There are people out there that exhibit behavior that sucks the energy and life out of us with their excessive negativity, gossip, and selfishness. Relationships should serve both parties equally, and when it doesn’t, it might be time to reevaluate the need for that particular relationship in your life.
Here are 8 toxic behaviors mentally strong people never tolerate.
1 – Excessive Negativity
When you are working on creating a better life, the first thing to make an impact is a change in our thoughts. Moving from negative thought patterns to thoughts that serve us is difficult enough without being surrounded by excessive negativity.
It isn’t perfect positive thought you are after with your friends, but more the ability for your friends to recognize and move through negative thought. Being surrounded by someone who constantly expresses negative thoughts is disruptive to your personal growth.
2 – Gossip
Gossip weakens relationships. Gossip is a conversation about other people and is usually malicious in intent. Moreover, gossip happens when your relationship isn’t strong or based on meaningful connections.
Make your relationships about you and the other person and avoid bringing other people into it. Pay attention to how your conversations make you feel. Chances are if you are gossiping, you won’t like the feeling.
3 – Selfish Behaviors
If you start to examine your most successful and least successful relationships, chances are a common theme found in your least successful ones would be selfishness. Strong relationships are ones that serve both parties and do not focus on one person over the other.
It can be difficult to realize selfish behavior exists, especially when you feel like your partner is in crisis or needs your help. Both people in the relationship should be able to express their needs. You should never tolerate a relationship with someone that makes you feel bad for making your needs known.
4 – Lack of Compassion
Life is hard – very, very hard. There is no need to make it harder by surrounding yourself with people who are not kind. And it is more than just being kind to you, it’s being kind to everyone.
Compassion is about general kindness and concern for all people, the people that matter to us and those we don’t even know. Ask yourself this, “Do you really want to surround yourself with people who have no concern for the suffering of others?”
5 – Stubbornness
There is a little streak of stubbornness in all of us. And a little of it is a good thing, it can help us persevere and drive us to complete goals.
It is the refusal to compromise, see another point of view and the unwillingness to change; that is detrimental to a relationship. It’s important to recognize that the relationship isn’t serving you if you are doing all the compromising.
6 – Superficial Judgements
It is one thing to look at a situation and process things based on what is happening. Then taking those perceptions and trying to make sense of them. It is a whole different thing to process what is happening based on how we think they should be.
When other people try to define actions and experiences based on their hopes for what they want, they are judging in a way that is unhealthy to us, to them and those around us.
What’s more, superficial judgments can often lead to gossip, which we already know is a behavior that doesn’t serve a relationship.
7 – Manipulative Actions
It is the natural tendency to want to think the best of people, but it is important to be aware that there are people that will do anything to get what they want. It never feels good to be manipulated, and you might not even be aware that it is happening.
If someone is using guilt, selective memories, excessive compliments or even bullying tactics to get something they want, chances are they are trying to manipulate you. Stay true to what you know is right and don’t let someone else’s manipulative tactics influence you.
8 – Playing the Victim
When someone plays the role of victim, it is because they do not want to take responsibility for their actions. Accepting that life is less than perfect and accepting our role in the decisions we make is an important part of being happy.
Once a victim, always a victim and when we surround ourselves with victims chances are we will become one too. It’s natural to want to explain away a failed attempt at something, and it is up to us to hold the people around us, and ourselves, accountable and challenge victim thoughts.
We make the choice, whether consciously or unconsciously, to gossip, play the victim or judge others. We also make the choice to stay in relationships only with people that exhibit the right kind of behaviors. If you are paying attention to how your relationships make you feel, more than likely you will be able to determine if the relationship is serving you.
What toxic behaviors have you stopped allowing in your life? Share in the discussion below:
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