Get Rid of Your Toxic Attitude Once and For All

Your attitude can determine how you live your life. You can’t be happy no matter what you have if you have a negative attitude towards life in general. For that, one must be conscious and aware of their overall behavior in the different day to day situations as a first step.

People are different, and so are attitudes. Some people can be stubborn, impatient, moody, impulsive, aggressive, short-tempered, self-centered, indecisive, uncompromising and the list goes on and on. Every person has at least one, if not many, of these bad attitudes. However, it is never too late to control them and use them for our own benefit. 

Even if you’re going through the worst crisis of your life, having a positive attitude will save you a lot of stress and anxiety. Which can lead you, most of the times, to solve those problems much faster than you normally would if you stick to your toxic attitude.

What a Toxic Attitude Can Do to You

   –   Toxic attitudes differ from one person to another! Because, as we said before, no two people are alike, not even twins. However, the only thing that toxic attitudes share is that they can all put you in a bad mood quite fast, and ruin your day, week, or even life. 

   –   Exhausting you. Feeling bad or holding a grudge, for example, over anyone or anything is not easy. Having such feelings can drain your energy and consume it. By doing so, your brain is always overclocking which is not something your body can endure for long periods of time. Besides, why would anyone waste such mental energy on useless matters? An energy that can be used to have a clear look and perspective at the situation in hand at least, if not used to solve it.  

   –   Being unable to see things clearly. Your bad temper and attitude make everything darker and negative. Whenever faced with a challenge of any kind, people’s toxic attitude shows up to the surface which leads to a complete blackout. This blackout affects our decision making badly and pushes us to make un-rational decisions and judgments. 

   –   Influencing those around you. Whatever the case might be, your attitude disseminates a certain energy that affects your surroundings, especially your loved ones. Let’s say that you are a parent having a bad day at work. And you are coming back home bringing your anger and anxiety with you. How do you think that would affect your nine years old daughter who is waiting to play with you? Having somebody negative around affects us badly while being with a positive person can make our day. 

   –   Becoming ugly on the outside as well as on the inside. The same toxic attitude that affected your surroundings, which made you look ugly in people’s eyes, will crawl deeply to get you by the heart. If you have nothing but negative thoughts, then believe me, you won’t even think about taking care of yourself. In fact, you won’t even care to look in the mirror. How many times have you been sad without knowing the cause of it? The answer to that is our toxic attitudes.

   –   Becoming a selfish victim. Have you noticed that whenever you are having a fight or an argument with someone, miraculously, you are always right while the others are wrong? The fact is that we tend to blame others for everything, from silly mistakes to misfortune to mental illnesses even. By doing so, we free ourselves from taking responsibility for our actions. Consequently, we victimize ourselves while waiting for the others or the universe to magically solve what we screwed. The reason why we act like that is understandable. It makes us happier since we won’t feel any guilt that way in the first place. And second, it makes things easier because the others who should deal with it and not us. 

Now that we’ve gotten what toxic attitudes can do, let’s see how you can get rid of them. 

Here are 4 steps to rid yourself of your toxic attitude:

1.      Be Conscious about It

The first thing you need to do in order to stop your toxic attitude is to acknowledge its existence. Recognizing that there is a problem in hand is the biggest step towards solving it. The truth is you can’t defeat what you can’t see or feel. In order to do so, one must approach any problem, toxic attitudes in this case, objectively and leave their emotional luggage aside. To put it differently, you have to detach yourself from the situation and take a deep look into the different actions and reactions of people, yourself included. This is why having good friends that you can open up to is very important in this case; they are out of the picture, and therefore they are not as emotionally attached as you are to the situation. However, for them to make a fair diagnosis, you must be objective when describing the situation, and you must not make it for your favor. 

Now that you have analyzed the situation objectively from all the possible corners, you have to evaluate your response to the situation. Were you angry? Scared? Intimidated? How did you feel about what happened? And how did you respond to it? Was your reaction the most optimal one? And how did it affect the situation? 

By answering these questions, you are not only aware of your actions and feelings, but you are also aware of your strong points and weaknesses. Therefore, you will understand your attitudes more and more. The thing that makes problem-solving effective.  

2.      Solve Your Problems

No matter how hard and big your problems might be, your arrogant toxic attitude included, you must know that they are not impossible to solve. And YES, my friends, every problem has at least one solution. As our friend Dave Chappelle says, modern problems require modern solutions (couldn’t stop myself there). All you have to do is having the will to find it. In his book, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*, Marc Manson states that there is no meaning in a life that has no problems. The joy of life comes from encountering and solving problems. However, solving a problem is just a mere inauguration for new problems to come. 

The point here is that problems are in our life for a reason. They are here for us to learn from them and grow wiser. You cannot escape problems no matter how hard you try, but you can always solve them. I love to think about life as a big puzzle game with many mazes and levels. Of course, sometimes you win, other times you lose, but with every level, you get upgrades in skills and power.

3.      Talk to Someone

The next step in our “Not So Great, but Effective, Formula” is opening up about your toxic attitudes. As we said before, having good friends is a real bless because very often we have this need to be listened to, but most people can’t talk about their personal problems to anyone. 

Society as a whole pushes us to hide our weaknesses and hold that strong and prestigious image in front of everyone. Which is a shame! Because opening up about how we feel or what hurts us is a sign of high mental and emotional growth. It is something that not anyone can do because they are scared of what the other will think about them. When it does not matter at all!

The main reason why it is important to talk about your problems out loud is because it is the only way to correctly measure how big your problem is. Our minds tend to amplify our thoughts in an exaggerated way which gives us a false sense of how big the problem is. A problem that can be easily solved if you just try to explain the situation. How many times have you listened to someone complaining about anything, and just after you gave them some suggestions or solutions you hear them saying “you don’t understand”? Hundreds if not thousands of times, right? Opening up is a powerful weapon against your toxic attitudes and all of your other problems.

4.      Remove Yourself from Toxic Environments

Sometimes toxicity might come from the inside as well as it might come from the outside. If you recognized that your toxic attitudes are caused by your environment, be it work, a relationship, or whatever the case might be, then the best, and easiest, solution might be taking a step back. This is not to say that you should turn your back and ignore it because sooner or later you will have to face it again. But the point here is that you have to put in the effort into making a change inside your toxic environment by making it a healthier. However, sometimes you have to walk away from what does not serve you anymore.  

Conclusion

At last, toxic attitudes are blindfolds that can destroy our lives. Working on improving ourselves and attitudes is a quest that everyone should carry out as long as they are alive. Changing your attitude can make a huge difference in your life which can flip it 180°. Don’t underestimate it, and work on it!

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