What is victim mentality? What does it look like? Why are people victims? Can you unlearn it? What are the steps to stop being a victim?
In this episode of The Chris LoCurto Show, we dive into what makes us feel powerless, the broad characteristics of victim mentality, and how to STOP victim mentality.
Episode transcript:
Chris LoCurto: 00:00 Have you ever wondered why somebody is winning and you’re not? Have you ever wondered why the business down the street is absolutely killing it at what they’re doing and yours does not seem to be? Have you ever wondered why you in in a leadership role or a team member, why somebody is getting promoted and you’re not? Those are the things that we are going to be talking about coming up next.
Chris LoCurto: 00:35 Welcome to the Chris LoCurto show where we discuss leadership and life and discover that business is what you do, not who you are.
Chris LoCurto: 00:46 Welcome to the show folks. We are talking today about why is it that some people are doing better than we are. How come some people seem to just win when we’re not winning or how come you know? I can never please certain people in my life, no matter how hard I try. Why is it that my spouse, I’m never good enough for my spouse? How come I’m never good enough for my parents? Why is it that there’s always something going wrong and it’s my fault at work? Why is it that my boss is promoting somebody else instead of promoting me when I do just as good of a job as that person, you know? And why is it that they are finding favor in my leader’s eyes when I should be finding that favor as well? How come things go wrong?
Chris LoCurto: 01:38 I just get attacked on stuff and it’s not like it’s in my control. Right? Have we ever experienced anything like this? Have you ever felt anything like this? Have you ever felt like your parents loved your sibling more than you? Have you ever felt like even your kids like your spouse better than you? If you’ve had some of these experiences, and we all have and there’s a ton of different ways that we experience looking at other people winning in life. You know, if we look at, uh, you know, the guy, my neighbor has a better car. Why does he have a better car? Why does he have a better job? How come he’s making more money than me? Why is it that you know, for business owners, how come you know the business owners that I know how come they’re doing so much better than I am and I am busting it here?
Chris LoCurto: 02:29 All of these thoughts, all of these things that sound so familiar that we’ve all experienced. Many of these thoughts happen because of something that we absolutely hate. Something that we can’t stand. We see it in other people and we think to ourselves, I hate that that person is…a victim. I hate. I can see it in other people and I know well it’s not. It’s not me. I cannot tell you the number of people that sitting in Next-Level Life… and this isn’t everybody that experiences this, but it’s a lot. It’s a good number of people that sitting in Next-Level Lifelook up and go, oh no, no, no, no. Oh, tell me I’m not a victim. Because they see that they have a victim mentality that can see it in their parents. They can see it. Other people, can see it in their kids, but when it comes to us and we are being victims, it’s difficult to see.
Chris LoCurto: 03:36 It’s really difficult to accept because we truly believe the lies that we tell ourselves. We truly believe that we are being slighted. We truly believe that when our boss is railing on us and attacking us for this thing that went wrong, that’s exactly what’s happening. And I’m not saying that it’s not happening, but what we tend to do is go, I’m a victim because… you know, this bad thing happened and it of course it’s in my area and of course, I have responsibility over it, but I’m the victim here and now I’m being attacked. My wife is just railing on me and I’m not good enough because I didn’t get this done or I didn’t get that done. And yes, I did tell her that I would do it, but you know, I, I’m the victim here. My husband is just so upset at me because of the, you know, I’m supposed to book the trip or you know, we discussed this booking of the vacation and I’m supposed to have booked it and I didn’t get it done in time and we’re not going to the right place.
Chris LoCurto: 04:46 We’re not staying in the right place, but it’s really, I’m the victim here. Even though I told him I would get it done right. We have these situations in our life. These are real-life situations and so many times we end up lying to ourselves that we are the victim, that we are powerless and if you ever wonder if maybe it is you, let me give you some signs of victim mentality. This is just, this is a long list that it’s just some of the signs you feel attacked when you’re given constructive criticism. You get defensive even when things go right, you fear what could go wrong, and you are critical. You put yourself down, you can’t make mistakes and you feel the need to be perfect. You feel powerless. You’re frozen in life dealing with the same frustrations, and problems as people you were years ago, and you feel rejected by others.
Chris LoCurto: 05:43 You constantly compare yourself to others. You get into arguments easily and often you blame others. Think about this one. You may not think it’s blaming because you’ve bought into it being the truth of whatever the situation is, but many times we will blame the daylights out of other people because we are being a victim. You expect to gain sympathy and by the way back on the blaming piece- Why are we blaming? One of the things we have here, you’ve heard if you’ve listened to me for any decent amount of time, is that we don’t play the blame game here. We have a process of solving problems where people want to blame other people or throw them under the bus. That will get you in trouble right away with me because I will say, hey, that is not our focus. That’s not our core values. That’s not our culture.
