Lack of time is actually lack of priorities

Everything is Not Important

If you want to be successful, you must manage your time so that you achieve your goals. Managing your time means that you spend time on your priorities, and it also means that you do not waste time on non-priorities. Keep your priorities as simple and clear as possible.

Most of my clients come to me at an “I can’t take it anymore” stage of their career. They are discouraged with their job and their inability to manage it. They are working long hours—most of them spent sitting in performing non-productive work, which always seemed to turn into fire drills. And they are ready to quit.

I immediately could see what was missing is the most essential job skill I believe every person must have: priority setting and time management. That is, the ability to clearly identify the most important priorities and to focus the vast majority of your energy and time on those things.

Unfortunately, though we often talk about time management and productivity, the art of prioritization is often lost. As a result, many people end up exhausted, frustrated, and burnt out.

Countless books have been written on prioritization and time management, yet my experience is that most people often spend time doing things that are not a high priority. You may think you are making progress simply because you are busy. Nothing could be further from the truth.

In fact, busyness can keep you from accomplishing anything meaningful by giving you a false feeling of accomplishment while stealing your time. To reach your goals and achieve success, you must focus effort on your priorities, those things that are truly impactful and important to you.

The difference between busyness and productivity can be difficult to see. Most people realize they are wasting time if they spend a lot of time online or playing video games. However, spending time on otherwise worthwhile activities can also get in the way of your progress if those activities are not priorities. Please don’t miss this point: Not all “important” activities are equal, and “everything is not important.

What happens when you focus on non-priorities?

If you spend time on non-priority activities, then obviously you have less time available for your priorities. Life is a series of choices. Choose wisely. Saying “no” to some activities is as important as is saying “yes,” perhaps even more so. A colleague of mine says, “When you say yes to something now, you are saying no to something else later.” To reiterate this point, when asked if I have had time to do something I have not done, I often reply by saying, “Yes, I had time. But I chose to spend my time on something else.”

How do you know if you are not managing your time effectively? Here are a few questions to consider:

Do you often think you could have done better on a task or project if you would have had more time?

Do you consistently miss deadlines?

Do you consistently ask for extra time to get your work done?

Do you have to rush at the last minute to get your work done?

If you answer “yes” to any of these questions, you likely could improve identifying your priorities and focus on your time management skills.

If you develop and stick with a plan, you will get tasks done on time. Although you need not always be formal, mentally developing a formal plan is quite valuable. The key points are to:

Know what steps are needed to complete your project.

Know the amount of time required to complete each step.

Plan enough time to get the work done on time.

Schedule specific time into your calendar to allow you to complete each step.

Prioritize your time to get the work done according to your plan.

How to identify priorities?

You can begin to identify your priorities by answering the questions below. Keep your priorities as simple and clear as possible. Following are some questions to help you determine your priorities:

What are your values?

Values are those things that truly are important to you. Values should guide your overall direction in life, and they provide foundational context for your goals and priorities.

What are your goals?

Goals are impactful results or accomplishments you want to achieve and should align with your values.

What are your responsibilities?

Your responsibilities also influence your priorities. A student has the responsibility to attend class, complete assignments, learn the class material, etc. An employee has the responsibility to go to work, work well with others, and be productive. Your responsibilities to your family can have a tremendous effect on your priorities.

What is the impact of the activity?

Finally, to be successful over the long haul, your priorities must be impactful and have lasting value.

Are you focussing on your priorities or someone else’s

Don’t lose sight of your priorities when bombarded with other people’s priorities. Someone may bring an issue to you seeking help; this issue may be a priority for him but not necessarily for you. By working on his priority, you lose time that could be spent on your priorities.

Of course, your friendship with him may be a priority of yours, so his issue may merit your time. Please understand that I am not discouraging you from helping others; in fact, helping others should be a priority. However, don’t automatically place a higher priority on the requests of other people than on your own priorities.

Urgent and Important - Are they same

Furthermore, understand that urgent issues, whether yours or someone else’s, are not necessarily important issues. Many people struggle to recognize the difference between urgency and importance. I have observed this lack of understanding several times in interviews when I ask potential employees this question: “If you have urgent activities and important activities competing for your time, which would you work on first?”

 Many people incorrectly answer that they would first work on the urgent activities. The point is that the enthusiasm often associated with urgency counterfeits itself as importance. Don’t be fooled: You should work on the most important things first, and remember that urgent issues are not necessarily important issues.

The difference between urgency vs. importance is well demonstrated by Steven Covey in his book “7 Habits of Highly Effective People”. He also suggested ranking tasks across four metrics:  important/not important and urgent/not urgent. Obviously, tasks both urgent and important go first, issues not important or not urgent go last, and the rest fall somewhere in between. The elements of prioritization are simple: Know what tasks need to be done and rank them in order of priority.

The key is not to prioritize what's on your schedule, but to schedule your priorities – Stephen Covey

	Urgent	Not Urgent
Important	I Activities ·         Crises ·         Pressing problems ·         Deadline-driven projects	II Activities ·         Prevention, capability improvement ·         Relationship building ·         Recognizing new opportunities ·         Planning, recreation
Not Important	III Activities ·         Interruptions, some callers ·         Some mail, some reports ·         Some meetings ·         Proximate, pressing matters ·         Popular activities	IV Activities ·         Trivia, busy work ·         Some mail ·         Some phone calls ·         Time wasters ·         Pleasant activities

Planning, prioritizing and initiating

Planning refers to the ability to create a roadmap to reach a goal or achieve a task. Whether you’re planning your day or planning your week, having a mental (or written) plan to complete your tasks is the only way to ensure you get everything done.

Prioritizing involves the ability to make decisions about what is important for you to focus on and what’s not as important. Being able to decide what you “must do” versus what you “may do” or “want to do” can be difficult, but it’s necessary.

