We all know a few negative people in our lives. They never seem to be happy with where they are in life and there is always a crisis of some sort going on with them. They dismiss your ideas as unworkable or your choices as poorly thought out. After all, can’t you see all of the downsides that they see so easily? To a negative person, there are obvious pitfalls to everything. They are crippled with anxiety to the point where they never really get anything accomplished. On rare occasions when they do get something done, they immediately point out all of the flaws and mistakes in the project.
These kinds of people can be very draining to our emotional lives and can cripple our own sense of self-worth. They seem to gain pleasure in shooting holes in your ideas or whining constantly about how tough things are in their own lives. Most of the negative things in a negative person’s life are directly the result of choices the negative person has made or failed to make at the appropriate time. How can we free ourselves from people who are emotional black holes that suck in and destroy everyone close to them eventually?
Here are 6 ways to free yourself from the trap negative people try to put you in
Are you trying to release yourself from the grasp of negative thinkers? Try these techniques to break free once and for all.
1. Value Yourself
The first step is to recognize your own self-worth. Everyone has a unique talent or perspective, including you. You are powerful even if you don’t recognize it. Tap into that well of energy and use it to drive your ambitions. Once you realize how powerful you are, and how much you can accomplish, you will be able to ignore the negative voices in your life, even the self-generated ones.
2. Eliminate Your Own Negative Thoughts
You have to learn to identify the negative thoughts that pop up from time to time within your own mind. Once you can see those negative thoughts for what they are, you will be able to see those same thoughts in others. Then you must identify your own negative thoughts, acknowledge them for what they are and tell yourself that you do not accept that viewpoint. Once you have begun ruthlessly eliminating negative thoughts from your mental state, you can move on to the next step.
3. Cultivate a Positive Outlook
Turn your negative thoughts into positive ones. If you think something like, “I could never do that,” say to yourself instead, “Screw that, I can do anything I set my mind to.” Cultivating that sort of positive outlook will wear away the negative thoughts that pop up. When negative people, including yourself, from time to time, try to push you back, then dig in your heels and push forward. Keep pushing forward – keep moving forward because that is how winning is done. Obstacles are not endpoints unless you let them be. Obstacles are there to be overcome. Figure out a way to get around, over, through, or underneath that obstacle, and keep advancing until you have achieved your objective.
“By means of personal experimentation and observation, we can discover certain simple and universal truths. The mind moves the body, and the body follows the mind. Logically then, negative thought patterns harm not only the mind but also the body. What we actually do builds up to affect the subconscious mind and in turn, affects the conscious mind and all reactions.” H.E. Davey, Japanese Yoga: The Way of Dynamic Meditation
4. Identify negative people and their influences on your life
Now that you can identify and overcome your own negative thoughts, you can start identifying them in others. You probably already know who those influences are, but some of them can be more subtle than others. The subtle ones will cloak their negativity in concern for your welfare, career, or family. They will use your anxiety about those things as a handle to thwart your ambitions and your goals. Don’t listen to them. Move towards your goal, raise your shield and let the arrows of their negativity bounce off of that shield.
5. Remain steadfast in rejection of negative people
Once you have identified the negative influences in your life and stopped listening to them, they will start moving out of your orbit. They will get more distant from you as you stop seeking their advice, stop answering the phone when they call, or start minimizing your contact with them.
Some will let the distance grow as they have already realized their waning influence on you. Others will fight to regain their influence and use guilt or intimidation to try and bring you back into their orbit again. Most of the time it is family who fights the hardest to sink their talons back into you. So prepare to hold your ground with them and keep pushing towards your objective. Don’t let them drag you back into their black hole of negativity once you have escaped.
6. Engage with positive people
Humans are social creatures and derive a lot of our happiness from belonging to social groups. Once you have eliminated the negative people, you can fill your social circle with more positive and upbeat people. People who encourage you and support you in your actions are precious. Seek out positive people, cultivate their friendship and see how much happier you are with them.
Final thoughts on breaking out of the influence of negative people.
Breaking free of the toxic thought cycle can be hard work. But, indeed, the effort is one that you must undertake. As long as you remain in the company of negative people, you will never bloom to achieve your greatest success.
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