How to approach/motivate a person with victim mentality?

[aklacor727]

I need advice on how I can bring up to my brother that his victim mentality is keeping him stuck.. it's always excuses after excuses, negative mentality, black and white thinking.  

I thought about just sending him Leo's videos on it but I don't want to offend him. Would that be motivational or offensive you think? For someone to send you a video titled "how to stop being a victim". He has low self esteem/self image so I'm just sensitive to the fact that then he would add that negative label on himself as well. But If he were to really soak in that info and were open to it I just know how much it would help.

Hes very very very stuck in life and has been living with me rent free for a couple of years. I'm trying to help him get set up with a career that he can support himself with long term. I had a long talk with him the other day on how this situation is not sustainable and how I am putting a time limit on it. Legit he brought up suicide if he were to have to be homeless/living in his car. I am talking 1-2 year time limit, not like next week. It frustrates me that he jumps to that type of thinking.  I'm just thinking...where is the drive/personal responsibility?! Dont you not want that to happen? Time to do something,  take action and responsibility...!

Sigh.

I just don't want to regret down the line that I didn't do everything I could to help him better himself. 

I know it is his thinking that's keeping him stuck. One thing that I did do was give him Psychocybernetics to read, which I'm hoping will give him motivation and start to see how his thinking and self image directly affects his life, how he can change/work on that. 

If I need to elaborate more let me know...

But I would really like advice and suggestions on the best way to approach these types of people. How to give them the motivation they need/etc.

Thank you!

 

 

 

[universe]

Dont show him Leos videos, just dont. Change doesnt happen as easily like that. Think about yourself. How long did it take you to implement these concepts discussed here. And how far are you actually with them?

You are living with him so you really have a strong grip on him and the possibility to help him. Now first, him responding with suicide if you dont give him what he wants. Could be that he is suicidal, but to me it sounds much more likely that he is being abusive towards you. Just realize this.

Now, how you can help him:

1. Love. This is really important. Seems like he is missing a fuckton of it. Just be loving towards him in the next weeks and dont do anything else. If he crosses some boundaries explain how that makes you feel and that its not acceptable but overall be as loving as possible. DO NOT try to change him in any way. Like telling him what he could do (take a bath, get a job, get a haircut, going outside). Just accept and love him for what he is.
2. Lead by example. Whatever you want him to do (habits, motivation, emotional control or whatever), instead of mentioning it to him. Just do these thing yourself. This is huge.
3. After you've done this (1&2) for a while he might be looking for help. If he does this, you strike. Choose one way to help him/coach him and go for it. Strive for weekly/daily sessions. You can do whatever your best at. Maybe teaching self-help 101, going into metaphysics, doing psychedelics or start some sport. These are all good. But what I would really suggest is Sedona Method and some visualisation.

[aklacor727]

@universe lol, thank you I wish it were as easy as just that but I know it's not. 

I definitely do think he needs a ton of love. Its unfortunate because though we live together we are not close. He spends a lot of time playing video games, pretty much all day, so we don't have alot of opportunity to talk and when we do its just small little conversations in passing. Plus I'm just an introvert anyway and enjoy spending time by myself reading, guitar, art, YouTube, etc. BUT I really do want to help. When the gyms open back up I think I'm going to make an effort to regularly go with him. Though I'm not much of a gym go-er, it would at least be a way for us to spend some time together so that I can have more of an influence on his life, grow a closer relationship. 

When he moved in 2 years ago, the plan was for him to work part time (just enough to pay his bills) so that he still had energy to go to the gym and lose weight to ultimately be able to work in a career on a ship to where he would be able to be on his feet alot doing physical labor. Hes very overweight. He has some progress over the last 2 years but losing weight is not easy and with the pandemic and gyms being closed it threw him off even more. 

When he brought up the suicide thing,  he said something along the lines of "I'm not suicidal, I don't want to die I enjoy living. But if it were at that point of being homeless I wouldn't see any other way." 

I know it seems as though hes taking advantage (if that were the case this would be much easier for me to just write him and this situation off)  but unfortunately he has alot of mental limitations..as I said low self esteem, also very bad social anxiety, and we had some traumatic situations growing up (toxic alcoholic household, both our parents ended up passing away). I don't think hes had many people to open up to about his feelings and has kept them inside for a long time, has ALOT of healing to do. And the video games are a distraction for him. Though our deep talks are few and far between, when we do I notice him holding back alot of tears and emotion, n definitely coming through as anger and blame...

You are right,  for now love and compassion is the best I can do, and can just go from there when the time us right. And making an effort to be more of a part of his life.  And maybe eventually we can get to the point of him opening up to me about these feelings and healing a bit...

