The people you surround yourself with have a significant effect on your life. Hang out in the wrong crowd of negative people, and you’ll get in trouble, too. Befriend those who lift you up, and you’ll be supported to success while doing the same thing for them.
But how can you tell that your life is being overrun by toxic friends, negativity, and other unwanted influences? The answer lies in your own behavior.
Here Are 10 Signs Too Many Negative People Are In Your Life
1. Your Wellbeing Is Suffering
The easiest and quickest sign that you may notice regarding your overall health when you’re surrounded by negative people. Your cortisol levels skyrocket, you become ill more easily due to immune system weakness, and you’re more at risk for a variety of diseases. Here are some signs to look out for:
· You’re Completely Exhausted
When your day is over, you feel completely drained, even if you didn’t do anything particularly tiring.
· You’re Not Doing Much For Your Health
You used to pay attention to eating well and exercising, but now you just can’t be bothered. You may have even started adopting new bad habits such as drinking, eating junk food, or spending hours in front of the TV.
· You’ve Become Oversensitive
When someone says something potentially bad to you, you suddenly find yourself becoming extremely upset. You misinterpret ordinary conversations and feel like others are constantly mad at you. You may also stop reacting well to criticism.
· You’re Less Happy Overall
Your mental health and positive thinking have taken a dive. You feel unhappy, have lost your spark, or are just not feeling too good.
2. You React Better To Bad News Than Good News
Everyone dislikes bad news. But you find yourself enjoying it. When you hear bad news or gossip, you are eager to discover what happened. It’s like you thrive on drama, even if it involves you.
Similarly, most people like good news, right? But now you find yourself feeling anxious when you hear good news. You feel like you’re always looking for a catch and have difficulty taking positive news at face value.
You may also begin raining on other people’s parades. When they get good news, you might talk about the difficulty that comes with it. For example, you may tell someone who just got a promotion that now they have longer working hours. You seem to see the worst bits of everything!
3. You Seem Obsessed With Them
Negative people can take up a lot of your time and effort. If surrounded by them, you may slowly become obsessed with them. This gives these individuals so much power over you, which you should never allow! Can’t tell if that’s happening to you? Here are some signs:
· You Think About Them Often
You seem to be thinking about these people even when they’re not around. Perhaps you remember awful conversations you’ve had. You dread what will happen next time you meet them.
· You Talk About Them Often
You seem to want to talk about these people bringing you down constantly. The other people in your life are starting to get sick of hearing about them. You realize that bringing them up feels too easy and natural.
· You Complain About Them Often
You rant and rave about how angry this person makes you, or how much you dislike them. But when you complain, you wind up turning yourself into the negative person instead.
4. You’re Anxious
Negativity can greatly boost your stress levels, causing you to feel anxious or nervous too often. If this goes too far, you may even develop anxiety or panic disorder symptoms. Here are some early warning signs to look out for:
· Your Palms Sweat
Your body will be the first to inform you if you’re feeling anxious, even before you register it properly. Sweaty palms are one of the biggest signs of this. It’s a part of the fight or flight response. Your mouth may also run dry, or your hands and fingers might shake, or you may become drained of positive thinking.
· You Use Vices More
You find yourself reaching for a cigarette more often than you usually do. Or, you always feel like you need a stiff drink. Perhaps you even want to binge on candy or junk food. Whatever your vice is, you crave more of it now due to anxiety.
· Certain Environments Trigger Anxiety
Certain locations where you experienced something bad with the negative people in your life may cause you to become anxious. The same goes for experiences or even phrases that remind you of that.
· You Don’t Laugh That Often
You used to be more cheerful, and you knew how to laugh it off in the face of mishaps. Now, you can’t bring yourself to do so anymore, because you find nothing funny.