Task initiation is the ability to begin a task in a timely manner, without unnecessary procrastination. Some people simply have a hard time getting started. People with strong task initiation skills are able to make that first move and get started on a task, even if they don’t actually want to.

All three of these skills work closely together. Planning and prioritizing go hand in hand—once you’ve made up a mental plan for achieving your goals or tasks, you then must prioritize what has to happen first and what can wait until later. Once you know which task to complete first, it’s time to actually begin, or initiate. If just one of these skills is lacking, it can throw everything out of balance and limit your success in achieving your goal or completing your task.

Why are Planning and prioritizing important?

Planning and prioritizing are important skills because they help you identify and focus on the order in which things need to be accomplished. Very rarely do you only have one thing on your to-do list! Being able to prioritize what needs to be completed and make a plan to do so are essential for balancing and maintaining sanity in your busy life.

Procrastination is normal to an extent. However, if you find yourself leaving tasks until the last minute, completing things past a deadline, or even failing to follow through on certain tasks, then your procrastination is getting out of hand. This is when it becomes a real problem.

If you are lacking in these skills, it can result in work being done late or not at all, leaving you in frustration and feeling overwhelmed. Failure to plan, prioritize, or initiate a task can result in negative work relationships, or possibly even getting into anxiety and stress.

How do you know you are lacking prioritization skills

If you’re feeling overwhelmed by excessive hours and constantly shifting to-dos, here are a few significant signs that you might need to manage your priorities better—and some easy ways to get back on track.

You Believe That Everything is Important

If you look at your to-do list and see everything as equally important, it’s easy to become overwhelmed with your volume of tasks, rather than the quality of your work. But consider this: The Pareto Principle suggests that 20% of your tasks produce 80% of your results—and that means that a small fraction of your daily work deserves the majority of your attention.

You’re Consumed by Activity Rather Than Accomplishments

Have you ever started with a list at the beginning of the day, felt busy all day, but left feeling like you didn’t get anything done? Frustrating, right? 

In reality, you probably got many low priority things done—like clicking through unimportant emails, sitting through inefficient meetings, or doing small tasks that don’t move your important work forward. Maybe you spent the day on projects helping your boss or co-workers, but not getting your own work done.

You Get Distracted

You hear the continuous “ding” of incoming emails, texts, and instant messages and feel compelled to peek. You constantly get distracted by the siren call of social media. Procrastination keeps you from starting and perfectionism keeps you from finishing. And you mistakenly think that by multi-tasking, you’re getting more done in the same amount of time.

Multitasking to some extent is inevitable, but remember: Even if you’re able to narrow down your work to the most important tasks, you won’t be able to make any progress if you can’t focus for long enough to finish them.

How can I improve these skills?

Whether you are weak in these areas or just think you could improve a bit, there are several strategies you can start using today!

Get Clear on Your Goals and Objectives

Get a crystal clear idea of exactly what you want and how you want it. Once you have a better handle on your deliverables, you can break them down into weekly goals. As you make decisions about work throughout each day, ask yourself, “How will this get me closer to my goals?” If it doesn’t, put it down and move on.

Create a calendar and schedule

To help you plan more efficiently, try using a calendar and setting a daily schedule. If you fall into a routine where the first hour of your morning is devoted to homework, you’re more likely to get it done. Remember, it is okay to make yourself a priority, so try to schedule in some “me time” as well!

Make to-do lists and Stick to It

Create a daily plan that starts with scheduling your most important work. Those priority activities get first crack at your calendar, before you even think of doing anything else. You’re most likely to complete certain tasks when you carve out a specific date and time commitment to them.  These lists help you both plan and prioritize. Once you have everything written down, rank tasks in order of importance. Make sure you give priority to the things that have a deadline. This means a paper that is due tomorrow should be higher on your list.

Develop Your Ability to Focus

Once you’re clear on the priority work that needs to get done, learn how to get—and stay—focused on those tasks. Try these go-to strategies:

1. Chunk Your Work: Use the Pomodoro technique to schedule 25-minute time slots to work on priority tasks. Don’t look up until the time is over, then take a short break. Repeat four times, then take a longer break.

2. Batch Your Work: Group similar tasks together in blocks of time on your calendar, so you can focus on one thing and get it done. Activities like processing email, returning phone calls, or reviewing documents can be grouped together and done in batches.

3. Stop Multi-tasking: In the end, each task will take longer—and you’ll compromise the quality of your work.

Break down the task into smaller, manageable pieces

Often, the tasks we tend to procrastinate are large in nature—think studying for that final or writing the term paper you should have been working on all semester. For these types of tasks, it is helpful to break them down into smaller pieces; this is called “chunking.” By chunking your work, you set small, achievable goals that you can accomplish in a short amount of time. For example, choose one chapter to study each day rather than trying to tackle the entire book. Or work to research and write one section of your term paper at a time. This strategy does require planning, so make sure you give yourself enough time to accomplish everything!

Eliminate distractions

Put away the phone, turn off your TV, and find a spot where you will be able to focus. If you are easily distracted, try to identify what it is that distracts you, and work to remove it. If you can’t get started at home, then it is good to find a place that is quiet, well-lit, comfortable, and has limited interruptions (e.g., if you are working at the library, try not to sit by the front door where you will notice every person walking in and out). Challenge accepted!

Share your plan with a friend

Accountability is a huge motivator. A lot of people are more likely to actually do tasks when they have actually said that they would get them done. Even better, if you have a trusted friend who can help hold you accountable, ask them to check in periodically and encourage you!

Forget perfectionism

For most of us, it’s really hard to let things go unfinished and not be perfect. But if you are serious about prioritization, you need to be able to drop something in midstream to focus on another task that has greater potential to drive results. It may feel counterintuitive, but in the rough-and-tumble drive to accomplish a task, perfectionism can be a problem. You have to be willing to do things half way just to get more done with the higher chances to yield strong results. And that isn’t easy for high performers.