Will be recommending to him the Sedona Method in the future as well that would be really helpful for him. I hope he ends up enjoying the Psychocyberbetics book. For me, one good self help book lead to a chain of others from seeing all the possibilities.  Fingers crossed maybe it does the same for him...

Thank you ?

 

 

 

[commie]

Your brother seems to be kind of like me in some ways. I'm not into all this "self-help" stuff, talk of "personal responsibility" and suchlike leaves me cold, I've been obese since before puberty, hate the very idea of careers and so forth.

I don't know what are your circumstances or where you live but ideally there ought to be some sort of system out there with people more experienced than you at helping people like your brother. It's not in anyone's interest to have him show up at an ER requiring costly interventions for a preventable disease for instance (not to mention more costly outcomes of social neglect). But assuming you're on your own...

Since you are generous enough to think in terms of years, what seems to be missing from the picture you painted is power. Being paid is nice but a problem with careers is that if you don't have great credentials or talent, they're likely to involve doing someone's bidding or even doing harm. Vaguely liking life or enjoying distractions may not be enough of a motivation to put up with that. So instead of going straight for the cash, maybe your brother could start by doing something that makes him feel powerful even if it doesn't pay or pays very little. Maybe he's already spending time helping people but if not, you can feel powerful doing that. Helping you would balance the help you're giving him a bit and would be a start but helping people who actually need it is something else. If you can prove to yourself that you can do that, maybe you can think about doing other things as well. This may not be useful but I'm sorry to say that the only other thing I can think of is that you shouldn't be on your own with this.

Edited July 6, 2020 by commie

[Ya know]

If he's in grief which is typical of a victim mindset - try to get him angry about his life and situation. It's better for him to ''move up'' to the level of anger which will generate energy into action, rather than moping around achieving nothing. Sounds counter intuitive but it works. 

Once he begins to make positive changes he can shift into courage, neutrality, acceptance.. then into higher states of consciousness, but for now anger is the best place for him.

Get him to think about how pissed off he is that other people have it easier, why they have advantages over him, and how his life is bullshit!! Then get him to shift into aggressive action. Smashing the gym, writing down his goals, being hyper focused on achievement. The best thing for him is this type of stuff.

Leo's work will be too soft on him. This will shock him out of apathy / grief and into action. Good Luck.

[Ya know]

This is a rough outline of the material I think is best for him

Wes Watson / David Goggins / Rich Piana (No Joke) / Elliott Hulse / Mayyybe Dan Pena ? Unsure. (Coming out of depression - initial action steps, 6-12 months)

Jordan Peterson / Tony Robbins / Jeff Olson / Jim Rohn / Early Actualized /Any notable self help teacher (Leaving behind misery - coming into independence) 1.5 / 2 years

Actualized spirituality / Jesus / Eckhart Tolle / Buddha / Krishna / David Hawkins / Fredirick Dodson (Encountering illusions of materialism, transcending) 

[Ya know]

And of course if you can get him to meditate ASAP that'll streamline his progress, but truthfully I think he needs some wins in the material world before he comes around to the idea, let alone the practice. 

[universe]

13 hours ago, aklacor727 said:

@universe lol, thank you I wish it were as easy as just that but I know it's not. 

I definitely do think he needs a ton of love. Its unfortunate because though we live together we are not close. He spends a lot of time playing video games, pretty much all day, so we don't have alot of opportunity to talk and when we do its just small little conversations in passing. Plus I'm just an introvert anyway and enjoy spending time by myself reading, guitar, art, YouTube, etc. BUT I really do want to help. When the gyms open back up I think I'm going to make an effort to regularly go with him. Though I'm not much of a gym go-er, it would at least be a way for us to spend some time together so that I can have more of an influence on his life, grow a closer relationship. 

When he moved in 2 years ago, the plan was for him to work part time (just enough to pay his bills) so that he still had energy to go to the gym and lose weight to ultimately be able to work in a career on a ship to where he would be able to be on his feet alot doing physical labor. Hes very overweight. He has some progress over the last 2 years but losing weight is not easy and with the pandemic and gyms being closed it threw him off even more. 

When he brought up the suicide thing,  he said something along the lines of "I'm not suicidal, I don't want to die I enjoy living. But if it were at that point of being homeless I wouldn't see any other way." 

I know it seems as though hes taking advantage (if that were the case this would be much easier for me to just write him and this situation off)  but unfortunately he has alot of mental limitations..as I said low self esteem, also very bad social anxiety, and we had some traumatic situations growing up (toxic alcoholic household, both our parents ended up passing away). I don't think hes had many people to open up to about his feelings and has kept them inside for a long time, has ALOT of healing to do. And the video games are a distraction for him. Though our deep talks are few and far between, when we do I notice him holding back alot of tears and emotion, n definitely coming through as anger and blame...