Chris LoCurto: 06:33 What happened? How did it happen? Why did it happen? What are we going to do to fix it and how do we make sure it never happens again? No blame game, no throwing people under the bus, solve the problem. Don’t be a victim here. Solve the problem, right? So just another sign of victim mentality. You expect to gain sympathy from others and when you don’t get it, you feel upset. You’re not assertive. You may have been accused of being passive-aggressive at some point. You tend to think others are purposefully trying to hurt you. Do you know? Did your coworker really send that email to overwhelm you? Or Did your leader really make that comment to point out that you’re a bad team member, or did your spouse really make you late to dinner or whatever on purpose, you know, these are all things that you look at, that people are purposefully trying to hurt you or you experience many of the negative emotions that come along with victim mentality.
Chris LoCurto: 07:35 These are signs guys, if you’re thinking, hm, hm, I just might be a victim if you’re hearing any of those and thinking, oh, that could be me. Well, it could be, or a lot of you right now are going, well, that’s not me, but I know who that is. Be careful here because It’s very easy for you to point out somebody with a victim mentality. Guess what? It may be you. A lot of times it’s easy to look at somebody else and go, oh, they’re totally a victim, and not realize that you do the same exact thing. If your parents are victims, if you find that your parents are victims, then it’s a good chance you are too. If you find that you always believe your parents do nothing but attack you, then it’s a really good possibility you’re a victim. Guys I am not in any way shape or form saying that you aren’t a victim of something.
Chris LoCurto: 08:28 What we’re discussing here is a victim mentality. Where we go through life thinking that we are victims. So often people come through the Next-Level Life and as soon as they realize it they’re just pissed. They’re like, I can’t stand victims. I thought I wasn’t one because they can see that it is a mentality. It’s something that usually goes unnoticed by those that do have a victim mentality, but they can see it in other places and so they get upset because, no, this shouldn’t be me. And it happens every single time somebody discovers that. Right? And again, it’s not everybody discovers that it’s not everybody that we see that, but when we do, it’s a painful, painful process. And again, I’m not saying that you aren’t a victim. What I have discovered in life is that for me, there are two types of victim mentality.
Chris LoCurto: 09:23 Now there’s victim mentality from those that have truly been a victim to something bad, something painful, something terrible, something disgusting, and it’s affected the rest of their lives. So we have many folks that have come through that have been raped. We have many folks that have come through that had been molested. We have many folks that have come through that have been abused. We have folks that have come through that have zero problems. We have this full spectrum of people that come through Next-Level Life. Next level Life isn’t by the way, for people that have had horrible things in their lives. Next-Level Life is helping you to see what’s holding you back, whether you’ve had bad things or not, and helps you to grow in your life and go to the next level or the next three or four, or five levels in your life.
Chris LoCurto: 10:11 But a lot of folks that do come through have had terrible things that have happened that have been holding them back. And so for me, I find there are two types of victim mentality. One is you’ve been through something horrible. It has affected you. It’s affected your way of thinking. It’s affected your expectations in life. It has caused you to be guarded. It’s caused you to protect yourself. It’s been something that has been bad and for some people, it’s something that happened over and over and over again. I have had people that have come through that did not even realize that they had been abused because it was a normal thing. It was something that was normal in their life. And what I point out, hey, you do realize this is physical abuse or this is emotional abuse, but a lot of times they’re like, no, I just thought that was normal.
Chris LoCurto: 11:00 I thought everybody went through that. I thought all the kids in my neighborhood, you know, had a parent that physically beat them. And I’m not talking about spanking, I’m talking about physical abuse, right? I’m talking about bad physical abuse, right? And so sometimes something like that happens in life and it affects you, it changes your belief system or it creates a belief system that you are a victim. And the problem is this, you tend to then go through life looking at every situation or many situations as you being a victim in that situation. So if somebody does something many times, I will stop people in a process because Next-Level Life, StratPlan, Next-Level Mastermind. There are times I will push people in Next-Level Life, especially depending on their personality style.