Do the hardest thing first

Procrastination is not similar to laziness, it is avoidance -- and we naturally avoid things we don’t want to do. Lloyd Blankfein, the CEO of Goldman Sachs, once said that the first thing he does in the office each day is the task he dreads the most. Whatever you don’t want to do, do it first, and it eliminates the nagging dread that will sap energy away from other tasks as you postpone the inevitable.

To sum it up

As you go through the day, do frequent reality checks: Stop each hour and quickly ask yourself: Did the last hour contribute to my most important goals? If not, vow to make the next 60 minutes better and start again. If you do a reality check each hour, you’ll never let an entire day get away from you.

Finally, track your success. End each day with a review of what you accomplished and how it moved you toward your most essential deliverables. This makes it easier to let the other nonessential things go.

When you’re ready to take back control of your work life, remember that it’s not about time management or productivity. The point isn’t to get it all done—it’s to get the most important work done.

I would like to conclude with the powerful words as said by Carl Henegan in Darkness Left Undone

“Life is all about priorities. Year after year, day after day, and even minute after minute you have to embrace what is more important and essential for you and not look back. When others don’t understand or admonish you for your choices don’t give it any energy because they are telling you that their wants are more significant than yours.”

Self-Acceptance is the key to true happiness

Who you are is enough

Before we start the discussion

We hear so much about self-acceptance nowadays, but what is it actually? Does it mean accepting your weaknesses or negative habits? Does it mean accepting your behavior, attitude and life style, and doing nothing to change and improve? If you think so, the term self-acceptance seems not to be well understood by you.

Myths about self-acceptance

Self-acceptance does not mean that you accept what you are and do nothing to change and improve. It does not mean accepting your fate and life as it is.

Accepting yourself as you are is only the first step. It helps you realize your good, and not so good qualities, and can alleviate feelings of guilt, lack of self-esteem and unhappiness. Becoming aware and acknowledging your behaviour, habits and your personality, and not being afraid to look at yourself as you are, is an important step to self-acceptance. 

It is so easy to give in to laziness and to find excuses for leaving everything as it is. Accepting your behaviour and weaknesses, and doing nothing to improve, is not the right kind of self-acceptance. It does not contribute to real progress and improvement.

So, what self-acceptance really is?

Self-acceptance is the satisfaction or contentment with yourself and your position, and it is a fundamental pillar of mental health and well-being. It involves a realistic understanding and appreciation of one's strengths and weaknesses. Someone who has developed self-acceptance recognizes their unique worth and has a compassionate attitude towards themselves. They know their limits, but they are not held back by irrational limiting beliefs.

When you accept yourself as you are, you put yourself in a better position to begin improving yourself. Knowing yourself affords you the possibility to see what you can do to improve yourself and your life. Improvement requires that you understand and acknowledge your character and habits, stop comparing yourself and your achievements to others, and acknowledging your skills or the lack of them. This will bring some sort of inner peace, lightness and happiness, like getting rid of a burden.

Each day is a new opportunity to strive to be the very best version of you. Why should we waste time putting ourselves down? When the truth is there is always going to be someone smarter, prettier, someone more athletic and someone "better." We all have our faults, but that doesn't give us a reason to think ourselves unworthy or undeserving of happiness. We are who we are, and individuality is an important value to have.

Happiness and self-acceptance go hand in hand. Your level of self-acceptance determines your level of happiness. You enjoy as much happiness as you believe you're worthy of. I think that in today's society it's hard to step back from busy everyday life and realize what is important. You have to take the time to appreciate yourself. Acknowledging the value within ourselves and who we truly are is challenging, but the reward outweighs the challenges.

"You really have to look inside yourself and find your own inner strength, and say, "I'm proud of what I am and who I am, and I'm just going to be myself."

-Mariah Carey

Live in now, not in past

Self-acceptance is embracing yourself as you are right now, regardless of your past. It is important to understand how to be consciously present in the moment and what that can do for you in your everyday life.

Self-awareness plays a big role in self-acceptance. As you develop the ability to gain knowledge about yourself you will become more and more able to accept and improve those areas where you lack confidence.

Self-acceptance takes some work. You have to be able to get to a place where you know and understand who you are, and that means that you will likely have to make some changes. Self-acceptance also means that you may have to face some fears and step outside of your comfort zone. It’s about being able to separate who you are from what you’ve done. It’s about understanding that everyone makes mistakes, and that's how we learn and grow.

Accepting yourself doesn’t necessarily mean liking every aspect of yourself. That will come later, with self-love. It means being willing and able to experience everything you think, feel, or do, even if you don't always like it. If you don’t accept yourself, you will feel ashamed or embarrassed about who you are.

Nobody is perfect, so are you

Nobody is perfect and everyone has insecurities. If you are comparing yourself to others, stop it right now! It will be a constant choke hold on your confidence. There will always be someone somewhere who is smarter and more successful. That does not mean they are any better than you. There are things that you excel at that other people wish they could do!

A very important part of acceptance is to understand that you don't necessarily have to like things you accept. Acceptance is not the same as approval. If you accept it, don’t think that you are approving of it. A great example of this is the fact that peer pressure is very prevalent in our society. I accept that, but it doesn’t mean that I approve of it. So there can be things about yourself that you disapprove of, but can still accept, in order to achieve absolute confidence.

Why you might lack self-acceptance

A lack of self-acceptance happens for a couple of reasons:

Not being accepted or loved unconditionally as a child. People who have had to experience that pain, will go through life being internally motivated to compensate for that lack of acceptance by seeking it in their relationships with other people.

If the most important people in your life do not accept you as you are, or they are trying to change you this will greatly impact your level of self-acceptance.

Low self-esteem can easily carry on into adulthood, interfering with a person’s ability to lead a fulfilling, healthy life. One of the most important things to know is that low self-esteem is not an accurate reflection of reality or something set in stone. Sometimes the cause of low self-esteem may be rooted, to some degree, in reality, but the idea that your feelings about yourself can’t be changed is simply not accurate.