You are right,  for now love and compassion is the best I can do, and can just go from there when the time us right. And making an effort to be more of a part of his life.  And maybe eventually we can get to the point of him opening up to me about these feelings and healing a bit...

Will be recommending to him the Sedona Method in the future as well that would be really helpful for him. I hope he ends up enjoying the Psychocyberbetics book. For me, one good self help book lead to a chain of others from seeing all the possibilities.  Fingers crossed maybe it does the same for him...

Thank you ?

I think you are making a lot of excuses for him. Loosing weight is accomplished via your diet. You dont need a gym.

Ah I see ok. Ideally you want him to get off the games. At least when you have time to talk to him or do activities together. Maybe he just plays games because there is nothing else going on in his life. Its best if he is in a position where he prefers your company over playing games. By being loving and compassionate towards him, he could see how he gets what he wants (be loved) better from you than from games.

I wouldnt recommend him the Sedona Method. Instead you learn how to use it and do the exercises with him. Maybe he becomes interested in self-help books but I wouldnt count on it. Thats why I recommend you pick whatever you are good at and coach him directly. But thats your call.

[aklacor727]

@commie a sense of personal power would very much help him... that's a tough one though on what he would be inclined to want to do to attain that ? hmm I'll have to think on this.

@Ya know lol, that video does seem more of something he'd watch over Leo's. Definitely would be a step up from where he is. I would feel bad showing him that though before hes able to let out and talk about some of the emotions he's been repressing. But this is good to have for after hes let go of some of that,  kick start the angry motivation lol and hopefully some more progress

@universe the gym closing down was more of an excuse to himself that set him off track.  Like I said, victim mentality blaming things on external factors, etc.   And this is his mentality with many facets of his life, not just this one. If he really wants it he can make it happen either way which we talked alot about throughout our discussion. To be honest I don't know if he is passionate enough about it and the career he is shooting for to actually make the weight change happen. Which is why I put a time limit on things... it's tough too because lasting change requires positive motivation not negative motivation.  And the negative motivation of not wanting to be homeless is probably stronger since the career hes shooting for is not something hes actually passionate about,  it would just be a way for him to be financially independent.  Not making excuses for him, just being realistic about the psychological factors of it all. My hope is that just for the sake of being financially independent can be enough motivation.  Another reason I wanted to make it clear to him that this living situation with me is not a long term possibility. But yet again,  that's tinkering along the lines of negative motivation. But he is  open to other career possibilities as well that don't require losing tons of weight lol so we set a goal that he should realistically be at after a year and based on if he is on or off track we can go from there. 

In the meantime like I said just going to work on being more of a part of his life and an influence on his growth,  and there for him with compassion and love ? 

Edited July 6, 2020 by aklacor727

[Farnaby]

I hear you. Trying to motivate someone who has a victim mentality is probably one of the hardest things to accomplish. 

The main reason is that you need to be willing to try out different things if you want different outcomes and most people with this kind of mentality don't want to give it up because it has it's benefits and feels safe. To get out of that mentality, they would need to start taking complete responsibility about their life, stop blaming others, etc., and that's not an easy thing to do. 

IME the more you try to motivate or push such a person, the more frustrated you get, because it doesn't work. It has to be them who decide to leave behind this mentality and the benefits that come with it. 

I agree with @universe that leading by example and unconditional acceptance are essential. But it's important that you don't have an underlying agenda expecting that this leads to the change you want to see in him, because it may never happen. This is the hardest part IMO and probably the most important as well: working on accepting that he may be stuck in this mentality his whole life. 

Of course, there's nothing wrong about wanting to help him, it's completely natural. Also, it can be useful to express genuine concern and offer compassion and help if he is willing to start working on himself. What I mean is that he won't change until he has a personal motivation to do so. And even then, relapses are to be expected. 

Also, don't forget to take care of yourself in this process, because otherwise you will burn out and your relationship with your brother will suffer. At the end of the day, you're not responsible for his well being and you can only be there to help him if he is willing to commit to the process. 

A good therapy would benefit him, because threatening with suicide as soon as someone expresses a boundary like you did is a serious issue that requires professional help. I can imagine your fear when he threatens with suicide. My guess is he has learnt to threaten, because he can get away with not taking responsibility like this. 

I hope you can find your peace with this issue!

[aklacor727]

@Farnaby thank u so much. Yeah I learned along time ago you can't change someone. Ive already accepted that he may be stuck in this his entire life. Would be unfortunate  but I know all I can do is change myself and do what I have in my power to help if he is willing to, not have any regrets in that aspect..

I'm glad I posted this question, talking this through has really helped me