I've had enough!

You are not a victim!

You are only a victim to the degree to which you show up in life and accept victimhood

- Abiola Okun

You control your lot in life, and there's a position you will take in this life that will inevitably lead you to become a beaten-down, battered, impoverished, and broken person. The issue is that this position has now been completely normalized to the extent that one in every three people leads their lives that way.

If you ask me, I'd say that the society we live in has been set up to automatically encourage such a position. It is difficult to see criminals go unpunished, crimes excused, oppressors rewarded, the oppressed blamed, and injustice simply being the order of the day with everyone else un-looking until it directly affects them and not start living in this position. This is the reality of our immediate and broader environment, and if nothing disrupts our thinking, if there's no buffer for this kind of environmental conditioning, we will become people who take up this position throughout our lives.

And yes, I am talking about the position of a victim. Almost everyone in our society today goes around with the label, "I am a victim," "The world is happening to me and there's nothing I can do about it," "Life is unfair," "I haven't done anything wrong, look at my life," "It wasn't my fault," "Only if I had good parents," "Only if I was born in a better environment," etc. The length of this list is only limited to your imagination.

It now feels like nobody is in control of their lives, and everything around them is happening to them without their active participation. You will recognize this by the constant complaining, blaming, holding on to offense, and just the general disposition of people who think they are not in control of their lives.

The Complainer

If you complain all the time, I am talking to you. It means you consider yourself a victim of the ills that you are complaining about. You focus on all the things wrong with the world and how they affect your life. How other people's behavior is hindering your growth and productivity and how the way other people show up is limiting your greatness. With this kind of outlook towards life, there's little to zero chance of being a Victor, because complaining is victim talk, and you cannot talk like a victim and emerge a Victor.

The Blame-caster

Perhaps you don't exactly complain, but you're one to always play the blame game. You always look for a scapegoat You blame every other person for the outcomes of your life. You sincerely believe that it is the fault of the lecturer that you failed the course. You think it is the fault of the bus driver that you arrived late. You think it is the fault of the employee that you lost the funding. You think it is the fault of your driver that you couldn't get fuel to go to what could have been a life changing event. You blame your parents for not moving out of the country with you when they had the chance. You blame your employer for not giving you the raise you believe you deserve. You blame all your previous partners for not loving you like you deserve to be loved. You blame your business partner for cutting you out of the deal. I could go on and on. The fault is every other person's. You are blameless.

The problem with this, though, is that the responsibility and control for your life goes to the person or thing that you blame. Blaming is shifting responsibility and giving up control to the blamed, and the truth is that the people and things you blame become the rudder to the ship of your life, effectively making you an automatic victim because ‘everything is happening to you.’

Get over yourself! There is no one situation where you are blameless. It doesn't exist. It takes two to tango. Even if you truly dined with an evil person and got the short end of the stick, you decided to dine with them in the first place! No matter how 'blameless' you are, you will always find something you could have done better in retrospect. That alone is a pointer that you weren't at all blameless.

You must take responsibility if you ever want a victorious life!

The Scorekeeper

I know the world and people in it can be messed up. They will do the wrong things to you. Hit you, lie to you, cheat on you, steal your ideas and pass them off as their own while claiming they are your friend, not properly render the service you have paid them for, come late to meetings you have shown up impeccably to, speak to you in manners you wouldn't even speak to a dog, treat you like you're less than them, again the list of possible offenses can be as long as the limits of your mind allow, and many times, you are well within your right to take offense, but to what end do you hold on to offenses? What does that make you? I'll tell you.

A victim. Holding on to offense makes you a bitter person who thinks that everything is happening to him. It makes you think the world (in this case, people who offended you) owes you something because it has taken something from you. It makes you think someone has stolen from you what you cannot get back, and so you stay offended and never come out of that rut.

By all means, call them out, stand up for what is right, speak up for yourself and even other people when someone has done something shitty, but whether or not you choose to go down that route, never hold on to that offense if you choose to live a victorious life.

A victorious person strongly believes there is more. He believes that there's nothing you steal from him that he won't get back twice as much. She believes that she is capable of learning to get more, and she will. He believes that there's nothing of his that won't come to him as long as he continues to work at it. She believes that there's nothing in this world that is worth the peace of a victorious life. He believes there is more; more than enough success to achieve, ideas to come up with, actions to perform, and gifts to give. So why hold on an to offense that will simply put him/her in a bitter, reactive mental rut? Why be a victim?

Just like T. Harv Eker said in his book, Secrets of the Millionaire Mind, "I don't believe anybody is a victim." You are only a victim to the degree to which you show up in life and accept victimhood. And here's the sad thing: A victim, someone who has decided in his heart that he is a victim because he believes he will get something out of it, maybe pity, or crowdfunding, such a person will never, ever become victorious in life.

If you are stuck in one or more of these habits; complaining, blaming, holding on to offenses, then you've been approaching life as a victim all along. It is time to switch.

Learn something different. Stop complaining and start acting. Stop blaming and start taking responsibility. Stop holding on to offense and start creating something new and changing your environment. If not, before long you will be a pariah and descend into a life of poverty.

To your growth,

Your Coach,

Abiola Okunsanya,

Handzinspired.