Uninvolved/Negligent Parents: In many cases, and particularly when we’re young, our feelings about ourselves are heavily influenced by how others feel about and treat us – especially our parents or guardians. This can cause significant self-acceptance problems for young people, as those who are supposed to care for them most may not seem to.

Negative Peers: Just as the way we’re treated by parents or guardians can greatly influence our self-esteem, so can the way we’re treated by peers. Being part of a social group that brings you down – by not respecting you, by pressuring you to do things you’re not comfortable with, by not valuing your thoughts and feelings, etc. – can cause you to feel like something is wrong with you, or that the only way for you to be liked is to do what others want and not listen to your own heart and mind. This is very damaging to how you see and accept yourself.

Trauma:  Abuse – whether physical, emotional, sexual or a combination of these – often causes feelings of shame and even guilt. A person may feel that he or she did something to deserve the abuse, that he or she was not worthy of the respect, love and care of the abuser. People who have suffered abuse may have a significant amount of anxiety and depression associated with the event as well, which can interfere with a person’s ability to lead a fulfilling life.

Body image: Shape of our body is a huge factor in young people’s self-esteem. From the moment we’re born, we’re surrounded by unrealistic images of what women should look like, what the “ideal” body type is. Women’s bodies are constantly objectified in the media, making it seem as though their bodies exist for others. Many young men struggle with low self-esteem associated with weight and body composition – particularly concerning muscle mass. The body of a man is not so much treated in our culture as an object for others, but as a sign of his masculinity. Young men may feel pressured to develop large muscles as a show of strength and manliness; they may also feel self-conscious about their height.

Am I important: It’s easy for young people to feel swallowed up in a world beyond their control. This leads to feelings of ineffectiveness, powerlessness and worthlessness. Though most people don’t experience it until adulthood, it’s possible for young people to go through the infamous “existential crisis” – a time when the meaning of his or her life is called into question. Why am I here? What do I matter? An inability to answer these questions can pose a significant challenge for one’s sense of self-worth.

Unrealistic Goals:  Whether the pressure comes from themselves, authority figures or peers, some young people expect way too much of themselves in terms of school achievement, extracurricular involvement and/or social status. Those who struggle academically may think they should be getting straight A’s all the time; those who perform well academically may try to take on too many other activities and expect to be “the best” at all of them. Young people who crave popularity may expect everyone to like them – something that simply doesn’t happen, because, no matter who you are, you can’t please everyone. The inevitable failure to meet unrealistic goals may lead to the feeling that you are a failure in general.

Previous Bad Choices:  Sometimes we get locked into a certain pattern of decision-making and acting. Perhaps you haven’t been a very good friend in the past. Maybe you didn’t apply yourself in school. Maybe you participated in risky behaviours like drug use or unprotected sex. You might think you’re just “the kind of person” who behaves in those ways. You may even dislike yourself significantly because of past choices, but don’t think you can change courses now. Therefore, you won’t try. You’ll continue making choices that reinforce your own negative self-view.

Negative Thought Patterns:  When you get used to feeling, thinking and talking about yourself in a particular way, it becomes habit. If you have often felt that you’re worthless or inferior, if you constantly think negative thoughts and say negative things about yourself, then you’re likely to go on feeling and thinking the same way unless you break the cycle by challenging your negative thoughts and feelings about yourself.

The above eight causes of low self-esteem aren’t the only ones, but they’re fairly common. The last one – the development of negative thought patterns – may be responsible for the persistence of low self-esteem in most people, regardless of the initial causes.

What is ‘Self-Acceptance Psychology’?

Self-Acceptance Psychology™ is a simple, but powerful new paradigm to describe and understand human behaviour. It challenges the traditional ways of defining “mental disorders,” yet is based on well-accepted and well-researched psychological concepts.

Self-Acceptance Psychology reframes emotional and behavioural problems as adaptive and self-protective responses to fear, trauma, shame, and lack of secure attachment. This conceptual framework has many benefits and can lead to long-term, permanent change. Self-Acceptance Psychology:

• explains human emotional, cognitive, and behavioural patterns as natural, predictable responses to real threats or perceived fears
• is based on facts and scientific research, and hence is accurate and reliable
• is a simple, transparent, and understandable conceptual framework accessible to clinicians and the public
• behavioural explanations lead directly to effective methods of therapeutic intervention and self-help
• provides hope for permanent change through research-proven strategies of mindful self compassion leading to self-acceptance

Self-Acceptance and Self-Kindness

The first attitude fundamental to self-acceptance is to be kind and compassionate about your own self. You are who you are. Make the best of it, and envy no one for what he or she is. Don’t draw comparisons between you and others: Encourage yourself, rather, in your efforts to attain your own highest potential.

Self-acceptance will come progressively as you try to live up to the highest that is in you. Unless you are already in sub-consciousness, you cannot but recognize the fact that an inner conflict exists between your soul’s call to the heights, and the siren call of temptation to the depths. You can’t laugh off soul-longing, though you may try.

True conscience is innate. It is the silent voice of the soul. To achieve self-acceptance, you must be clear in your true conscience. Such clarity comes only when we accept that our higher Self is our eternal reality.

Needless to say, one doesn’t achieve this degree of self-acceptance in a single leap. So long as you sincerely resist your lower impulses, and strive toward your own inner heights, your conscience will be reasonably clear, and you will find yourself able to achieve that measure of emotional and psychic relaxation.

Self-acceptance makes it possible for one to view others also in their own higher nature, and to accept that potential as their own reality. Only from within will it ever be possible for you to know others truly. When you relate to their heart from your own, you will find that they, too, respond to you from that heart in themselves. Heart speaks to heart, soul speaks to soul, and recognizes itself in an infinity of manifestations.