Chris LoCurto: 12:04 For the High D, I will say, Hey, I’m going to push you. This is going to be something that’s going to be difficult. You know, I’m, I’m gonna try and get you frustrated. I would never say that to a high s or a high c and usually not too high. And the reason is I don’t need to do that there. But a high d an off Chart D, Oh yeah, I’m going to have to push this person and get them flustered. And sometimes I do, sometimes I don’t. Why do I have to do that? Because sometimes you know, High D’s, we need a two-by-four upside the head and they’re good with it. But it is absolutely not the same way. I would lead somebody who wasn’t High D.
Chris LoCurto: 12:39 Why? Because they don’t need that. They need something else. They need love, they need gentleness, you know, depending upon the personality style. And so the pushing that I will do on a high d or even sometimes a high I. Sometimes, as I’m pushing that personality style, then what comes out is this response of, You’re attacking me, you’re attacking me. So if I point something out, I’ll say, hey look, this is something that I’ve noticed you saying. You’ve said this five times in the last half hour, what do you think about it? Oh, you’re attacking me. No, not attacking you at all. We’re getting perspective on this and sometimes what you will see is all of a sudden they start responding as though I am attacking them and that is what I will stop the process and say, let me ask you something. Are you feeling the pressure right now? Yes.
Chris LoCurto: 13:34 Okay. Does it look like something you’ve experienced before in your life and that’s when you start to see the light bulbs? It does. Is this the way your mom, and your dad used to be, did they used to yell at you and you felt the way you feel right now? Yeah. Okay. Am I yelling at, you know, am I attacking, you know, am I doing anything mean controlling, manipulative? No, but it feels just like when somebody was doing that in your life. Yeah. Okay. This is where we need separation, this is where we have to realize we have created a victim mentality because we have been treated badly and now we look at situations that feel the same or have the same pressure and believe we’re right back in that same spot. So while we need to be pushed, sometimes and, again, this is dependent on personality styles.
Chris LoCurto: 14:36 I’ve had highs d’s that got there. They’re like, oh my, my spouse would never be able to do this. And it’s like, why not? It’s like, this is, this is tough. And I’m like, well, it’s your spouse, this personality style. Yeah. Well, we would lead them differently. Well, why? Because they don’t need to be pushed like you do. Do you know? A high s doesn’t need that. High s’s actually get stuff faster in Next-Level Life than anybody else. It is amazing to watch them in the process. They actually get stuff really quickly. Why? Because they’re very introspective. They know themselves pretty well. They just need somebody to tie all this stuff together and so we lead them differently. Why? Because we understand that there’s a really good chance that the high s has had somebody in their life that has pushed them, that is treated them badly, has been abusive or controlling or manipulative.
Chris LoCurto: 15:36 We understand that, and so we lead that personality style differently. So here’s the thing I want you to see. Sometimes you can see a situation it’s reminiscent of something that happened and you believe it’s the same exact thing. You’re attacking me, boss man, by asking me all these questions about the thing that I messed up. No, I’m trying to gain perspective on why you messed this thing up. No, you’re attacking me. All of a sudden you’re a victim, right? So that’s the first victim mentality that I find. Usually, it’s something that has happened badly in their life and now they become a victim or they look at situations and become a victim. Every single time they become a victim. There is a villain. There’s a bad person. The victim has to have somebody to be the bad person in their life, the villain in their life, the bad person in the situation.
Chris LoCurto: 16:41 So if you’re finding yourself very easily pointing out somebody who is the bad person, guess what, you’re probably stuck in victim mentality. You’re probably looking at somebody and going, look at how bad they are, how mean they are, how whatever, and I am not saying that you’re not experiencing that. What I’m saying is this is a great time to check yourself. Are you being a victim? Are they really doing that? There are times and Strat Plan. Well, we’ll be going through and communication is the number one issue that companies have. It’s the first thing that we start with on day one of four days of events, right? Because we need to get it nailed now so that we can go through everything else and solve all the problems you will find people feeling attacked at the table while we’re going through the event where other people might be looking at the situation going, there’s really no attack going on.
Chris LoCurto: 17:41 They’re just asking questions, but it feels like something that happened when they were younger by a parent, whatever. So that’s the first style of victim mentality for me that I believe exists. The second is one where you feel like things have happened or you feel like you’re not good enough in life, or you’ve been treated by somebody like you’re not good enough in life like you can never do anything well enough that you don’t have great worth, so you may not have had something really bad happened to you, but you may have a life of feeling like you’re not good enough. You may have parents that, it didn’t matter how much you tried to please them. They were never pleased and they may have been focused on themselves and so it doesn’t matter how much you tried to please them. You couldn’t please them, or maybe you have people that have a, you know, a great deal of pride that you’re trying to please and no matter how many times you try, you can’t do it.