5. You Focus On The Bad
These days, you seem especially obsessed with negative thoughts. This is because you’ve internalized the values of those not-too-cheerful people that you deal with. This can manifest in the following ways:
- You often put yourself down
- Or, you downplay your achievements
- You tend to see everything that can go wrong
- If you make an error, it can take you ages to get your mind back on track
- You are no longer able to solve problems
- When you make mistakes, you blow them out of proportion
- You are extremely hard on yourself
- You cannot take or accept compliments
6. You Seem To Be Getting Less Likable
The people around you will likely notice first when you start to become influenced by all the negative people in your life. They may find you less likable. Suddenly, no one wants to hang out with you, or people don’t respond to your texts as much.
Your current relationships may also be suffering. Perhaps your established friendships have been full of conflict. You and your partner have been fighting more often. Your boss doesn’t seem to be as impressed with your work. Everything seems to be falling apart.
When this happens, you may become even more negative due to your confusion, hurt, and anger. The important step here is to turn that around and focus on the positive. Work on improving yourself and returning to who you want to be!
7. You’re Not Progressing Towards Goals
Negative people often have difficulty meeting their goals. Their personal growth is stagnant. Why does this happen? If you don’t put your mind to something, you can’t succeed. As such, the negativity you’re internalizing from people in your life drags you down, forcing you to fail repeatedly.
Negativity also reduces your energy, causing you to have more difficulty meeting goals because you don’t have the energy to devote to your tasks. It can cause you to underachieve and may get you stuck. All you can see is the possibility of failure, and it stops you from getting anywhere.
8. You’re Extremely Influenced By Them
If your life is starting to become influenced badly by those around you, then chances are you’re being bogged down by those with too much negativity. Here are some signs that this is happening to you:
· Your Emotions Are Controlled By Them
Your emotions run absolutely wild with these types of people. You feel so angry or so upset – more than anything else ever makes you.
· Your Life Feels Limited By Them
A negative person might continually judge you for everything that you do. If you listen to them too much, you’ll stop yourself from doing things you enjoy just because they’ve put it down.
· You Can’t Enjoy Things Anymore
They find something wrong with everything you do and everything you say. They’re quick to critique everything in the world, and you’re starting to follow suit. You have trouble enjoying everything because all you can see are glaring flaws.
· Your Behavior Changes
You find yourself adopting a lot of traits you swore you hated. For example, you disliked the passive-aggression of these negative nancies, but now you’re suddenly becoming passive-aggressive. Your actions are starting to contradict the values you know you have.
9. Your Vocabulary Is Filling Up With Absolutes
Absolutes are words that have absolute meanings. If you’re using a lot of negative absolutes recently, that indicates that you’re becoming influenced by the negativity from those around you. Here are some ways you may use absolutes:
- You say “never” to say something never goes right
- The fear of saying “now” means you always say “yes.”
- You start saying something positive, then switch tracks with the use of “but”
Language has a huge influence over you. Make sure you’re using language that does you favors, not works against you.
10. You Seem To Be In A Bad Mood Around Them
For whatever reason, when you are around these negative people, you’re constantly in a bad mood. You feel a range of bad emotions that mess you up, such as:
· Sadness
You feel upset or hurt when you spend time with these people. You feel like they’re draining you of any even remotely pleasant emotion.
· Anger
These people bring out the worst in you. The things they say make you angry, and you’re usually a much more cheerful person.
· Loathing
There’s no easy way to say this. But you hate spending any time around this person at all. You dread your organized hang-outs. Perhaps you roll your eyes when your phone rings and their number flashes up. Even worse, you cannot stand them and are constantly counting down the minutes to the time you can be away from them again.
· Anxiety
We’ve already covered this, but feeling anxious around someone could indicate their toxicity is severely affecting you. In this situation, cutting the person off is your best bet.
Final Thoughts On Some Signs Too Many Negative People Are In Your Life
No one wants to have to deal with negativity in their life. You’ve probably dealt with your fair share of pessimists and found them difficult to deal with. But if these people are your friends, you risk following in their footsteps and becoming exceedingly negative.
Don’t be afraid to cut off toxic friends or those who are dragging you down. You need to focus on surrounding yourself with supporting, encouraging, and kind people – not those who bring you down.
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