Acceptance leads to the second attitude necessary for finding your own self, i.e.  kindness. To achieve that clarity of conscience which is the companion of self-acceptance, you should practice kindness also toward yourself. You’ll never overcome your failings by hating your shortcomings, nor by hating yourself for indulging in them. Of course, you shouldn’t allow kindness to excuse them. In true kindness to yourself, you should work, rather, to strengthen yourself in virtue. Seek always your own highest potentials. If this means being stern with yourself occasionally, so be it. But never be judgmental.

Kindness is necessary also for understanding other people. In fact, without it, there can never be acceptance of them. By kind acceptance you will find yourself intuitively aware of them.

“I wish I could show you, when you are lonely or in darkness, the astonishing light of your  own being”  ~ Hafiz

Self-Acceptance and Emotional Abandonment

Emotional abandonment means to run away from fulfilling your emotional needs like self-love and self-acceptance. Even young children will entertain thoughts as, “I don’t like myself” and “I’m not worthy” and carry these thoughts throughout their lives.

People tend to think of abandonment as something physical, like neglect. Loss of physical closeness due to death, divorce, and illness is also an emotional abandonment. It also happens when our emotional needs aren’t being met in the relationship — including in our relationship with ourselves. And although loss of physical closeness can lead to emotional abandonment, the reverse isn’t true. Physical closeness doesn’t mean our emotional needs will be met. Emotional abandonment may happen when the other person is right beside us.

In order to get our emotional needs met, not only do we need to know what they are, but we must value them and often actually ask for them to be met. Most people think they shouldn’t have to ask, but after the first rush of romance when strong hormones drive behavior, many couples get into routines that lack intimacy. They may even say loving things to each other or “act” romantic, but there’s no intimacy and closeness. As soon as the “act” is over, they return to their disconnected, lonely state.

Healing Inner Wounds

Everyone encounters some form of pain on their life’s journey. It begins in childhood and continues throughout life and none are immune to it. How you respond to your inner wounds will determine your attitude and actions throughout life.

Reversing this trend is possible. Quite often, therapy is required to heal the wounds of childhood. Much of this is done through the relationship with a trusted, empathic therapist over time. It also entails examination of the past and both feeling and understanding the impact of the parenting we received. Goals include not only accepting the past, which doesn’t necessarily mean approving it, but more importantly separating out our self-concept from the actions of our parents.

Feeling worthy of love is essential to attracting and maintaining it. In the same way that we might shun a compliment we don’t feel we deserve, we will not be interested and able to sustain a relationship with someone who is generous in loving us.

Practice Self compassion as a healing method for your emotional wounds. Self-compassion does not mean feeling sorry for yourself and it is not self-pity. It means developing a nurturing relationship with yourself foremost. Similarly, self-compassion is not a sign of weakness. It implies being your own guardian, best friend and healer. It’s considered that self-compassion and self-acceptance are essential ingredients to living a fulfilling life, more so than high self-esteem.

Self-compassion and self-acceptance means to eliminate expectations of oneself. It starts with the smallest gesture of loving yourself when you’re angry, scared, confused or tired. Start cultivating a supportive inner dialogue instead of allowing the inner critic to take hold. Learn to embrace your worthiness.

It begins by gazing into the mirror and declaring you are worthy of love. Notice the feelings and sensations that arise as you make the declaration. Some people are brought to tears while others delight in the self-affirming dialogue. Become your own best friend and soul mate.

“The worst loneliness is to not be comfortable with yourself.” ― Mark Twain

How to enhance your Self-esteem and embrace Self-acceptance:

You are much more than the situations in your life and the judgments of those around you. A big part of what defines you is how you react, adapt and respond to such circumstances. There are things you can do, here and now, to change how you feel about yourself. The first step is to realize that this can only come from within you. Raising your self-esteem will require a combination of changing the way you think and changing what you do. Here are some proven methods to boost your self-esteem and live a fulfilling life.

Pick positive peers: You’re in control of who you give your time and energy to. It’s easy to pick friends based on who’s most popular; while this crowd may boost your social status, it can also clobber your self-esteem when your “friends” put you down or encourage you to do things you’re not comfortable with or proud of. You need friends you can be yourself with, who value the person you really are. Surrounding yourself with supportive friends who care about you can help you maintain a healthy level of self-esteem.

Get help for trauma: Counselling and therapy sessions for trauma is very important. If you’re not comfortable talking with parents or guardians about trauma, consider asking them if you can see a therapist or counsellor for reasons you’d rather reserve for private sessions.

Psychotherapists and life coaches can help you come out of the emotional pain that either you might be undergoing now, or, you might have experienced in the past and still holding on to. Healing can break the cage of trauma and set you free.

Start thinking about your body differently: It’s not easy to stop seeing our bodies as objects for pleasing others or meeting some pre-established standard. But we can change the way we think about them. Your body is the house of your soul; it’s the vehicle through which you experience, navigate and have an impact on the world. When thought about from this perspective, there is no ideal body type. The way your body looks and what others think of it become far less important than how well it functions. Both men and women with body image issues run the risk of relying on their bodies to attest to their worth, rather than using them as instruments with which to pursue worthwhile goals in the world. By shifting your thoughts about your body, you gain a very different sense for how it should be and how you can attain that goal. Rather than destructive practices, you adopt healthy eating and exercise habits to improve your physical well-being. When you’re chasing an unrealistic “ideal,” you always feel far away from it. When you make healthy changes, though, you’re immediately helping your body work better.

Get involved in something bigger than yourself: One of the best ways to find meaning in your life is to get involved in something bigger than yourself, to have an effect on the world around you. Start by acknowledging the fact that, out of over seven billion people on the planet, not one is like you. Sure, you may have lots in common with many people, but none of them has your exact perspective, experience, interests, desires and goals. Use this to boost your sense of self-worth, and think about how to be of help to people in the world around you.

Set realistic goals: Realistic goals set you up for a sense of accomplishment, for something to be proud of. Don’t try to be better than others. Aim to work well with them. Also, set reasonable social goals. Aim for cultivating a few meaningful relationships rather than a plethora of shallow ones. Don’t expect everyone to like you; this just doesn’t happen. It’s hard, but remind yourself that your worth is not determined by the judgments of others.

