How to Deal With Negative People & Prevent Them From Getting in Your Head

Negative people are around you. No matter how successful or happy you are with your life, negative people are always there. If you have never met one, It just means you haven’t been affected enough by one.

Nevertheless, If you are reading this article, chances are, you are surrounded by a few negative people, and their actions are inadvertently harming you or your ultimate goal.

You want to deal with them, but you don’t know what to do since this is your first time around someone who is literally harming you.

You see, Humans are social animals. With all the technological progress, we have started to see ourselves as sophisticated, conscious beings. However, the roots of our primitive instincts still exist. We are easily influenced by everything and everyone around us.

We are so open to influences that a short 3-minute clip can leave most of us fuming in anger. To prevent this from happening, we have to put in conscious effort to ensure that we are not influenced easily.

Similarly, Negative people around you may not be out there to get you, but just because they are near you, their negative thoughts, habits, behavior, and lifestyle can influence you.

For instance, You are a marathon runner. However, you hang around with people who party too much. Maybe they are good people, and they care about you a lot.

However, their actions & thoughts will have a negative influence on you. It’s not that they are negative. It’s just, you will be influenced negatively.

This is subtle since no one is consciously trying to harm you (but you are still getting hurt).

There are different types of negative people. Some of them consciously work to harm you and get inside your head. Why do they do it? No one knows.

If you are aware of these people and just want to know ways to deal with them, the last section of this article will explain how to deal with such people, however, if you want to get better at identifying negative people around you, start reading from here:

How to Identify Negative People Around You?

I have been around negative people all my life. If I look around, I know only a few people who tried to steer my life in a positive direction. This is my case because I have grown up in a neighborhood not so kind.

However, this may not be your case. You may have only a few people around you who are negative and are slowly poisoning your life. But the question is how to identify these people.

Identifying them is the first step in dealing with them.

I have written down a few signs to identify them:

1. They are always in trouble
2. Their life is full of drama. Something is always happening
3. There problems are very important
4. They need you all the time
5. They have nothing going on in their life other than problems
6. They have no plans for the future
7. They don’t care about you
8. They think you are below them
9. They talk & treat you unkindly on many occasions
10. In presence of other people, they change their behavior
11. They are addicted to various drugs
12. They lie and have lied to you
13. They create plans and then abandon them even though they know you will be affected by it
14. They make fun of you to further their interest in presence of other people
15. If they know your weakness or insecurities, They will use them against you

If you have seen these signs in your friends, relatives, or colleagues, they are negative people. Keep in mind, the truth about people can be decoded only through small signs.

Do you really think he will do something absolute so that you can clearly understand and see that they are negative? No, this will never happen.

They hide their negativity & toxicity behind friendly smiles.

Every person wears a mask. Some people wear it to hide their insecurities, some to hide their desires, and negative people wear it to hide their dangerous intent.

The only way to separate them from normal people is to see behind their masks and to do that, you need to focus on the small signs. These signs are kinda like leakages.

They are wearing masks, but like everything in the world, the mask is not perfect.

As a result, their real intentions, behavior, likes, and dislikes get leaked in subtle ways.

Don’t judge them by their words. Judge them by their action and how your life has changed after they came into your life. Did your life get better, or are you now under more stress and problems? If yes, they are negative.

They may not be toxic, but it’s better to keep yourself away from negativity.

The best way to deal with negative people is mentioned below:

5 Ways to Deal With Negative People & Prevent Them From Getting in Your Head

These strategies are simple, however, you need to make changes in your social life & personality to some extent to execute them. Yes, you need to change.

Moreover, you have to stop acting the way people around you want you to and start acting the way you need to act to get ahead in life.

1. Assign Them

I know this sounds very impolite, however, this is necessary.

This is what you need to do. Assume everyone around you are just people. Now divide them into these four circles of people: Inner circle, outer circle, no circle, and negative circle.

Inner Circle consists of people who make your life beautiful. They are the source of everything good in your life. You can’t imagine your life without them. You know they care about you, and you care about them too. They may have flaws, but they make sure those flaws don’t come in your way.

Outer Circle consists of people who you meet on a day-to-day basis. They are your colleagues, work friends, etc. They are people you meet due to your job or work environment. Moreover, these are the people who are not necessarily trying to harm you or help you. They are neutral.

No Circle consists of people you meet once in a while. You don’t know what is happening in their life, and you don’t care.

Negative Circle consists of people who have only influenced your life negatively. From the day they came into your life, your life has only taken turns for the worse.

Now take a blank sheet of paper and assign people wisely around all these circles.

By taking this steps, you will create a mental distance between yourself and the people around you. Not everyone will be able to influence you the same way since not everyone will matter the same.

By doing this, you are crystal clear about the people in your life. Whenever you meet different people, you will always be able to act more consciously.

Negative people will have less influence on you since you know these people are up to no good. And you will be able to keep your calm under stressful situations around your loved ones since you know how important they are. (This is just taking control of your social life. If you don’t do this, someone is going to do it for you)

Moreover, don’t randomly assume people are your friends and put them in your inner circle. Calling someone a friend is too great an honor (I mean it). The reason why you are around so many negative people is because you make friends without thinking.