Chris LoCurto: 18:44 So this message gets built up in your mind that you’re not good enough, that you’re not worthy enough, and all of a sudden you start creating this process in your mind where you are a victim. It doesn’t matter how hard I try. It doesn’t matter what I do. I can never please this person, I can never make this person happy. And you become a victim and they again become the bad person. They become the villain. This is the second style of victim mentality. I see both situations, you know, are not, are not trained by healthy people. Obviously, you know, if you have been a true victim of something bad, then obviously it wasn’t a healthy person who did it. If you’ve been trained by parents that you’re not good enough, um, you know, and you never were good enough, then obviously these are not healthy people.
Chris LoCurto: 19:43 All of this creates this process of believing that you are powerless, believing that other people are out to get you believing that you need to pity you in the process. Because look at what kind of a victim you are. So we experience this victim mentality. We don’t think it, but as we don’t think of it as being victim mentality, we don’t label it victim mentality. We just believe we are being a victim and there are some good sides that we convince ourselves of that, uh, some benefits that come from being a victim mentality, right? Cause sometimes it gets us attention and validation. You know, sometimes you don’t have to take risks because if you take a risk, you’re just going to be in trouble again. You’re not going to be good enough again. You’re going to be that victim again. Or when you feel like a victim, you tend to not take action and then you don’t have to risk rejection or failure, you know, these are things that we convince ourselves of.
Chris LoCurto: 20:40 You don’t have to take heavy responsibility because if you do, you’re just going to fail anyways. Taking responsibility for your own life sometimes gets you in a bad place and you have to make difficult decisions it’s heavy and it sucks sometimes. It can just feel so much better if I don’t do that. Sometimes it just feels right that you are the victim because for some of us, it’s affirming the very thing that we’ve been trained to believe, that we are not good enough, that we’re not worthy. Every single bit of this is a lie. Everything that we’re telling ourselves when it comes to victim mentality is a lie. I’m not talking about when you truly were a victim. If somebody did violate you, if something did happen that was terrible, I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about the mentality that it creates, that we bring into situations in the future.
Chris LoCurto: 21:49 Those things that we tell ourselves are lies. You are good enough, especially to somebody who loves you more than anybody else could ever love you and that would be God. You are worthy enough to him that he would come down, take on the world’s most humiliating birth and death and the world’s worst beating so that you could have everlasting life with him. You are good enough. The problem is you’re looking at people, you’re looking at men to be worthy. You’re looking at the man to say that you are good enough. So the very thing he created is the thing you’re looking to in saying that you’re a victim too, when in fact you’re not a victim. In fact, there’s a god who’s crazy about you, and if you get the truth into your life, then you can change or get rid of the victim mentality. If you get rid of the lies.
Chris LoCurto: 22:59 When we walked through Next-Level Life, one of the things we’ve talked about immensely is listing out those lies that we tell ourselves and then listing out the truths to those lies. By the way, the truth is rarely ever the opposite of the lie. It’s usually something completely different because we don’t realize is the truth is. That’s why we tell ourselves the lies. That’s why we become victims in situations. The crazy thing is every time you are a victim when you’re truly not a victim, that means that you are holding yourself back. You are keeping yourself from growing. You are keeping you from going to the Next-Level Life. You are keeping from growing in your relationship with God. You are keeping you from growing in the relationship with your spouse, with your friends, with your kids, with your leader. You are holding yourself back with this mentality. So if in this process, as I’m talking through this, this is frustrating you and you’re still listening, which is good. f you’re frustrated thinking, go, Chris, you just don’t understand. Guess what, you’re probably experiencing a victim mentality right now. Will you just don’t get it? You don’t get my situation really
Chris LoCurto: 24:21 sure. We’ve been doing this quite a while, over 250 Next level life’s. We’ve been doing this for a while. We kind of understand this stuff. How do we understand it so well? We’ve had it. We’ve, we’ve had these situations in life. There’s, there’s a good chunk of my life where I was continuously being shown and told I wasn’t good enough. There are people in my life that when things were wrong with them, I was the one they attacked and told that I was the problem.
Chris LoCurto: 25:03 I know exactly what you’re talking about. I know what you’re experiencing. I’ve been there. I know what it’s like. The difference is that God has shown me how not to be a victim, so how do you not be a victim? What does healthy look like? We’re going to talk about that when we come back right after this. Folks, if you’ve been listening to me for any length of time, then you know the number one issue when it comes to business when it comes to family when it comes to friendships, is having a lack of high-quality communication to make sure that you were absolutely winning in every aspect of your life. It all starts with having great communication. The best way to get that communication is to understand your personality style and to understand the personality style of the folks that you’re spending the most time with, whether it be at work, whether it be at home.
