Do YOU Have Toxic Traits? How to Identify Your Own Toxic Behaviors
We’ve talked a lot about self-awareness in our podcast and explored the concept of how our own behavioral traits can affect our relationships.
Not everyone is perfect, we know that. There are always aspects of yourself that you can improve on, whether it be in your relationship, your friendships, or your work environment. So it’s inevitable that your own behavioral traits may conflict with your surroundings from time to time, especially if they are toxic traits.
However, when it comes to unhealthy traits of your own, not everyone realizes how to recognize them nor how to correct them. This is especially important if they’re affecting your everyday life. Oftentimes, we are quick to blame other people for downfalls in our life, when in reality, it takes an emotionally mature person to look inwards at their own part in the situation.
In this article, we’ll discuss some common toxic traits that people have but may not even realize they possess. We’ll also outline how to recognize if you are the one with unhealthy habits and some tips on how to cultivate self-awareness.
If you’d prefer to listen to this topic, check out our podcast episode titled, do YOU have toxic traits? how to identify your own toxic behaviors.
Ask Yourself: Are You Self-Aware?
Before we get into some toxic behavioral traits, ask yourself, “Am I self-aware?”
Being self-aware means being honest with yourself and being open to improving your behavior habits. By checking in with yourself, you may recognize that the problem is not always the other person. It could be you too.
We like to think of self-awareness as being very you focused. Taking a pause and reflecting on your own behavioral traits and areas of improvement is crucial for mental and emotional development. This is not just advice for certain people, we all need to take this time for ourselves.
Toxic Trait: Negativity
The first common toxic trait that people have and may not realize is actually harmful, is negativity.
Ask yourself, “Do I have a negative outlook on life?” “Am I always approaching situations from a negative perspective?” This is something many of us are guilty of.
Perhaps some of us use negativity as a defense mechanism to protect ourselves from going out on a limb, from chancing something, from taking risks. However, this negative outlook can take over our lives and may even dictate our personality if we don’t catch on and recognize it.
Negativity can also affect our relationships in ways we don’t consider. For example, if you are friends with a super positive person, being negative could be a dealbreaker for them. Your friends may end up feeling disconnected from you because they don’t want your negativity in their life.
We all have bad days, but when your whole mind listens and answers in a negative tone, you can’t begin to appreciate anything. You expect crappy things to happen to you while treating everything as a blame-game rather than accepting something, learning from it, and moving on.
Be cautious of the energy you’re giving off and notice if you are the person that changes the energy in a room. If you are someone who tends to be more negative, practicing gratitude for the little things that are going right for you allows you to notice positivity but also allows you to feel it. The goal is to find things that make you feel good.
We as humans tend to give a lot of our attention to the negative aspects of our life. The things we don’t have, the things we want more of, but often we forget how much we do have, like things we have now that we may have asked for in the past.
Toxic Trait: Being Judgmental
Our next toxic trait that people tend to not realize they have is being judgmental. Are you judging others for how they’re living their own life? Are you judging someone when they confide in you?
In a romantic relationship for example, if your partner comes to you with a concern or a discussion, it’s important to create a safe space for them so that they can voice their opinions. Making the other feel heard and listened to goes hand in hand with a healthy relationship. This is a good time to recognize if you are being too judgmental or too hard on someone.
Not settling and having standards is one thing, but if you’re judging a friend or partner off minuscule things that don’t define their character, it’s wise to recognize that and actively tell yourself to stop.
We find that a tip for cultivating self-awareness and training yourself to fix this unhealthy trait is to seek to understand where the other person is coming from, instead of jumping to a judgmental conclusion.
It’s interesting to note that if you’re judgmental towards others, it may be coming from being too judgmental towards yourself. Reflect on what your own triggers are for when you’re hard on yourself, and see if those are the same triggers that you have while judging others.
Toxic Trait: Taking No Responsibility
Avoiding responsibility is a toxic trait that is often a sign of immaturity as well. Being emotionally mature and self-aware means that you’re able and willing to admit when you’re wrong, where you could improve on, and even that you may have hurt someone. It’s not always the other person.
This toxic trait goes hand in hand with the unhealthy trait of not apologizing when you are wrong, which we discussed in one of our podcast episodes.
In recent years, we’ve seen a new approach to apologizing. We’re realizing more and more that some things just don’t require an apology even though we’re inclined to give one anyway. However, there is a difference between unnecessary apologies for things like your feelings and necessary apologies for when you hurt someone.
If taking responsibility requires an apology, let’s remember that a good apology is something sincere. There are different ways in which people want to be apologized to as well. Some people want there to be an action behind the apology, some people want to hear the words “I’m sorry”, some people need to see an improvement in future behaviors, and some need all of the above.
So it’s important to take responsibility for your actions in the way that the person receiving the apology needs to experience it. Asking the other person, “What can I do to make this better?” is a good question if you are unsure how to approach the apology or the responsibility.
Toxic Trait: Gaslighting
Another toxic trait that we believe is under-discussed in society is gaslighting. Gaslighting is when you invalidate someone’s emotions and manipulate them into questioning their own sanity.
Example of gaslighting are phrases like:
- “You’re crazy to think that.”
- “You can’t take a joke.”
- “You’re being too sensitive.”
- “That person was lying.”
- “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Basically, if you’re blaming someone for exaggerating or making a big deal out of something that’s important to them, this is a form of gaslighting.
