How Well Do You Handle Your Inner Critic?
How Well Do You Cope With Change?
How to Tell if You Are "Too Busy"?
How Well Do You Manage Stress?
How Well Do You Take Responsibility For Yourself?
How Well Do You Fulfill Your Needs?
Are You Living with a "Victim" Mentaltity?
How Well Do You Express Your Needs?
How Well Do You Handle Worry?
Test Your Temper
How Healthy Is Your Relationship with Money?
How Well Do You Handle Fear?
How Well Do You Part Ways?
Do You Have Workaholic Habits?
How Well Do You Handle Failure?
How Well Do You Practice Empathy?
How Defensive Are You?
Is Your On-line Friendship Too Friendly?
Has Your Friendship Become an Emotional Affair?

Quizzes

Are You Living With a Victim Mentality?

Old-fashioned melodramas featured hapless heroines who always seemed to find themselves being tied to a railroad track or evicted from home into a fierce storm as the villain twirled his oily moustache. Only a white-hatted hero or the cavalry could rescue them as they cried, "Woe is me!" Times of stress or a need to respond to fearful situations can stir up the victim in all of us.

Here's a Thriving quiz to help you see if you've been carrying around a victim mentality that may be robbing you of your sense of personal power. Answer true or false to the following statements.

True False  

My first response to a setback is to blame someone else for what's happened.

No matter what I do, things are not really going to change for me.

I often find myself beginning thoughts with phrases like "I can't...", "I'm no good at...", "I've never been able to ...".

When things go wrong, I tend to beat myself up.

Sometimes I'm lucky, but when bad things happen they are because I mess up.

When angry, I rarely begin sentences with "I".

Conversations with friends are often about how hard my life is.

When friends offer advice, I usually counter it with a "Yes, but..." since they can't know how difficult my situation really is.

I spend a fair amount of my time thinking about past failures and mistakes.

Other people usually cause me to feel the way I do. I'd be more centered if it weren't for them.

I'm always so busy with work and the things I need to do to survive that I just don't have time to do things I want to do for myself.

I'd like to exercise more and eat in a healthier way, but I just can't right now.

If I weren't tied down to all these obligations, I could really do some of the things I always think about doing.

Someday I'll find a new partner who will really change my life. In the meantime, all I can do is hope.

I must have done something really horrible in a past life because nothing I do ever works out.

If only I had had more support, I could have ... (fill in the blank.)

Score: The higher your score, more likely you are to think of yourself as a victim.

"Victimhood" is usually a way of staying stuck in old patterns and can be an externalizing way of dealing with unacknowledged anger or fear of change.

If you've answered true to more than a handful of these questions, chances are you'd benefit from a closer look at what's happening in your life right now. Feel free to call.