“I want to stop having this ‘woe is me’ mentality,” my client said during our third session together.
Let’s call him Andrew.
He was dealing with pressure at work, uncertainty about his future, and challenges at home that seemed to demand more from him than he had left to give. Every attempt he made to improve his situation seemed to fall flat.
He felt like his whole world was collapsing, sucking the life out of him. Like a prisoner stuck inside a cage with no way out.
He felt powerless. Incapable. At the mercy of his circumstances.
And it was starting to affect his health, his work, his relationships, and his overall well-being. What neither of us knew yet was that Andrew wasn’t going to think his way out of this. He was going to act his way into seeing something that had become invisible to him.
When responsibilities pile up and painful, unexpected events happen one after another, it’s normal to feel like everything is happening to you.
The world starts to feel like it’s against you. Every setback becomes more evidence that nothing is working. Every attempt to make things better feels pointless. Eventually, you stop trusting yourself to create anything different.
When it rains, it pours, right?
And when we feel that way, it’s hard to see beyond the pain, difficulty, and strain. Our view narrows. We imagine the worst possible outcomes while minimizing our own ability to respond to them.
We feel stuck, overwhelmed, and hopeless.
We feel like victims of our lives.
The weird thing about being in an everything-is-horrible-it’s-not-fair-poor-me state is that recognizing it doesn’t necessarily change it.
Andrew saw the pattern. He named it himself. He knew he was stuck in ‘woe is me’ thinking. But knowing that didn’t magically make him feel powerful.
And he certainly didn’t need another person telling him to change his mindset, look on the bright side, think positively, believe in himself, or take ownership.
He was breaking down in real time. He couldn’t see a way out.
So I listened.
I didn’t make him wrong for what he was feeling or thinking. I didn’t prescribe what he should do or tell him what he should believe. I stayed curious. I repeated some of his own words back to him. I validated what I could observe and gently asked questions that helped him look behind his words.
Over the next few sessions, he began to see things that had been buried under the muck of life -
Things that mattered to him.
Values he had neglected.
Beliefs that no longer worked for him.
Passions he had forgotten.
He remembered how much he used to love working with his hands.
After years in tech, raising a family, paying a mortgage, and keeping up with everything life required of him, he had lost touch with that part of himself. He wanted it back.
So he chose to do one thing with his hands, no matter how small, every single day.
Fix a broken chair. Paint a botched wall. Organize his desk. Plant something in the garden. Build shelves for his tools.
That was it.
One small thing. Every day. No matter what.
He took action. He showed up the next day. Then he did it again.
And again.
A few weeks later, Andrew hopped onto our call with an announcement.
“OMG. All this time, I had it wrong! It’s not ‘woe is me’. It’s ‘Whoa, it’s me!’”
I’m freaking alive.
I can do sh**
I am capable.
I can make things happen.
I have power.
I’m not at the mercy of my circumstances.
Look at what I can do.
Whoa. It’s me.
Andrew didn’t get there by doing anything dramatic.
He chose something that mattered to him and started taking small steps toward it. He showed up even when he didn’t feel transformed, powerful or particularly hopeful.
The actions came first. Then the evidence began to accumulate. He said he’d do something, and he did it. He moved when he didn’t feel ready and witnessed how something existed because he decided to make it. It was his actions that changed what happened next.
Those small acts reminded him that he still had power. That he could affect his environment. That he could make a choice and create an outcome. He didn’t have to convince himself that he was capable. He had proof. And eventually, the evidence changed how he saw himself.
Psychologist Albert Bandura used the term self-efficacy to describe our belief in our ability to take the actions necessary to produce a particular result. One of the strongest ways we develop that belief is through what Bandura called mastery experiences - you attempt something, do it, and gain evidence that you’re capable.
Andrew wasn’t repeating affirmations about his power. He was creating experiences of it.
Our sense of agency is the feeling that we control our own actions and can influence events through them. That experience draws partly from the relationship between an action we voluntarily choose and the effect that follows.
I decided to do this.
I did it.
Something changed.
Action gives us information that thinking alone can’t.
That doesn’t mean any action will solve everything. Fixing a chair didn’t eliminate Andrew’s work problems or repair the strained relationships in his life. It helped him remember that hewas not merely an object being pushed around by events.
He was alive. He could choose. He could act. He could create.
Things happen. Some of those things are painful, unfair, and genuinely devastating. Calling events neutral doesn’t mean they don’t hurt or that we have to pretend they’re acceptable. It means the event itself and what we make it mean about us are not the same thing.
A layoff happens. A relationship ends. An illness is diagnosed. Lightning strikes. We experience those events (and everything they awaken in us) but they’re not acting on us with an intention or deciding who we become next. The distinction between “this happened” and “this happened to me” changes our relationship to what comes next.
One leaves room for choice and the other can make the event the author of our lives.
So the next time life feels like it’s happening to you, don’t force yourself to feel powerful. And don’t wait until you believe in yourself again either.
Find one small thing you can affect.
Choose something that matters to you, not something you think you should care about. Make it small enough to do today and concrete enough that you’ll know when it’s done.
Send the email. Make the appointment. Move your body for five minutes. Clear one corner of the room. Write one paragraph. Fix one small thing that’s been bothering you. Then notice what happened.
YOU chose something.
You acted.
Something changed.
Do it again tomorrow.
The point isn’t to control everything that happens to you. You can’t.
The point is to rebuild your relationship with your own ability to participate in what happens next.
Andrew’s circumstances didn’t suddenly become easy. He simply stopped seeing himself as powerless inside them.
He moved before he believed.
And eventually, all those small actions helped him see what had been there the whole time.
Whoa.
It’s me.