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It is always easier to blame something else or somebody else for your woes. But when you accept personal responsibility, you get to step out of the blame game. It is hard to get out of victim mode if you’ve had difficult parents, siblings, bosses or colleagues who have hurt you. Moving beyond victim mode may feel like a challenging thing to do, but breaking out of the cycle of helplessness and blame can only set you free.

How to break out of the cycle

To break out of the blame game cycle, you’ve got to want to move beyond feelings of helplessness. It isn’t as difficult as one may think, unless you’ve suffered serious abuse, in which case it’s best to speak to somebody who is qualified to help you.

For everyday blaming, it’s your perception of what’s happening that’s getting in the way. In other words, it’s not really a particular person or situation’s ‘fault’ but the way you’re viewing things. Perceptions are often based on past experiences that no longer apply.

To break out of the cycle, it’s important to take notice of how you set yourself up to be helpless. You could start by counting your victim thoughts every day. From there it’s a case of learning how to re-define yourself so that you’re able to assert yourself in a more positive way. By remembering the times when you didn’t feel overwhelmed, you can recognise and nurture your powerful side.

Changing perceptions

Ask yourself why your ‘blame game’ habit is attractive to you: what is the payoff? Then look at what the negative results of your thinking and actions are. How do you make others feel and how do you feel as a result?

Byron Katie’s book Loving What Is offers advice on how to go about cleaning one’s lenses. Katie believes that the world is the projected image of our thoughts and that in order to move forward we’ve got to clean our lenses.

If you have grievances, Katie suggests asking yourself if it’s really true and from there to check with yourself to find out if you absolutely know that it’s true. She suggests that you then check in with yourself to see how you react when you think a particular thought. Then she encourages you to ask yourself who you would be without the thought.

Other books on the subject

Here are three books to consider if you are keen to read more about how to free yourself from the blame game. The first is Finding Your Bootstraps: 11 Steps to Overcoming Victim Thinking by Diane Bogino.

The second is Self-Defeating Behaviours: Free Yourself from the Habits, Compulsions, Feelings and Attitudes That Hold You Back by Milton Cudney and Robert Hardy. Then there’s Stop Being a Victim: A Survival Kit for the New Millenium by Junius Podrug.

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