How To Stop Being Toxic Before It’s Too Late…

A lot of people who describe being exposed to toxic behavior are sometimes oblivious to their own toxicity.

In other words, they don’t know they’re actually being toxic towards others. They don’t realize the harm they’ve done until it’s too late.

How Do You Stop Being a Toxic Person?

The most important thing that you need to acknowledge is that your toxicity is not permanent. You can unlearn bad behavior and remove bad habits from your life.

In order to move forward and to further eliminate undesirable behaviors and actions, there are several things that you can do to stop being toxic.

#1 Acknowledge the fact that YOU are not TOXIC

There’s no one on Earth who can cause harm to others just by existing. Your behavior is actually the one that’s toxic. Not you.

By understanding that YOU AS A PERSON are not toxic, you can work on your behavior easily. By addressing things that are labeled as toxic and harmful, you can slowly move forward.

And this won’t be an easy journey too. Our behaviors are embedded within the unconscious and as long as the effort is made to address these negative behaviors, then it’s not impossible to stop being toxic.

#2 Acknowledge your toxic traits

It’s easy to dismiss the fact that you’re not toxic if you’re not aware of your behavior. In a separate article, I wrote about the different signs of being toxic.

You need to identify what you’ve done or what you’ve said to other people that may have resulted in harming them. Keep track of your interactions and keep an eye out for their reactions.

As soon as you see a pattern of these negative behaviors and arguments, you’ll know what you need to work on.

#3 Acknowledge that life is not a ZERO-SUM GAME

Being toxic means that you’re firm in your belief that in order for you to win, someone must always lose. This is the prevalent belief that would cause you to be toxic to others.

This is known as a ZERO-SUM GAME Mentality. The idea here is that the resources for any given thing is finite, so if you want to increase your share, someone else’s share must be reduced.

This is where you try to criticize, embarrass, humiliate, take advantage, manipulate and threaten other people. You just want a bigger slice of the pie.

But life is not a ZERO-SUM GAME. It’s the complete opposite. The best way to win at life is to help other people win too.

This may not always be the case for cutthroat environments such as the workplace, but in a wider context, it’s understood that society does better when people help one another.

Here’s a short video from Infinite Waters that tells you about how to stop being toxic:

The Journey to Self-Discovery

To stop being toxic, or to reduce toxic behavior, you need to go on a journey of self-discovery. When you don’t know what your true values and principle are, it’s easy for you to act in certain ways that betray them.

If you start on your journey of self-discovery, you’ll realize what you’re all about. You’ll know what matters to you and what you need to do to live your life accordingly.