Keys To Life: How To Move From Victim To Accountable

Do you know anyone who seems to live in near constant complaint? Nothing ever seems right, good enough or fair?

Most of us do know someone like that; in fact, most of us have been that way at least occasionally. I know that as much as I have taught this stuff, I keep finding myself in what I call "victim mentality." My good friend, Mark Samuel (author of The Power of Personal Accountability and Creating the Accountable Organization) refers to this as being "stuck in the victim loop." In fact, I like "victim loop" so much that if Mark doesn't mind, I'll just borrow that term from him and use it here. Is that OK, Mark?

So, what is the victim loop?

If someone complains about being forced to do something, doesn't that sound a bit like being a "victim?"

Now "victim" is one loaded term. We all know of circumstances where being victimized is a pretty darn accurate description of what happened.

People are injured physically, emotionally and mentally every day in ways that seem completely out of their control. Little babies who suffer at the hands of an abusive adult are perhaps the most easily understood and most heart wrenching example of someone who has been victimized.

So, let's be really, really clear here. I am not talking about something so obscene as a little child being abused by some beast of an adult. And if you have had the misfortune of being victimized in this way, my heart aches for you.

What I am talking about is the sense of being victimized that we often encounter in the act of daily life.

You know the drill - the person at the office who constantly whines or complains about their job or boss or the customer. And they complain about the job or boss or customer just about every day. And yet they still seem to keep showing up every day so they can be "victimized" by the job or boss or customer.

You may even know people who belong to the "Ain't It Awful Club." You know that club, don't you? That's the club that meets most every day, in the local pub or over a latte, where members show up to swap stories of how awful life has been to them (today, yesterday, last month, back when they were blah, blah, blah). This club specializes in the art of "one-down-man's-ship." "You think that's bad, wait until you hear this one."

The stories and complaints swapped every day about life being unfair are the ones we want to address and will refer to as "victim" stories.

Victim - Accountable

"I recommend that the Statue of Liberty be supplemented by a Statue of Responsibility on the west coast."
-- Victor Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning

Let's work with this notion of victim for a moment. Pick an event from your adult life that felt unfair, an event where something happened to you where you apparently had no control. It happened to you, it wasn't your fault, life just wasn't fair.

A note of caution here: you have my deepest sympathy if you were abused or harmed in some despicable way, and a part of me rises up in rage when I encounter those kinds of circumstances. Please do not use that kind of instance for this exercise.

For the purposes of this exercise, we would ask that you pick another event to examine, something from your adult life, something that felt unfair and outside your control.

Your job now is to "tell" that story from the point of view of having been a victim. You had nothing whatsoever to do with the circumstances other than having been there, having it happen to you. Think of telling the story with sufficient dramatic flair that you could possibly win "Victim of the Year" or the Academy Award for Best Victim. Imagine telling the story to someone and that you are trying to elicit some tears of sympathy. You know, the kind of "poor me" thing we all seem to know.

Tell that story now. Embellish a bit if you like. Whatever you do, you may not say anything like "I should have known better" or "I saw it coming" or "I knew it." Those are the kinds of things that accountable people say. "It came out of the blue" or "I had no idea what hit me" or "despite my best efforts" - those are the kinds of things we are looking for.

The CPA Approach to Accountability

Now let's try the complete opposite. Let's imagine that you were 100% accountable for the situation and tell the story from that perspective. This time around, tell the story with the goal of winning the Academy Award for Most Accountable Person of the Year. Whatever it was that happened, it only happened because of something you did or something you allowed to happen.

We call this the CPA approach: how did you Create, Promote or Allow this event to take place. Create: something that you did overtly to cause the event; Promote: something you did to provoke the event; Allow: something you saw coming and simply did nothing to get out of the way.

Go ahead now. Tell that story again. Only this time, your job is to tell it from the point of view of being 100% accountable. Not even the slightest hint of being victimized is permitted. "They tricked me" - not allowed. "I had no idea" - not allowed. "No one could have seen it coming" - not allowed.

Even if you are not sure how you created, promoted or allowed the event, tell the story as though you did. Make it up if you have to. You might be surprised to learn how many people just "make it up" and all of a sudden discover a small but important fact that had been overlooked.

(When we "make it up," the thing we make up has to come from somewhere, and the most common place to find the made up story is right inside our own selves. Curiously, we rarely make up something that doesn't have at least some notion of reality to it.)

Having done this exercise now with thousands of people all over the world, I can tell you that a good 90% of all people who have ever done this exercise come up with at least some level of accountability that they had not previously noticed. Once that first bit of previously unnoticed accountability enters into the awareness, all kinds of accountability dominoes start to fall. Awareness grows and people frequently discover power or capability to influence life they had not previously noticed.

We will address what I call the What if I principle in greater depth in a subsequent post. For now, consider this question: What if everything were a result of something you had Created, Promoted or Allowed? If that were true, how much power would that suggest that you have over your own life, over your ability to create life exactly as you might like it, over your ability to change just about any circumstance?

Obviously, if that were true, it would suggest that you have almost limitless capability to create life exactly as you would prefer it.

So, think about this one for a moment: if you played along with the notion that you were 100% accountable for everything, and discovered greater power than you had previously noticed, would that be worth discovering? Of course it would.

Perhaps not so obvious is that if you were to avoid looking at life from the possibility of being 100% accountable, you could very well miss the most important key to your own success and satisfaction, that of your own role in your own fulfillment.

So, you choose: would you rather play along with the possibility of being 100% accountable or would you rather stick to the victim stance of "life happened to me" and I had no choice.

