{"id":1292,"date":"2011-06-13T05:55:11","date_gmt":"2011-06-13T12:55:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/practicalmentor.com\/?p=1292"},"modified":"2011-06-13T06:02:00","modified_gmt":"2011-06-13T13:02:00","slug":"dont-be-a-victim","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/practicalmentor.com\/?p=1292","title":{"rendered":"Don&#8217;t be a victim."},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/practicalmentor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/100_21621.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/practicalmentor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/100_21621-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"100_2162\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" class=\"alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-1252\" Often our plans do not turn out the way we intended. In fact sometimes it almost seems like the there is an unseen power that learns of our plans and conjures up challenges that we would have never thought possible.  It is very easy to chalk our lack of success as bad luck, or even worse not fair.  Thus setting the stage to become a victim.\n\nThere is some comfort in being a victim.  It makes rationalization a very easy process.  There is someone or something that unjustly caused your plans to be dashed.  Often friends and co-workers in the guise of making you feel better tell you how you got \u201cscrewed\u201d and that it just isn\u2019t fair. Don\u2019t be lulled into victim status by the comfort of this false comfort of being a victim.  Most often the sympathy is not genuine, and even though everyone says you were wronged no one offers to make it right.  Their sympathy is just a way to quietly sneak pass you without you noticing it.\n\nOnce I was in a department where I applied for several promotions.  Each time I was unsuccessful. However, I was always comforted by the boss\u2019s \u201clet him down easy speech\u201d which included how qualified I was and what a hard worker and how I came within an inch of getting the promotion, but in  the end he had to pick someone else because they had seniority, they really needed the extra money, etc.  It wasn\u2019t my fault and it wasn\u2019t his fault I was just a victim of circumstances and would probably get the next promotion.  It worked like a charm, not only on me, but on everyone else who had applied for a promotion and wasn\u2019t selected.  We all thought that we had the next one in the bag, and when the next promotion came and went, it was another circumstance that kept us an inch away from being promoted.\n\nThere is an imagined code that says when your manager tells you something about promotions or salaries in confidence you keep his secret.  The boss was a master at having all of us thinking we were victims of circumstances and sure they would get the next promotion.  His strategy was working like a charm.  All of us were smug in the imagined knowledge that we were at the head of the promotion list, and did not want to say anything to the others \u2013 those poor guys weren\u2019t even in the running.   \n\nIt is easy to believe what you want to believe, in this case that you were the next on the promotion list, except circumstances kept getting in the way. That is until you hear the same speech being given to someone else.  Then it becomes evident that you were being played.  \n\nCasting someone, even yourself as a victim, is the easiest way to sideline the individual.  Just think when you hear a tale about a victim you almost immediately shake your head and say gee that is too bad, while inwardly you are thinking \u2013 who are you trying to kid, that guy never had a chance.   In the meantime the victim wraps himself in layer after layer of sympathy for being wronged insulating him from reality. While his competitors quietly sneak past.\n\nIt is ok to sooth your wounds when your plans don\u2019t go right with a few thoughts of it\u2019s not fair, but don\u2019t adopt the status of victim as shield from reality.  If it were meant to be, it would be. The universe does not make mistakes.  \n\nSo what is there to do when you feel you have been cheated or not treated fairly?  The first thing is to try to find the real reason why your plans did not work out.  In my case  the boss was using the victim tactic to keep all of  us at an almost ruthless level of competition, while bringing  in his friends from his old job as managers.   The remedy in this case was to transfer out that division.  Those who were satisfied being victims stayed and fell further behind.\n\nThere may be real victims, and victims of circumstances, but in the workplace there is no court that you can go to get justice. Whether or not you feel you are victim do not accept the label or the sympathy that goes with it.  It is a real career killer.  Once you accept the victim label, it seems like everyone lines up to take advantage of your vulnerable status. \n\nIt is difficult not get something you believe you deserve, promotions, raises, corner offices, etc., but instead of feeling like a victim and looking for sympathy, use that energy to figure out why you did not succeed and use the knowledge to do better next time.\n\n\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,22,78,111],"tags":[209,9,27,144],"class_list":["post-1292","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-abundance","category-challenges","category-difficult-boss","category-strategy","tag-abundance","tag-career-strategies","tag-tactics","tag-victim"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/practicalmentor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1292","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/practicalmentor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/practicalmentor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/practicalmentor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/practicalmentor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1292"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/practicalmentor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1292\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1295,"href":"https:\/\/practicalmentor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1292\/revisions\/1295"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/practicalmentor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1292"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/practicalmentor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1292"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/practicalmentor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1292"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}