Toxic people will kill your peace and ruin the positive energy in your life. When with people like these, your life will most likely become affected by it, and it wouldn’t take long to be on a downward spiral from then on.
You may not realise this, but your strengths could actually attract toxic people to you, and in one way or the other, toxic people will knowingly or unknowingly undermine your happiness, and be in control of your peace of mind.
How then can one stop toxic people from coming into their life?
I’ve written on the toxic behaviours to watch out for and why you attract toxic people into your life, but this is how you get to stop them.
1. WATCH OUT FOR THEIR STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES
You cannot control the people you meet in life, but you can control who you let in; but it’s from the people you tend to meet that’ll determine the people you’ll become friends and acquaintances with.
So, when you meet someone, don’t be in a hurry to become their friend or acquaintance without knowing who they truly are. Study their weaknesses as well as their strengths, and you’ll know where to place them in your life.
2. EVERYONE MUSTN’T BE CLOSE TO YOU
This is where a lot of people get it wrong. You mustn’t be friends with everyone and everyone mustn’t be very close to you. Tend to know where to put people, according to what they show you. And you don’t have to be mean about this; you can be friendly with everyone without really being friends with them — there’s a huge difference.
3. DON’T BE IN A HURRY TO SAY YES
Don’t be in a hurry to say yes to everyone and everything. Try to think about the situation carefully, and if you aren’t comfortable with it, say no to it. Knowing when to say no is a huge strength that would make a lot of toxic people tend to distance themselves.
4. HAVE IN MIND THAT YOU CANNOT PLEASE EVERYONE
If you tend to please everyone, then you’ll have lots of toxic people in your life, but the moment you realise that you cannot please everybody and put that into practice, you’ll end up having genuine people around you.
5. KNOW HOW TO SPEND YOUR TIME
If you are too generous with your time and the attention you give to people, they’ll tend to cling towards you the more and become too demanding. So you should know how to spend your time, and when in a conversation with these kind of people, know the amount of time you’ll be willing to spend listening to them, and try not to exceed that time. This will help you create certain boundaries.
6. CREATE BOUNDARIES
Not everyone must be in your life; learn to create certain boundaries and avoid feeding the energy that comes with people who show toxic behaviours. When you are receptive of them, then they’ll come the more.
Avoiding people with toxic behaviours doesn’t make you a bad person; it only shows that you know what you want and what you don’t in life — and that my friend, is a strength.
Jake