Forgive yourself: What you’ve done in the past does not have to determine your course of action and decision-making from here on out. It’s important to forgive yourself – not to let yourself “off the hook,” but to accept that some of the choices you’ve made were not the best and resolve to do better in the future.

Challenge negative thought patterns: Breaking the cycle of negative thought patterns requires some persistence, but the process is fairly simple. Start by identifying negative thoughts. By replacing baseless negative thoughts with more realistic and constructive ones, you give yourself a chance whereas before you would have given up or not tried – you make it possible to prove your old negative thoughts wrong. Another way to counteract negative thoughts about yourself is to make a list of your strengths. It’s easy to focus on the things we don’t like about ourselves and to ignore the things we may actually love; this prevents us from cultivating our strengths. The first step toward doing so is acknowledging them.

Let’s sum it up

Self-acceptance is not a luxury but a vitally important psychological need. Its survival value is obvious. To face life with assurance rather than anxiety and self-doubt is to enjoy an inestimable advantage: one’s judgments and actions are less likely to be distorted and misguided.

The foundation of the practice of living consciously is respect for the facts of reality, respect for truth – recognition that that which is, is. Such a practice reflects the understanding that to place consciousness in an adversarial relationship to existence – to evade or dismiss reality – is to invite destruction. To work at cultivating such awareness within oneself is a noble pursuit, even a heroic one, because truth is sometimes frightening or painful, and the temptation to close one’s eyes is sometimes strong.

Whether the awareness we need to expand pertains to the external world or the world within ourselves, to strive for greater clarity of perception and understanding, to move always in the direction of heightened mindfulness, to revere truth above the avoidance of fear or pain, is to commit ourselves to spiritual growth – the continuing development of our ability to see. Whatever other virtue we may aspire to, this one is its base.

The practice of self-acceptance is the application of this virtue specifically to oneself. Self-acceptance is realism – meaning respect for reality – concerning ourselves. It is the acceptance of our thoughts, emotions, and behaviour – not necessarily in the sense of liking, condoning, or admiring – but in the sense of not denying or disowning. Self-acceptance is my willingness to stand in the presence of my thoughts, feelings, and actions, with an attitude that makes approval or disapproval irrelevant: the desire to be aware.

Accept yourself unconditionally, you don’t need other people to approve you.

Stop playing the victim card

“The victim mindset dilutes the human potential. By not accepting personal responsibility for our circumstances, we greatly reduce our power to change them.” - Steve Maraboli

All of us have felt victimized at some point or another in our lives. At these times we may feel taken advantage of, wronged by another person and/or circumstance, or that life is simply just unfair. The victim stance is a powerful one—the victim believes he or she is always morally right, is not responsible or accountable for their actions, and is entitled to sympathy from others.

  

Individuals with a victim mentality feel that others are generally luckier or happier then they themselves are. They blame others or institutions for their misfortunes, ascribe unfounded negative intentions to other people, and may even experience pleasure derived from feeling sorry for themselves. They are self-abasing by putting themselves down due to underlying low self-esteem, inadequacy, and depression. Chronic negative self-evaluations produce feelings of hopelessness and helplessness--a vicious cycle that perpetuates and underlies the victim mentality.

Put succinctly, a person demonstrates a victim mindset when he or she views negative outcomes as being caused by the situation or another person, anything other than themselves. Furthermore, this mindset is not something that only shows up with average performers. I have also seen individuals, who have been identified as high performers, succumb to the victim mindset to create an opportunity.

Now that we all know who “victims” are —let us dig deep into the subject and understand what the feeling of victimization really is, where it comes from and how it affects people, you will discover that it is even more widespread and debilitating than you might think.

What is Victim Mindset

Victim mentality is a psychological term that refers to a type of dysfunctional mindset which seeks to feel persecuted in order to gain attention or avoid self-responsibility. People who struggle with the victim mentality are convinced that life is not only beyond their control, but is out to deliberately hurt them. This belief results in constant blame, finger-pointing, and pity parties that are fuelled by pessimism, fear, and anger.

Simply put, having a victim mentality means that you blame other people and circumstances for the unhappiness you feel. In the eyes of a victim, everyone else and everything else is to blame for anything negative event that happens in the beholder's life.

Someone with a victim mindset will commonly expect the worst possible outcomes; all of the time! Victims crave the sympathy of other people and will seldom take responsibility for their negative attitudes, actions and behaviours.

When people embrace this victim approach towards life, they are not in control of their environments, their actions and their emotional immaturity - but are governed by the destructive patterns of thinking that flow through their minds.

At some point in life, we are all victimized. Whether as children, teenagers, or adults, we all suffer emotional, physical, or psychological abuse to varying degrees. While it’s important that we come to terms with what has happened to us, and that we have indeed been victimized, we cannot move on with our lives unless we step out of the victim role and into the survivor role.

Having a victim mentality goes far beyond the experience of being victimized. When we carry a victim mentality, we are basically filtering our entire existence through a narrow mental lens that we have adopted as our primary way of perceiving the world.

How self-victimization develops

No one is born with a victim mentality, just as no one is born clinically depressed or anxious. Instead, the victim mentality is an acquired personality trait, meaning that it is the result of early life conditioning and coping mechanisms.

Most victims were victimized in some way as children, whether that be through physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional abuse or psychological abuse. Self-victimization can also develop through co-dependent relationships we had with our parents, or simply by observing and adopting the unhealthy victim mentality exhibited by one or more of our family members. However, although what happens to us as children is completely beyond our control, it is our responsibility as adults to step into our power and reclaim responsibility for our happiness.

The primary source of feeling like a victim is the feeling of powerlessness, and because we don’t like feeling that we are powerless, we tend to blame someone or something for causing that feeling. So we feel that we are a victim of circumstances or other people’s actions and that we can’t do anything about it. Being a victim is experiencing yourself at the effect of something outside yourself.

