’s not productive. It doesn’t matter whose fault it is. What matters is that we made some choices and now we get to make some new choices.
A comparison between victim mentality and empowerment mentality is illustrated in a recent quote from John Maxwell in an interview with Michael Hyatt:
“Most people don’t lead their lives. Instead, they just accept their lives.”
When we use empowerment mentality, we are back in control over our lives. If we’ve been making choices that we don’t like, we now get to make some different choices. We get to lead our life rather than just accept it.
Here’s a simple way to tell which type of mentality we’re using. If we are affected to a large degree by circumstances and others, we are probably using victim mentality. If others and circumstances are affected by us, we are probably using empowerment mentality.
Empowerment mentality allows us to make time to pursue our calling. We choose how we spend our time, and we can choose to spend some of it on priorities that benefit us and others in the long run.
This is another excerpt from our book. Our heart’s desire is that you would live an amazing legacy that positively affects thousands and beyond. If you find this section helpful and inspiring, you can get more like this from our book, Splash! Increase Your Life’s Impact. You can order it here, or here.
If deep in your soul you yearn to make your life to mean more, we’d love to continue the conversation. Send us an email, respond to this blog entry, or give us a call [(916) 783-2622].