We will continue building on this notion of response-ability and accountability next week.

You can find out more about Russell Bishop at http://www.lessonsinthekeyoflife.com Contact Russell at: [e-mail]

The author of Lessons in the Key of Life, Russell is a professional life coach and management consultant, based in Santa Barbara California. His intent is to assist you in becoming a more powerful creator of your own life experience, producing more of the results you truly want.

Comments

[EliDavidson]

I am a person that has benefited from your work. Thank you for sharing The CPA Approach.

[honestman]

This is valuable information. Russell thanks for your insight. Your charts are so helpful. I am a fan.

[Alex Pattakos - Huffpost Blogger]

This is a powerful message! NBA coach Phil Jackson, in his book, Sacred Hoops, cautions us to remember that the best way to realize our dreams is to wake up! In other words, being part of any solution means being responsible and taking action. Complaining via an "Ain't It Awful Club" might offer a moment of camaraderie, but it doesn't nurture meaning for us or for others. It is important to ask ourselves why we complain and what's the payoff from our complaining. Complaints trivialize our experience both at work and in our personal lives. And as you astutely point out, when we complain, we perpetuate an old community of victimization and helplessness that, in turn, prevents us from assuming responsibility, from being accountable, and from taking action.

Thanks for quoting my mentor, Viktor Frankl, who also said the following: "Ultimately, man should not ask what the meaning of his life is, but rather must recognize that it is he who is asked. In a word, each man is questioned by life: and he can only answer to life by answering for his own life; to life he can only respond by being responsible."

In the final analysis, there is no situation ("good" or "bad") that does not contain within it a seed of meaning. It is our personal and collective responsibility to discover and interpret these seeds if we are going to reach our highest potential and live our lives authentically and with meaning.

[KillgoreTrout43]

What does this have to do with victimhood?

[KillgoreTrout43]

Victim is a word that is used way too much these days. And people playing the victim usually are the melo-dramatic type. The type to make mountains out of molehills. It becomes habitual and the person usually ends up not even beineg conscious of the fact that they are playing the victim. It's close to those groups who say they are being "persecuted.""
The best way to avoid, "victimhood," is to step out of our excessive concerns with the, "self." When we are thoughtful about, or towards others, the victim syndrome soon vanishes. It's "victimhood,"that is a selfish emotion. A negative selfishness. Desire, or excessive desire is also a culprit in the role of victimhood. When we temper desire and stop obsessing with the self, victimhood no longer becomes a problem.
How does one stop obsessing about one's self? It takes a daily reminder and a conscious effort to do so, but once this is learned, the person can stop thinking the world is against them.

I got a kick out of the term, öne downmanship."

[anon004]

I was in a work situation where I felt victimized a lot. I tried several different ways to take control and be accountable, and I was usually (nearly always) told in one way or another to just go back to my desk, shut up and "do your job." It took a while for me to realize it (slow, I guess), but the people running the organization either liked victimizing people, or, in any event, they liked the effects of making them feel victimized. It was a control thing (if we are able to get them to feel crappy about themselves, they'll be acquiescent and also won't think they are good enough to go anywhere else, etc.). Luckily, about the time I had had enough (although, looking back, it should have happened way sooner), I was able to leave, and I've never been anything but happy I left. All I can say is, there are organizations that have a culture that rewards people for feeling victimized, and if you find yourself in one, get the hell out of there as soon as you can.

[lewes17266]

I know what you are saying. Subservience and submission is a good thing in some groups. There is still an oppressive culture alive and well today born in the Old South, the Bible Belt, that rewards women for being obedient, "Good Christians." I cringe.

[AtomiClash]

I agree that often it is easy to play the victim, to present onesself as the picked-on, socially abused individual on the job. Yet you there seems to be a glossing over of the fact that YES sometimes a person does just get handed a raw deal - no accountability issues involved.
For instance, getting chewed out by a higher up for something your immediate supervisor instructed you to do. Raw deal - you attempted to be accountable, responsible, and do your job, but yet...!!!
But more importantly, it's essential for our individual happiness to feel in control of our own lives. Asserting accountability is one way, but also understanding that sometimes sh*t happens is another. It's learning not to dwell that can make the difference between feeling victimised and feeling empowered and in control.
Nobody likes a sad sack, but no one likes an office martyr, either.

[lewes17266]

I fear someone I love is the office martyr. She gives money to the complainers, then worries, suffers, cries, and frets in private about paying her own bills. She is not a complainer herself but listens to others and I believe is used and becomes the real victim.

I know someone else who seems to have spent her entire life capitalizing on being victimized by talking about it to everyone she meets, in detail with great flourish and emotion, giving the impression she is innocent and good and the other person is guilty and bad. I think sometimes people like playing the victim because it places them in a position of moral superiority in a way and brings forth love and sympathy from their listeners.

What do you say to such a people?

I have been victimized though by someone I trusted and it is the most difficult thing I have ever dealt with. Acknowledgement and closure is important in the healing process, something I never got. I have looked at it a long time now and can see how I contributed to my own victimization with being too trusting, not asserting myself enough and not believing in myself, not speaking up soon enough. Aggressive, loud, egotistical people took control of my life basically and I just let them. It is not good to be too trusting, not at all. I learned that lesson well, the hard way.

[AZBunny]

Oh yeah, I've seen people fired for doing something the boss told them to do, then when the upper's found out about it, the boss totally denied any responsiblity.

Sorry but working in America plain sucks. ALL businesses today thrive on making you feel like a victim.