Chris LoCurto: 25:58 The best way to do that is to go to chrislocurto.com/store, and get your personality profile and personality profiles for your team today. Get it for your family members today. As you go through that profile, you will begin to see the greatest ways to communicate. And we are back and we were talking about, the things that you can do or we’re going to talk about the things that you can do to not have a victim mentality or to be more healthy. What healthy looks like. When we talk about health, we’re not talking about necessarily physical health, which really does matter. Let me say this, folks that come through Next-Level Life a lot of times will learn when they come here. We will also talk about physical health, like foodstuff.
Chris LoCurto: 26:49 If you’re loaded up with inflammation, guess what? You’re probably feeling pretty depressed. You’re probably feeling like a victim, right? So your diet also can play a huge part in your brain and how you operate and how you think. But when we’re looking at somebody who’s making healthy decisions not choosing not to be a victim. The healthy person recognizes that beyond random, bad occurrences, many things in life happen because of choices they themselves made and they have the power to choose differently. This is something that somebody with a victim mentality confuses themselves with. I don’t have power. Power’s been taken away from me. No. it is not? Nope. It sure isn’t. Well, my. My boss won’t let up on me. My, my spouse won’t let up on me. They just keep hammering me. You have the power to go “Stop.” A healthy person puts in healthy boundaries. Stop. I feel like you’re attacking me right now.
Chris LoCurto: 27:56 You know what we teach people to say is I’m experiencing you as attacking me right now. I’ve helped people in the process with me to say exactly that. Hey, Chris, I’m experiencing you as attacking me right now. Great. Well done. Am I? Oh, you really aren’t. Okay. What are you experiencing? Crud. The pressure feels like the pressure from when I was, you know, this thing happened in my life or when this situation happened in my life and you know, my, my parents were screaming at me because of such and such. Okay. Is that happening here? Not at all, but the pressure you’re feeling does resemble that. Yep. Okay. Now we change expectations. Now we become more honest with ourselves. What’s happening in the moment while you’re literally just asking me questions to gain perspective. Okay. Is anybody yelling? Nope. Is anybody bad?
Chris LoCurto: 28:57 Nope. Was anybody upset? Nope. But you’re feeling pressured. Yup. Is it because you feel like your answers are going to say that you’re not good enough? Boom. That tends to be a place, especially with high I’s, high I’s. I’s listened to me. Get your butts and next level life, they tend to be the ones that don’t come because they can’t stand to discover bad things about themselves. You don’t realize how much you’re holding yourself back because you don’t want to see negative things about yourself. Guess what? Next level of life is not about discovering negative things about yourself. Next level life is not about telling you you’re a bad person. It’s about doing the exact opposite. It’s about showing you those things that are holding you back and giving you the tools to fix it. Yes. To get freedom from it. Yes. To be able to understand why all of those things in your root system are attacking you on a consistent basis.
Chris LoCurto: 30:05 If you don’t know what I’m talking about, go back and listen to the podcast, how your life is like wine, it will explain a lot of this, but if your root system is attacking you and telling you you’re not a good person, you’re not worthy enough, you’ll never be good enough. Everybody else is better than you. Well guess what? We will show you a different belief system. We will show you the things that are truth and we will help you to overcome that junk and those lines that you hear that you tell yourself, so get your butt in here. Do not hold back because you’re afraid of learning bad things. Ever single person walks in this building has the same fear. every single Thursday morning people come in, we have breakfast with the team.
Chris LoCurto: 30:53 It’s just fantastic. We love it. We have great coffee, all that kind of fun stuff, and every single time you can see there’s this nervousness. It’s like, what are you nervous about? Well, I just don’t know what I’m going to find out. The fear of the unknown is the same exact thing. Every single person experiences, and if they’re really tough and prideful though coming out of the door, they’re that like, I’m not. I’m not worried about anything. I mean, I don’t know what we’re going to discover. So that is something you’re concerned about, right? Yeah. Oh, I guess it is. Guess what? You’re not going to discover anything that says you’re a bad person. I’m not saying that you’re not going to discover that you’re making bad decisions in life. If so, what we will discover is those, those pieces of information and then show you how to overcome them and what to do about them not cope.