Thus the single most important belief responsible for the feeling of victimization is I’m powerless. Other beliefs that could underlie this feeling include: I’ll never get what I want, People can’t be trusted and Life is difficult.

Ultimately, individuals may maintain a victim mentality because they are afraid of taking responsibility for their own wants and desires and they have a fear of failure. They unconsciously believe they are not deserving of having good things in their life.

Victim mindset – Natural/genetic or learned/circumstantial behaviour?

It is possible to change the victim mentality since it is a learned behavior that usually begins in early childhood and learned behaviors can be unlearned. Young children are helpless and vulnerable and they rely on their family for daily support. Some young children only receive positive reinforcement and emotional support when they elicit sympathy from distant caregivers. In these cases, having a victim mentality is reinforced because it is successful. However, in the long term being a victim takes away our individual power and potential.

Transitioning from a victim mentality to a "taking back control" mentality requires understanding and examining the underlying psychological issues contributing to the victim mentality in the first place. Research studying the psychology of victimhood suggests that individuals with a victim mentality have difficulty expressing and processing negative emotions, such as anger, fear, and disappointment as well as difficulty with taking responsibility for their desires and actions. This results in feeling hopelessness and helplessness-an all too familiar feeling for individuals struggling with the victim mentality.

Effective psychotherapy and other treatments focus on helping individuals become aware of what they are doing that actually sustains their inability to take control of their life and helps them to see situations and relationships from many perspectives in order to expand their options for problem solving thereby decreasing feelings of powerlessness. Treatment also focuses on empowering individuals to take responsibility for their own desires and long-term actions and ultimately to feel deserving of all the good life has to offer them.

Perks of playing a victim

Playing the victim actually has a number of juicy perks. These rewards make it very difficult to break out of such a mindset, which is why most victims seem to be so emotionally invested in perpetuating this type of toxic behavior.

Some of the perks include the following:

·         Not having to take responsibility for anything

·         Other people lavishing you with attention

·         Other people feeling sorry for you

·         Other people are less likely to criticize or upset you

·         You have the “right” to complain

·         You’re more likely to get what you want out of sympathy

·         You feel it is interesting because to tell people all of your stories

·         You don’t have to feel bored because there’s too much drama going on in your life

·         You avoid and bypass other major emotions because you’re too busy feeling sad

Playing the victim actually gives power to avoid responsibility, power to feel “righteously” sad and persecuted, power to avoid uncomfortable emotions, and power to manipulate other people.

Why Feeling Victimized Is So Debilitating

The reason feeling victimized is so debilitating is that it undermines your ability to do anything about your situation. If you are having difficulties in any area of your life, such as health, relationships or money, and you experience yourself as powerful and in control of your life, you can devise a strategy to improve your situation. And if one solution doesn’t work, you can learn from your experience and try again.

But if you have a victim mentality — in other words, if you feel powerless to affect your circumstances — you are likely to feel that the world is “doing it” to you and that there is nothing you can do about it.

That’s why this is one of the most devastating problems you can have: If you have any other problem but see yourself as responsible for your situation, you have the ability to look for and implement a solution. If you have the problem of feeling victimized by life or other people, you are less likely to look for and implement a solution because you feel you can’t do anything about your situation.

Do you have this victim mindset

Are you, or is someone you love, playing the victim? Here are some common signs to look out for:

·         You’re constantly blaming other people or situations for feeling miserable

·         You possess a “life is against me” philosophy

·         You’re cynical or pessimistic

·         You see your problems as catastrophes and blow them out of proportion

·         You think others are purposely trying to hurt you

·         You believe you’re the only one being targeted for mistreatment

·         You keep reliving past painful memories that made you feel like a victim

·         Even when things go right, you find something to complain about

·         You refuse to consider other perspectives when talking about your problems

·         You feel powerless and unable to cope effectively with a problem or life in general

·         You feel attacked when you’re given constructive criticism

·         You believe you’re not responsible for what happens in your life (others are)

·         You believe that everyone is “better off” than you

·         You seem to enjoy feeling sorry for yourself

·         You believe that the world is a scary, mostly bad, place

·         You enjoy sharing your tragic stories with other people

·         You have a habit of accusing and attacking those you love for how you feel

·         You feel powerless to change your circumstances

·         You expect to gain sympathy from others, and when you don’t get it, you feel upset

·         You refuse to analyze yourself or improve your life

·         You tend to “one-up” people when it comes to sharing traumatic experiences

·         You’re constantly putting yourself down

So if you are a victim or know someone else who is, what can you do to help yourself or the other person? Fortunately, the source of this problem is similar to the source of almost every other problem: your beliefs. Reality and other people are not causing you to feel like a victim; your beliefs are. Get rid of the beliefs that cause the problem, and the feeling of victimization will disappear for good. Let us talk about a few practical steps that you can take to solve this problem in your life.

What can you do about it?

If you’re reading this blog-post, you suspect that you might be clinging to a victim mentality, here are some tips that can help you step out of this toxic role. Always remember:

Self-pity is spiritual suicide. It is an indefensible self-mutilation of the soul.” ― Anthon St. Maarten

See yourself as a survivor

A victim argues with life, a survivor embraces it. A victim dwells in the past, a survivor lives in the present. A victim believes they’re helpless, a survivor takes back control over their life. Although the victim mentality is addictive, the survivor mentality is much more empowering in the long term. Once you start seeing yourself as a survivor, you’ll begin to feel better about life and you’ll attract other people for the right reasons.

Be kind and compassionate towards yourself

In other words, be careful about becoming a victim of being a victim! This role isn’t something you choose: you developed it as a result of childhood conditioning. Be gentle with yourself and practice self-love. Explore your core beliefs that compound your victim identity, and replace self-loathing with self-compassion. If you’re struggling to get past the victim role, practice self-care by seeing a therapist.

