You and your company operate in a victim paradigm! How do I know this? As I have already mentioned in previous articles, you are programmed and that Programming is creating the quality of your life. This article will distinguish the Victim Paradigm of Programming and ways to integrate this distinction into your transforming your organization.
Making known the unknown occurs when one is willing to let go of what they already know for the opportunity to discover what is unknown. Got that? The issue with letting go and having no certainty, no control. There is no insurance and your Program doesn’t like that. Your Program needs insurance, control, and expected safety. This inner voice or subconscious compass is your Victim. Your Victim needs control, safety and insurance because, as you know, something bad will happen and when it does we need our insurance. Or have you ever avoided communication, blamed, hid, lied, rationalized, or defended? Of course, we all have at some point or another. Look at why you did and you will see a Victim. I am sure you have your reasons why, which I will bet are rational, which is also your Victim.
Distinguishing Victim Programming is simple. You are either accountable or a Victim. It’s that simple. Anytime that you are unwilling to be accountable, you are a Victim! I hear all the time,” I left them a message and they didn’t call me back.”
“Are you accountable for them calling you back?” I say.
When they reply, “No, I cannot make them call me back,” I know I’m dealing with a Victim. So I choose to be with this person in a way that they get to move from being a Victim into being accountable. This process takes anywhere from a moment in time to three days. The person will get it, I am accountable for that, and so that is the result I create.
How to Spot a Victim. Is it YOU?
The Victim paradigm is a way of thinking, feeling, speaking and perceiving that is always right. Even when it’s wrong it will be right about being wrong. Or, the victim looks for the opportunity to be made wrong so that they can defend themselves and then they will be right about it. “See, you made me wrong! Can’t you see that you’re blaming me? You are so messed up. I don’t deserve to be treated like this.” Does this sound familiar?
The interesting aspect for the Victim Programming is that it needs to be victimized in order to run the Programming. This means that they need to see the world in such a way that they are always being victimized. An email could be an opportunity to be victimized. The way people walk by or look at them is a way to be victimized. The truth is that all of us get the opportunity to distinguish our Victim. It is always there giving us the opportunity to be accountable. Do you worry about how you look? Do you need attention? Do you feel depressed, anxious or scared in life? Do you look for the opportunity to defend yourself or others? Do you criticize people in your head? If you were an accountable adult you would tell them to their face! Do you stuff your feelings? Do you act like everything is all good? Do you feel like you are owed or that people around you don’t work hard enough? Do you blame the system, your boss, your peers, your mom/dad or God for… Then you are a Victim, Victim!
A Lack of Managerial Accountability Enables Victim Programming:
The Victim paradigm is created when people are not held accountable for their thinking, feeling, speaking and perceiving and/or when business systems are non-existent, ineffective or not managed. The result is space for the Victim to operate. By providing space for the Victim to operate you are creating fertile grounds for breakdown, and without measures for resolution. Breakdown/Victim is inevitable, so let’s create the opportunity to address and manage our Victim so that it does not kill us off.
Kill your Victim before your Victim kills you!
Until accountability becomes the foundation from which you operate, your Victim will run your results, your life. When I hear people start acknowledging their Victim, it sounds like, “I created that, I’m sure I did and in this moment I cannot see how I did that. Will you support me at looking at how I created it this way?” Now you have an accountability movement, a shift towards breakthrough and transformation. Or, I hear people say “I get that you see me as the person who created this breakdown. Will you share with me what you see?” This willingness to receive insight shows me they are willing to be accountable, they just don’t have the wisdom yet. They are approaching a new facet of self-awareness. This is a remarkable shift from their previously defensive communication, such as “that’s not my job, man.”
Accountability transforms the victim. Below are simple ways to address the Victim and create Accountability.
How to Break Through Victim Programming: Be rigorously accountable
1. Be fully Accountable for everything in your life-everything!
- If you are unwilling to do that then guess what, YOU ARE A VICTIM!
2. Integrate a daily process that teaches people how to make and manage agreements.
- The daily practice I teach is called: Get it, Get off it and Create. Graduates learn how to recognize Programming within themselves first and then in others. Once they do, they get the opportunity to Get it, Get off it and to Create a new possibility for themselves and with others. When accountability becomes a daily practice you are being empowered.
Transforming your Self and others takes practice. In this article, I have introduced you to Victim Programming and how it can steal your happiness and render your business team ineffective. To break through disempowering behaviors, you must first create awareness for what victim behavior looks like, and then practice a new skill set of thinking, feeling, speaking, and perceiving that is sourced from accountability. I coach TBD participants through a rigorous practice of self-awareness and communication that brings these distinctions to life. Once you get in the Game with this skill set, and have an experience in your world of “Get it. Get off it. Create”, I assert that your Self and your business will break through to greater success and satisfaction.
Graduates Report,
I was a poor listener and would interrupt and talk over the top of others. I played "victim" using excuses to create work stoppages and delays. Now I listen and actually hear what people are saying to me… This has changed the way the department works and increased productivity to where sales and installation cannot keep up with us.
Thank You Coach
Transformational Business Dynamics
Coach Pete 310.415.1148
TMDCoachPete@gmail.com
Transformational Business Dynamics aligns the “self” with empowering choices that transforms the organization. TBD shows how authenticity, accountability and radical honesty moves people through limiting programmatic reactions to create a way of being that causes results. TBD sees the Self as the whole; the Self is the source that transforms the corporation.