Chris LoCurto: 31:45 There’s a lot of people out there and a lot of counselors out there, a lot of folks that focus on what we call the surface level. We go right past that and we get down to the deep stuff. We don’t teach you how to cope with things. We teach you how to get rid of them, how to change your expectations, how to tell yourself the truths instead of focusing on the lies and when the lies come up, how to battle them. Those are the things that you need to get out of victim mentality. For those of you that don’t have victim mentality, those are the things you need to get over. The things that you’re experiencing, those things that are holding you back. health is somebody who knows that they have power to choose differently, healthiest is someone who understands that when bad things happen, it has nothing to do with their personal value or deserving or not deserving.
Chris LoCurto: 32:36 Being worthy or not worthy has nothing to do with being good enough. When bad things happen, bad things happen. Now, if you’re making bad choices, there’s your answer, right? But it’s not because you’re a victim to something. Being healthy means that you understand that nobody can make you feel anything. I had a great conversation this morning with a client. That is somebody who has people in their life that judge him for decisions, healthy decisions. And so I had a conversation with them going, hey, here’s what I want you to understand. Anyone who’s judging you on making healthy decisions is unhealthy. Anybody who is telling you that you’re a bad person for making healthy decisions is unhealthy. That is not the opinion you want in your life. It is. That is somebody who feels bad about themselves and they want to try and make you feel bad, but all they can do is highly suggest that you feel bad.
Chris LoCurto: 33:49 You don’t actually feel it until you receive it. And the moment you receive it, now you feel bad. And guess what follows after that? victim mentality. Healthy means not living your life, focused on what’s happened to you. Healthy looks like somebody who forgives. Forgiving is huge. It is huge. If you harbor stuff, if you hold onto stuff forever, then guess what? You will be a victim. Healthy is not being bitter. You know, there’s an old saying about a bitterness. I could not tell you who said it, but I’ve known this for a long time. Should have put a name to it back then and it’s something that I have to remind myself if I ever get to this place. Bitterness is like taking poison. It’s like taking cyanide and hoping that somebody else dies. Having bitterness and no forgiveness and victim mentality inside of you. All of these things are like you taking poison.
Chris LoCurto: 34:58 It’s like you taking poison and hoping that it affects somebody else. Is it ever going to. It’s just not. It won’t, right? So you have to understand many times, all the time, what you are thinking is affecting you, your body, your mind, your happiness, your joy, your peace, your thoughts are to your soul, like what food is to your body. It can either energize you, it can tear you down, they can bring you happiness and joy. It can make you sick. How you think affects how you are- a powerful thing to understand. Just think about this. Are you putting poison inside of you? Are you doing that on a daily basis or are you choosing to be healthy? So understand this is a learned behavior. You can unlearn it. This is something you can unlearn underneath all of the victim mentality. There are things that you can do.
Chris LoCurto: 36:10 There’s a reason for your victim mentality. We need to discover that there’s a, there’s what we would call the root system. All of these deposits, all these things, all this training that has happened in your life that is promoting victim mentality for summit comes from a relationship with the parent. For some, it comes from a bad event. Um, it comes from, it may come from kids at school that were just horrible, that told you, you know, you’re not good enough or you’re not like us, uh, any, any kind of training in your life that tells you that you’re not good enough. Healing from this and seeing real change is going to require more than just one podcast or conversation. But it is a great start. There are things you can do today to stop you from experiencing the victim mentality, to keep the victim mentality from happening.
Chris LoCurto: 36:56 Um, but the thing is, is that you have to do these things. The first thing you need to do, acknowledge and forgive. Realize, yes, people have hurt you. Yes, people have treated you badly. Yes, there are situations where you probably are being attacked. Yes, there are situations where you may be, you know, controlled or manipulated or maybe abused. This is definitely a possibility, but you’ve got to get over this. You’ve got to acknowledge that it is happening, but acknowledge how you’re receiving it. You have a choice. You have power. Why is it that so many abused women do not leave their abuser? Because they have literally been convinced that they will not be able to live life without them, that they will fail. That’s why they isolate. That’s why they abusers isolate their victims. You’re terrible. You’re never gonna be able to live. You can’t make any money.
Chris LoCurto: 37:56 You’re a horrible person. Nobody will ever love you. I’m the only person who will do this. If you received that junk, you believe that junk is it truth? Oh my gosh. No, not even remotely close. As I’ve helped people to get out of horribly abusive relationships, it takes time to get them to believe the truth because they’ve believed for the longest time that what the abusive person says is true. Folks, if something like this has happened to you, then go ahead and get mad about it, but acknowledge it and acknowledge that you’re receiving these lies and acknowledged that it’s just not truth. Go ahead and get mad for about five minutes. Go ahead and beat yourself up for about five minutes, but then get over it because we’ve got to move forward because holding onto being a victim is not going to actually get you healthy.