Are you someone who often puts down someone else’s emotions when they voice concerns? Most people are quick to say no because, in theory, this sounds like an awful trait to have. However, ask yourself have there been times when you downplayed something someone else said you didn’t agree with or couldn’t take responsibility for?
In our lives, we have seen a lot of “mild” forms of gaslighting where someone may not mean to intentionally manipulate another person to question their insanity, but rather turn something back on the other person in order to take the attention off themselves.
This form of gaslighting is common when people fail to acknowledge, apologize, or deal with their own unhealthy patterns of behavior. An example of this is not taking responsibility for saying something hurtful to someone but instead passing it off as a joke.
However, there can also be instances where someone is absolutely manipulative and knows exactly what their intentions are like telling blatant lies to make a person believe something about them.
A lot of people may not be familiar with the term gaslighting but know its meaning, having experienced being this or have experienced being on the receiving end of this.
It’s never ok to diminish someone’s worries or concerns. If someone comes to you and says, “I’m really worried or concerned about so and so” and you answer with “Don’t worry, it’s not that bad,” this is also gaslighting. Too often, we forget to listen to understand and instead, listen to answer.
If someone has genuine concerns, they’re not going to appreciate you diminishing its importance. Especially if someone approaches you with a subject that might be difficult for them to talk about or something that takes a lot of courage for them personally to address.
Toxic Trait: Manipulation
Being manipulative is a toxic trait that is a bit more uncommon because it’s considered to be one of the most harmful traits that a person can have, and often one that people do not want to improve on.
Being manipulative can present itself in many forms. This can include making something all about yourself, doing anything to get what you want, or even using other people for your own personal gain.
Manipulation can manifest in romantic relationships, friendships, and even amongst family members.
Manipulative people don’t care about the consequences of their actions. Putting people down for personal gain or even twisting stories to benefit yourself is a common characteristic of manipulation.
Some other examples of manipulation include:
- Using mental tricks to implement fear
- Guilting someone into doing something for you
- Exploiting emotions
- Pressuring someone to make a decision before they’re ready
- Using victimhood as an excuse for something
- Pretending to be ignorant
- Talking about people in a certain way when they aren’t present to get someone else to believe something about them
This trait can end up becoming very dangerous if not acknowledged. If you believe that you have tendencies to be manipulative, you’re going to have to really work at improving this behavioral trait. First off, you have to recognize if you are manipulative and to what degree.
Unfortunately, people who are manipulative often won’t admit it or refuse to acknowledge that they have this trait in the first place.
In this case, seeking help from a mental health professional can be extremely beneficial for working through what’s provoking this toxic trait.
Toxic Trait: Inconsistency
Another unhealthy behavioral trait that a lot of people possess (and can totally be improved on) is inconsistency — both in behavior and actions.
Inconsistency in behavior and commitments may develop as a result of where exactly you are in your life right now, or if you’ve just experienced something difficult or life-changing, which is understandable.
It is, however, another story to be the type of inconsistent where it’s affecting your progression in life but also when it affects the people around you. If you can’t be relied on and people can’t depend on you, that’s where this trait starts to become toxic.
If you’re inconsistent with hangouts, work commitments, or important responsibilities, this can eventually lead to frail relationships, impaired trust, and overall low expectations of you.
Of course, it’s understandable to make yourself distant in certain situations, avoiding social interaction, taking a breather from responsibilities, or perhaps you’re discovering yourself, educating yourself on different things, exploring different versions of yourself, that’s completely normal and okay.
However, when you begin to strain your relationships because of consistent inconsistency and become somewhat unreliable, you make that relationship flimsy.
A common example of inconsistency is making plans and not following through or rescheduling with no intent to follow through. We’ve all done this at some point, but do you make a habit out of it, is the important question?
If you’re someone who is inconsistent, you may be guilty of only being there for someone when it’s convenient for you. Many inconsistent people also struggle with making up their minds with who or what they want in their life. If this is something you can relate to, then this is a chance for you to enhance your self-awareness.
What To Do When You Have Toxic Traits
When changing your behavioral habits, you’re already acknowledging a part of yourself that you may have been avoiding to change. When becoming self-aware, it’s important to be honest with yourself, even if it means asking yourself direct questions about the past. Acknowledging these aspects of yourself leads to self-development.
So, once you’ve asked yourself the questions and are willing to correct some unhealthy habits that can manifest as toxic traits, then you can begin to cultivate true self-awareness.
Internal Self-Awareness
Internal self-awareness refers to how we fit in with our environment and how we impact others. This type of self-awareness relates to how clearly we see our own values, passions, aspirations, reactions including thoughts, feelings, behaviors, strengths, and weaknesses.
External Self-Awareness
External self-awareness means understanding how other people view us, in terms of those same factors listed above. How we see ourselves and how others see us are very different experiences.
Accepting and understanding who you are is crucial when improving toxic traits. This means that you are being honest with yourself, being curious about who you are, and taking the third-person perspective in arguments.
Final Thoughts
Everyone has areas of themselves that they can always improve on. No one is perfect and the first step to bettering yourself is recognizing what your areas of improvement are.
Some people are more susceptible based on their personalities to possess certain negative qualities. It’s all about working on your self-awareness and growing as an individual.
What are some toxic traits that people have?
- Negativity
- Being judgmental
- Lacking responsibility
- Gaslighting
- Manipulation
- Inconsistency
For more discussions, check out our podcast, shifting her experience (she.) on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your podcasts. We release new episodes every Tuesday.
If you want to read more articles like this, check out our blog!
Tiana & Sophie from
shifting her experience.
