Loading
Girafe Coaching
  • HOME
  • ABOUT ME
  • WORK WITH ME
  • EVENTS
  • BLOG
  • PODCAST
  • Menu Menu

Change your expat life

Overcoming the Blame Game, Pt. 1

  • Why do I look like a mess while my friend always looks perfect?”

  • “My house is so untidy compared to other people’s houses!”

  • “I should be much more advanced in my career by now…”

  • “I should know better.”

Do you ever have thoughts like this? Do you compare yourself with other people and often feel like you fall short?

If your mind is telling you that you are not capable or not good enough, or you are constantly telling yourself to work harder, the next two blog posts are for you!

Facing challenges + playing the blame game

A friend I met in Zimbabwe got a new position in Latin American just before the COVID-19 pandemic. The family was excited about the new adventure, thrilled even. And it was all scheduled to being with 9 months in Madrid to improve their Spanish.

But the plan was derailed when the Spanish government went into lockdown for COVID-19. The family first moved to France, then to England, where HQ had repatriated its staff mandatorily. The family stayed in England for almost a year before finally relocating to Latin America—17 months after their initial move out of Zimbabwe.

But the story did not end there. When they arrived at the new post, the organization announced major cuts in staffing. And so, still today, my friend and his family do not know whether they will be able stay in this new country or for how long.

Unfortunately, many similar stories have affected expats around the world. Upheaval and change have become more prevalent than ever. And when we face such uncertainty and challenges, our brain tends to default to one of two unhelpful patterns:

  1. We look for someone to blame—and that someone is usually ourselves, our partners, or the organizations we’re involved with
  2. We start drawing comparisons—and we start wondering why we seem to be facing such challenges when it seems like others have it easy (or, at least, easier)

The judgment pile-up

Even when we’re not in a global pandemic, we all likely have the tendency to compare our lives to others or look for someone to blame when things get challenging.

But the minute we start looking for someone to blame or compare our situations to, we are already on the fast track to making things worse. Why? Because adding judgment, blame, or comparison only compounds the difficulty by preventing us from really addressing the problem.

Of course, it would be easy to simply say “stop it! Stop comparing your situation to others and stop laying on the blame!”

But, of course, it’s never that easy, is it?

In fact, in my career, I have found that this is one of the more difficult facets of mindset work—but one of the most impactful.

In Part 2 of this blog, I will be addressing what’s actually happening when our minds start to spin into blame and judgment. (Or, if you want to get a jump on it, you can listen to Episode 14 of the Girafe Coaching Podcast: The London Double Decker.)

But for now, the key is starting to recognize if and when this pattern is happening.

When you are facing a challenge, be it big or small, do you feel yourself reaching for comparisons or starting to blame yourself or others for your difficult circumstances?

If so, you are not alone.

Stay tuned to learn more about this phenomenon in next week’s blog!

If you like this post, share it with your friends or on social media with Instagram or Facebook! Girafe Coaching is all about helping people like you love their expat life.

SEE MORE

The Journey to Change

January 4, 2022/by Caroline Giffon

Boundaries, Boundaries, Boundaries …

December 14, 2021/by Caroline Giffon

Do You Know What’s in Your Relationship Manual?

December 7, 2021/by Caroline Giffon

Why Success Doesn’t Always Make Us Happy

November 30, 2021/by Caroline Giffon

How to Keep a Journal

November 23, 2021/by Caroline Giffon

The Four Types of Procrastination

November 16, 2021/by Caroline Giffon
Load more

 

HOME I PRIVACY POLICY I TERMS OF USE I BLOG I CONTACT ME

 

Copyright 2022 Girafe Coaching LLC

Procrastination Fear of Failure
Scroll to top

We use cookies on this site to gather data and improve your experience. For more information see our privacy policy.

Accept Cookies

Cookie and Privacy Settings



How we use cookies

We may request cookies to be set on your device. We use cookies to let us know when you visit our websites, how you interact with us, to enrich your user experience, and to customize your relationship with our website.

Click on the different category headings to find out more. You can also change some of your preferences. Note that blocking some types of cookies may impact your experience on our websites and the services we are able to offer.

Essential Website Cookies

These cookies are strictly necessary to provide you with services available through our website and to use some of its features.

Because these cookies are strictly necessary to deliver the website, refusing them will have impact how our site functions. You always can block or delete cookies by changing your browser settings and force blocking all cookies on this website. But this will always prompt you to accept/refuse cookies when revisiting our site.

We fully respect if you want to refuse cookies but to avoid asking you again and again kindly allow us to store a cookie for that. You are free to opt out any time or opt in for other cookies to get a better experience. If you refuse cookies we will remove all set cookies in our domain.

We provide you with a list of stored cookies on your computer in our domain so you can check what we stored. Due to security reasons we are not able to show or modify cookies from other domains. You can check these in your browser security settings.

Other external services

We also use different external services like Google Webfonts, Google Maps, and external Video providers. Since these providers may collect personal data like your IP address we allow you to block them here. Please be aware that this might heavily reduce the functionality and appearance of our site. Changes will take effect once you reload the page.

Google Webfont Settings:

Google Map Settings:

Google reCaptcha Settings:

Vimeo and Youtube video embeds:

Privacy Policy

You can read about our cookies and privacy settings in detail on our Privacy Policy Page.

Privacy Policy
Accept settingsHide notification only

Join the Girafe Coaching Community!

Be the first to receive the Girafe Coaching Newsletter with monthly tips, strategies and updates.