Chris LoCurto: 38:53 It’s going to keep you a victim. The second thing you have to do is take responsibility. Take responsibility for those of you that have victim mentality and you’re not in any bad situations or you’re not being abused or not. You know you don’t have this kind of junk going on. Take responsibility. If you screw up, you screwed up. Take responsibility and solve the problem. Quit looking to get worth from the created. Instead, look to the create tour for your worth. Quit looking to other clay jars and hoping that it’s going to tell you because that’s what we are, right? We’re just clay jars. We’re we’re, we’re the created jar from the creator. He’s created us. He could put stuff in this. He can take stuff out of us. He could break us. He can put us back together. We belong to him, so quit looking to other clay pots and hoping that you’re going to get worth out of this.
Chris LoCurto: 39:46 Take responsibility for your actions. Take responsibility for your decisions. Take responsibility for you being a victim. Take responsibility. The moment that you do and you change that expectation in your mind that you’re not a victim, that you’re the one who’s making these decisions or you’re allowing this so somebody incredibly controlling. Maybe it’s a parent or somebody is constantly railing on you and trying to set your reality. Get your butt out of the way. Remove yourself from that situation. You’re not powerless. You’re not powerless. Remove yourself from the situation and start surrounding yourself with healthy people. Do not allow that junk to continue to happen. Next thing you need to do is to stop looking at others. Quit comparing yourself. Your problem is you, not your spouse, not your boss, not your neighbor, not that friend, uh, you know, on and on and on. If you have a problem with two or three or more people who is the common denominator, there’s a chance your contributing to the problem.
Chris LoCurto: 40:53 So quit looking to other people for being your problem. Quit comparing yourself to somebody else. Why did that person get this? Why did that Gal get that promotion? Why is that guy got the great car? Quit, stop, look to you, solve you. What are the things you need to do about you? Next thing, quit self sabotaging you. Now, there’s a great blog that we’ve got that’s called seven signs. You self sabotage and we’ll put a link in the show notes as well. Go read it. Stop self sabotaging you. Next thing, rewire your brain. As Zig used to say, stop your stinking thinking. Your brain has been trained to think that way and it does, but you can retrain it. It won’t happen overnight. You have to start by asking yourself these questions. When you notice you’re responding in anger or feeling powerless or getting into an argument, what am I telling myself right now?
Chris LoCurto: 41:52 What is the thing I’m telling myself or what is the lie like we would say, next level life. We discover all these lies that we tell ourselves that we don’t even know. It’s so funny. Whenever we have people focus on the lines, it’s like, hey, this is going to take awhile. It’s going to be difficult because you’re not going to recognize it, and then after 15 minutes they’re like a, wow, I have a huge list. I didn’t even know those existed. I didn’t even know I was telling myself those things. What am I telling myself right now? What can I take responsibility for? What is it that I can do to take responsibility in the situation and by the way, taking responsibility may be you saying, I’m allowing this person to do this. I’m not putting in healthy boundaries, so no wonder they’re not stopping.
Chris LoCurto: 42:37 I haven’t put a healthy boundary in. Arguing is not a healthy boundary. Yelling is not a healthy boundary. Fighting back is not a healthy boundary. Healthy boundary is stop. I’m not going to receive this from you if it’s, if it’s not truth, tell them this is not truth. Now, if it is truth and it’s constructive criticism, that’s considerably different than somebody who’s trying to be controlling and manipulating and tearing you down, right? So that’s the one you stop. But if you’ve got a leader who’s going, hey, we’re struggling with this area, you know this is something we’ve talked about before. You’ve made this happen. Well, you got to receive that truth. You don’t tell that person, I don’t receive this right? That’s your responsibility. You got to take that, but if somebody is trying to manipulate you, trying to control you, trying to be abusive, if you receive it, you got to take responsibility for receiving it.
Chris LoCurto: 43:31 Asked that question, what can I take responsibility for? Also, what can I do? What can I do in this moment? Can I take responsibility? Can I put it in a healthy boundary? Can I stop them from setting my reality? Can I remove myself from the situation? Some of you will end up at a relative’s house on a holiday and find yourself needing to leave the house, but not doing so because they’re railing on you or they’re attacking you or they’re doing whatever and you don’t move because you’re fearful of what they’re going to think of you. Well, that’s really healthy, isn’t it? Healthy would be, hey, I’m sorry I can’t do this. I’m not going to receive this information, and in fact I’m going to leave. If you want to talk like adults, then we can do that in the future, but I’m not going to stand here while you rip me apart and walk out the door.