If you want to make someone your friend, then you must think about them at least multiple times before letting them into your inner circle. Don’t just let anyone come into your inner circle. Choose people in your inner circle wisely.

There is a reason why people who are productive, happy, or successful have only a few friends. This is because those few people they let in their inner circle are truly their friends, people who care about them.

So, choose your friends wisely (People in your inner circle).

Tip: Don’t hang around anyone other than people in your inner circle unless it’s necessary. This means you will only hang with people who are in your inner circle. This way, you stay around only those people who have your interest at heart. However, this may prevent you from hanging around with most of your friends.

2. Hold Your Tongue

After you identify a negative person, the first thing you need to do to deal with them is resist your desire to speak. You have to resist with all your might and avoid saying anything in the presence of a negative person.

Unless, of course, they ask you something.

The truth is nothing you say means anything. If You think your words have an effect on a negative person who is ruining your life along with his, then you should prepare yourself for a brutal awakening. Words rarely have an effect on people, let alone a negative one.

The only way to deal with them is by keeping your mouth shut and listening to whatever they come up with. Observe them, see the toxicity behind their friendly facade, observe how they use words to distract you, and how their behavior changes in the presence of other people.

You keep a note of it. This is the only way to avoid falling into their trap.

Not only you will not give them anything new to manipulate you, you will also learn how they influence you, and the more you see their tactics, the lesser you will let them in your mind.

3. The Rule of Contempt

This may sound a little bit not nice.

But the thing is, the only way you can truly deal with negativity is with a mind that is fortified to its ultimate peak, and to fortify your mind, you have to get in touch with the brutal reality of the world & use some brutal tactics.

If used correctly, this tactic will help you deal with almost everyone that comes in your way. However, if you use it wrongly, you will open yourself to the influence of negative people completely, and this will make your situation worse.

The most powerful weapon a negative person has is his ability to get a reaction from you.

Apart from not talking to them and just listening & observing whatever they say, Sometimes you will be forced into conversation and situations where you have to deal with them. Moreover, not talking to them will be out of the question.

In these situations, you use the rule of contempt.

Whatever they do, you just do these three things:

1. Talk to them sweetly and politely. (This is the most powerful)
2. Ignore what they are saying or doing completely by acting like you are not getting affected by it even if you are.
3. Tell them you will think about it later.

If you have been with them for a long time, everything they do will have an influence on you. But what you need to do is show them that you are unaffected. Ignore their actions and words like you ignore your homework.

And if you can’t ignore them and are affected by them, at least don’t show them this is the case. Pretend as if nothing happened and make a plan to deal with them later.

However, in any case, don’t show any reaction, only ignorance. If you give a reaction, you lose.

Tip: Rule of contempt requires a lot of mental fortitude. Try Transcendental meditation to increase mental toughness.

4. The Rule of Dignity

This is the weapon that never fails, and you can use it in every aspect of your life. Moreover, you will only find success whenever you use it. The rule is simple you always maintain a dignified front in front of your enemies, and you never go down to their level of vulgarity.

Once they see that they are unable to influence you or get a reaction out of you or make a fool out of you, they will try everything they can. The level they can stoop down to is unimaginable. They can literally do anything to unsettle you.

However, no matter what they do, you always remain dignified.

No matter how bad their language gets, you talk politely. No matter how aggressive they get, you ignore them.

When you do this, two things will happen:

1. They will avoid you and give up on messing with you
2. They will become more and more aggressive as time goes on

In the first case, your problem is solved. In the second case, you use the last step.

5. Guard Your Time & Energy and Be Cut Throat

Negative people in your life are getting aggressive with their approach. The only thing you can do now is cut them out from your life. Let them know you don’t want them around you.

There is no subtlety in this step. When you take this step, they will preach to everyone that you are too prideful. They may even go around ruining your name.

But this is necessary.

There is a limit to how much a person should take, and if you have followed all the steps, then you know that you need to let them go.

You are no longer going to shield yourself with dignity or the rule of contempt. You are going to be realistic and rational, and everyone around you will see that.

There is a reason why sociopaths and psychopaths always get their way. It’s because people around them are too lenient.

Your kindness and lenience to negative people is what is unsettling things. You have to be strict. You have to understand that they don’t care about you, and they will keep on harming you.

Show them the door and let them know that you will not accept anything other than the best treatment.

Don’t avoid conflict. Avoid negative people!

Conclusion

As long as you live in society, you will be surrounded by all sorts of people. Some people will move your life in a positive direction. Some people will bring chaos into your life.

You need to identify which is what as fast as you can. No one is going to do it for you. You need to figure it out yourself and make your decision on evidence.

This way, you can align your life in the best & most awesome direction. Moreover, don’t think you are being unkind when you cut negative people from your life.

Your kindness to them will be cruelty for your life and career.

This doesn’t mean you need to be aggressive in your approach. Be subtle, but if you can’t deal with them, don’t hesitate from going all out.

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