Mindset Challenge: This week, try and retrain your thinking by spotting these 9 self-defeating thoughts and replacing them with more empowering ones.

Here’s a simple mindset challenge this week to help you get to thinking in a more empowering manner.

Look, no one likes a victim. We don’t like to be victims. We don’t want to be seen that way, we don’t want to live that way. But our subconscious thoughts often betray us.

Every time we give into a thought about our life or circumstances, we are making room to play victim or be a survivor.

We are either going to live from a mindset of, “This is terrible,” or from a place of empowerment, where we replace that thought with something like, “It’s a learning experience.”

We go from “I can’t” to “I won’t.” Because the truth about “I can’t” is actually, yes, you can. Maybe you just don’t want to or you refuse to, so a better thought is to tell yourself, “I won’t” instead of “I can’t.”

Don’t “should” all over yourself. (Read this one out loud & fast!)

Word usage is important to neurolinguistic programming. So every time this week you catch yourself using the word, “should,” ask if you can replace it with “could” instead. I “should” do the dishes can become, “I could do the dishes.”

(Then maybe this becomes “I won’t do the dishes!”)

To further leave the life of victimhood, stop with the excuses.

Stop by telling yourself and others, “It’s not my fault!” Unless, of course, it’s really truly not your fault. No one cares if it’s your fault; they only care if your action or words harmed them. Own it when it is your fault and apologize by doing better. Apologies are two parts — the actual words you say to apologize, which are, I’m sorry,” and the apology you make through changed behavior. I think we can all agree it would be better if we could all live in a world where we take responsibility for our screw-ups — then strive to do better.

I don’t think we need to make others wrong all the time.

This has become a world in which there always seems to be a binary of right/wrong. Personally, I’ve always liked the grey area. Maybe it’s years of parasocial work, but I understand humans are complicated and it’s possible to be both victim and perpetrator at the same time. Sometimes, we aren’t self-aware enough to know where on the spectrum we fall. Once we become deeply ensconced in victimhood, it’s hard to leave that place. We turn into angry perpetrators lashing out at those around us. Then, we may think we’re the victim and boohoo! But we’ve really become the perpetrator, bleeding all over those who didn’t cut us and cutting them in return.

One thing I think we can all agree on is that we’ll get farther when we move from a place of, “it’s a problem,” to “it’s an opportunity.”

Ok, I’ll start.

I’ll admit, I was pretty down about nearly dying of covid and having to change my whole damn life over it. Sitting at home for four months, not getting paid to be on medical leave, and not being able to do much physically was a harsh sentence. It was a problem, yes. But there wasn’t much I could do about it. I turned it into an opportunity to heal, rest, and reduce my stress. I changed my diet and my habits to move towards a healthier life. I used it as an opportunity to learn to advocate for myself within the healthcare system.

Guess what? I have to continue to do all these things. Good thing I changed my mindset a few months ago, isn’t it?

How do you plan to use these mindset changes?

• Turn “I can’t” into “I won’t.”
• Turn “I should” into “I could.”
• Turn “It’s not my fault” into “I am responsible.”
• Turn “It’s a problem” into “It’s an opportunity.”
• Turn “I’m never satisfied” into “I want to learn and grow.”
• Turn “Life’s a struggle” into “Life’s an adventure.” Turn “I hope” into “I know.”
• Turn “If only” into “Next time.”
• Turn “What will I do?” Into “I know I can handle this.”
• Turn “This is terrible” into “It’s a learning experience.”

Look, I’m the first person to tell you how much I hate toxic positivity. I will never tell anyone who’s hurting that they, “Should just be more positive!” That’s been done to me; I know how crappy that feels.

But I do think it’s important to replace poor thinking habits and weak beliefs into something more healthy and empowering. We can all think more useful thoughts. We all have room to adopt a better mindset.

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