Consider psychotherapy to develop a healthier self-concept. Developing a healthier self-concept will help to decrease feelings of helplessness and hopelessness and help you to live a fuller, more satisfying, and genuine life.

Shift your focus from loving yourself to loving others

When we play the victim we tend to be solely focused on ourselves. Get yourself out of your head by doing something nice for another person you love. Realizing that you can feel good without manipulating another person is an important way to cut the addiction the self-victimization. This simple trick can help you learn to take more self-responsibility for your happiness.

Affirm self-responsibility

Be honest with yourself and examine what you may be doing that unintentionally places you in the victim role. Start to notice all the ways you bypass responsibility. You might like to use an affirmation such as “I am responsible for my life” or “I am empowered to create change” to help you reprogram this unconscious need to play the victim.

Explore your mistaken beliefs

All suffering originates in beliefs that go unquestioned and unexamined in our minds. Rigid, mistaken and concretized beliefs create anxiety, depression, anger, and blame. When we attach to these thoughts, we suffer. You will probably be stunned by how many types of mistaken beliefs you have unknowingly adopted! Be conscious and corrective towards these beliefs which does not let you live a peaceful life.

Remember that you don’t need to believe the thoughts in your head: thoughts are simply fluctuations of energy that we assign meaning to. Practicing meditation can help you notice how transient thoughts are.

Develop Your 'Faith' Muscle

The opposite of fear is faith. All fear bases itself upon the 'worst case scenario' expectations we have of the outcomes that we 'may or may not' experience in the future. Faith merely works in the opposite direction.

Faith and action go hand in hand. In the same way, fear and disempowerment go hand in hand. From this day forward, exercise your faith muscle and practice taking action in 'faith' of the best possible outcomes happening, instead of being fearful of the worst.

Practice being thankful

Gratitude and thankfulness are simple but powerful ways to remind yourself that life is not as miserable as you perceive it to be. Each day, try to find ten things that you’re thankful for. You might like to keep a gratitude journal in which you write these ten things down, or simply name them mentally. Try to feel sincerely thankful for having these things. Your focus will gradually shift from blaming to being grateful. Consequently the quality of your life gets better.

Develop a growth mindset

The main reason why people give up on their passions in life is that they believe reaching their goals and aspirations is beyond their physical ability. The good news here is that all people can do all things, all of the time.

If you have a vision for your future that you are uncertain about how to fulfil, then develop yourself, learn a new skill, improve a current one and increase your value as a person. In life, our abilities aren't static, but instead, are flexible with the capacity of being expanded. Having an attitude to learn new things empowers you and you come out of victim mindset.

Be Goal oriented

Make a list of your desires and goals. Writing your goals and desires down is the first step towards taking ownership of your life. You have your own purpose and life destiny to fulfill. Others do not have a right to interfere with that process. It's your journey and yours alone.

Choose one goal and create a plan for achieving it. Allowing yourself the opportunity to take risks in order to achieve your goal is one way to not be a victim.

Ditch the excuses

It’s easy to make excuses for why we won't pursue our hopes, visions and goals aside. We make lame excuses such as: 'there’s not enough time', 'I don’t have enough money', 'I am not allowed to', 'I’m too busy', etc. Many people hide behind their excuses as being valid reasons why they choose not to commit to the things they're passionate about.

The problem with excuses is that they get us nowhere. So remember that the next time an excuse passes through your mind – remember every decision is your choice which leads to action or inaction. No one else will fulfil your goals for you because no one else cares enough to, they're all out there pursuing their own - so you might as well do the same!

Embrace failure as a powerful teacher

You will fail multiple times in your life. Failure is the most unavoidable part of the evolutionary process. Anyone who accomplished anything significant in life will understand the importance of failing well. Failure offers us the crucial insights we need to correct the ineffective ways that we approach our problems. There is no better lesson we can learn in life than those which stem from failure.

Failure is one of the most exceptional teachers we will ever have, and there is nothing in the world that will develop our resilience better than the burn that comes from failure or rejection.

The good news is that if we use failure and rejection as valuable lessons to learn from, we can adapt and adjust our strategy. Don’t let failures take an upper hand on you so that you start feeling low and give yourself more chances of feeling victimized.

From Victim mindset to A Victor mindset

If you are not in control of your life, then you're deliberately giving chance to others to control your life.  You feel lack of power and crippled. The feeling of being handicap pushes your more towards a victim mindset. The victor, with his in-the-control attitude, focuses on the positive and systematic pursuit of consistent short- and long-term goals.

So, where do you start in order to stop being the victim? Start by becoming aware of your personal, internal dialog: the silent conversation all of us have inside our head every day. Then comes categorization. Which of your thoughts are positive? Which are negative? If you've never kept track before, do so now, and I think you’ll be surprised at how often you're concerned about the dark side of life and overlook the bright and shiny.

If you choose to positively influence your thoughts and reinforce the behavior of a victor, you are progressing, not regressing in life.

We can be aided in this analysis by another metaphor. Let’s think of your thoughts as involving hardware and software. The hardware is, of course, your brain. The software is what you run through your brain in the form of conscious and unconscious thoughts. This software runs thousands of thoughts through our brain each day, 90% of which come from the past — for one with a classic victim mindset, probably even more.

By managing your internal dialog, you can stay motivated and guarantee that bright and shiny life outcome. If you don’t manage your internal dialogue, you almost guarantee a lack of motivation and achievement. Controlling your mind and thought can be challenging but with practice, I am sure you will perfect it. In fact, you have to master the art, or else living a happy and fulfilling and enriching life stays a distant dream.

In his book, Man’s Search for Meaning, Victor Frankl survived the Nazi death camps in Auschwitz, Germany. While many people might call him a victim of circumstance, Frankl defined freedom in a very intriguing way, "To choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, is to choose one's way in life." Frankl also suggested,

"Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom." - Victor Frankl