Chris LoCurto: 44:24 Healthy might be getting your kids out of that situation when they’re watching, um, abusive people or unhealthy people. So can you do retrain your brain by asking questions and solving the problem in the moment. And lastly, uh, which again, there’s so much more you can do a, if you can get into a next level life events, do it because there’s so many tools that you can get out of two days. But lastly, write down what you’re grateful for every day. This is something that is crazy powerful, be thankful. The more thankful you are, the more you will find you’re not a victim. The more thankful you are for things, the faster you will get rid of victim mentality. Whenever I I spend a good amount of time in prayer, you know, that’s when I get up in the morning. That’s the first thing. I’m on my knees, I’m praying and the first thing I start with is praising God and thanking him.
Chris LoCurto: 45:25 That’s where I start. Do you know when I asked for me? That’s at the end. I praise God. I thank him. I pray for you guys. I pray for people. I pray for specific situations and then I asked for some things for me and usually it’s about helping you because what do I need? I don’t need anything. My the things that I’m looking for is to get closer to God and to help you more, but I start by being thankful, praising God, finding those things, listing those things out, listing out even ridiculous stuff. There are times I’m like, thank you for the clothes that I have that I have them. Thank you that I have a bed. Thank you that I have a roof over my head. Thank you for these things because in any moment, you know, the Solomon said, this is all vanity guys.
Chris LoCurto: 46:16 At any moment he could thump you and it all goes a different direction at any moment. He can change it. He’s the one who owns the clay pots, right? He can do whatever he wants to. If you’re thankful, you will find that you’re less of a victim and it retrains you pretty darn quickly. So there’s some things you can do to day I, and I know it’s a lot of information, but guys, these are some things you can get started with right now and here’s what I would love to know. I don’t want you to just listen to this podcast and go, oh wow, that was good. I want you to write down. Let us know what helped you the most. So from these steps, I think I just rattled off six steps there. I’m five or six from these steps. Let us know something that’s helped you or something else that you’ve discovered either way, but we’d love to know what out of this you’ve taken.
Chris LoCurto: 47:05 Send us an email at podcast at [inaudible] dot com so we can know about that and folks, if you want to get rid of victim mentality very quickly, you get your butt into next level life, the next level. Life events. We do this almost every single week. We’re constantly helping people to discover things like victim mentality or things like not being good enough or things like, hey, nothing has really effected you badly in your life, but here’s some things you can do to be better and be stronger or how to have a closer relationship with God and some folks come in, they don’t even believe in God it. We have plenty of folks that come in. This is not about, I’m just somebody who struggled with something in life. It’s about the things that hold us back. It could be at work, it can be in relationships.
Chris LoCurto: 47:53 It can be stuff that’s holding us back from growing. It can be stuff that keeps us from being content and being satisfied with where we are in life, so if any of this stuff is making sense to you, then get your butt into next level. Life stopped carrying around the weight of the world, stopped carrying around the weight of victim mentality, stopped carrying around the weight of not being good enough. Stop carrying around the weight of not being worthy enough. Stop carrying around the weight of trying to be that perfect thing for everybody and making everybody happy and feeling like you have to please everybody. Stop feeling powerless or rejected or putting yourself down or living in fear. Learn about next level life and how to get a plan to get past all of this stuff. It’s not a bandaid. It’s not something to make you feel better for a week.
Chris LoCurto: 48:43 It’s literally the tools that equips you to go forward and change your life. Look at all of the amazing testimonies from people that have been through. It’s crazy powerful. Change their lives, change their kids’ lives. We have folks that come through strat plan and when you come through strat plan as the business owner or president, whoever’s leading the whole process, they have to go through next level life because I want them to see what they’re taking into the business every day. When they do, they end up sending many team members back to the next level life because they’ve now seen and experienced it. So we want to make sure that you have great information on this. And again, on the podcast, there’s only so much we can talk about. There’s so much more we can do in this event. So folks, if you want that information, go to [inaudible] dot com slash next level life, or go to crystal [inaudible] dot com and click on the button, um, but make sure that you get this information so you can make a decision to live a much better life. I’m much freer life, a much happier life, a life where you are good enough
Chris LoCurto: 49:49 or worthy enough or you’re not a victim. So hopefully this has helped you today as we take this information, change your leadership, Change Your Business, change your life, and join us on the next episode.
