5 Toxic Traits That Are Wasting Your Life Without Realizing

“Time is precious” ~ Anonymous

Life is too short, that’s a common saying. It is too short for you to stock up toxic traits in yourself, breakdown, and then waste life. But sometimes, we don’t even realize what we’re doing until it’s too late.

By the time we are nearing the end of our lives, we start to regret things we didn’t do because of the destructive traits we had.

We make big dreams that end up not coming to fruition because we had routines and thoughts, and attributes that could have been avoided.

I recommend that you review these five toxic traits examples, check if there are toxic traits in you, and see if you are wasting your life without realizing it.

And once you learn to recognize these toxic traits in yourself, you can do well to avoid them and start living your life correctly and working towards fulfilling your dreams. Roll up your sleeves. We have work to do…

1. You’re Not Taking Risks

Not taking risks ranks high on the toxic traits list as it is a sign that you are wasting your life. Life is all about risks.

Most of the things we embark on have risks, starting that business, resigning from that job, asking for a raise, heck, even childbirth comes with risks. If we decide we don’t want to take risks, we’d be like stagnant water, not moving.

See, the thing about risks is that they are factors that help us make decisions. Say, for instance, I want to switch careers, what are the risks involved? I may not get a job immediately; it would be a whole lot harder than I thought, I might fail within my first year in that new role, etc.

So, I decide not to switch careers; I don’t grow as an individual, I start to resent my current position because it’s not what I want, I don’t get promoted cause my head is no longer in that job role, I quit.

Do you see how toxic this is? I’m wasting my life and throwing away attractive opportunities because I don’t want to take that risk.

Of course, there’s always going to be an element of fear, but you shouldn’t let that come between you and your happiness.

Weigh your pros against your cons, make calculated risks, understand the calculated risks involved in the decisions you’re about to make, but don’t let them destroy what plans you already have for yourself.

Don’t remain in one spot all your life out of fear; after a while, you’ll see that you’re going backward, and it is a sign that there is a toxic trait in you which you must erase.

So, take that risk, calculated risks which shows your chances of reaching a positive outcome is higher. It is okay to be afraid that it would fail, but what if you succeed? Think about that when making your decision. This could be a toxic traits in you.

2. You’re Not Opening Up To The Buds Of Change

The challenges life takes you through is to make you grow- We all face challenges in life, different challenges for different people.

It could come in the form of a loved one’s death, financial setback, loss of a job, the business not going well, illness, etc. It can be tough to maintain a positive attitude when these challenges come, but we have to keep that attitude and take on that challenge head-on.

If you choose to let the negativity eat you up, if you refuse to grow through these problems, you would end up doing yourself a great disservice. I understand it is hard to pull through, to get back up when life beats you down, but you have to.

Remember the saying, “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger”? Well, that’s a valid statement. When you let fear override you, you do not open up to the inevitable changes that are bound to happen; you don’t learn from these challenges you encountered, you don’t grow.

Let me give an illustration, I have a friend who has a significant love for soccer, but he is utterly horrible at it, can’t pass a ball on saving his life, gets picked last or not at all during matches; you get the drift.

Now, this ordinarily should have made him give up on soccer, and it did, but just the playing part. He started to watch more, learn the game from the outside, know tactics, names, coaches, favorite teams, rules of the game, etc. Today, he scouts for potential players for a significant club in Italy.

Playing football was a significant challenge for him but didn’t hinder him; he took this challenge by the horn, faced it squarely, and turned it into a successful endeavor.

If he hadn’t opened himself up, accepted that this was a problem, and then worked on it, he wouldn’t have grown, he could have let it discourage him, and it could have eaten him up inside.

In essence, I’m saying that you should not close yourself off to changes because they’d come, and it’s a constant thing; whatever challenges you face should be a way to help you grow, and an opportunity to get rid of those toxic behaviors that are wasting your life away.

3. Not Prioritising Your Mental And Inner Wellness

With the way the world is now, everyone is so caught up in one problem or the other; need to pay bills, need to meet a deadline, need to get to that height before we say we’re successful, but most times most of us fail to see how these things take a toll on our mental and inner wellness.

We are so busy trying to get to that place or solve that issue that we forget to take care of ourselves, and one day we crash.

Have you ever gone blank in the middle of something? Like you can’t seem to remember or understand what is happening or what you were doing at that moment? That’s a sign for you to take a break; a sign that there are toxic traits in you; you’re suffering.

But we shouldn’t have to wait for these signs. We should prioritize our mental health, do what makes us remain sane and calm, take a break, delegate jobs when they become too much for you to handle, ask for help when you need it, talk to someone, read a book outside your field, rest your brain from all that overthinking, or get away from those toxic behaviors that are gradually wasting your life.

We don’t even know that there are certain things we do that are slowly killing our mental and inner wellness, the toxic traits in us, and the sad part is we don’t realize it. Ignoring the toxic traits in yourself is a sign that you are wasting your life.

Your mental and inner health should come first because eventually, things would go haywire if you don’t take care of them. Please, sit down, take notice, do an internal inventory, table out the things that reduce your mental and inner wellness, table out habits that could help improve them, and then work in line with these habits.

Make your mental and inner wellness your priority, get rid of those toxic traits in your life, and watch how your life becomes a whole lot easier to live.

4. You Are Limiting Yourself

Constantly putting yourself down with negativity: One of the toxic traits in yourself is negativity. I’m guilty of this. I am 100% guilty of putting myself down.

It is funny how much more hurtful it is to continually discourage and degrade yourself than when someone else does it. You limit yourself when you do this.

Imagine you want to take on a task, but then you start bringing up petty reasons as to why you won’t succeed in that task, you end up not performing.

You’ve not only brought yourself to a new low, but you’ve also limited yourself and the things you can do just by giving in to the toxic traits in yourself which you refused to fight.

Let’s use a work setting to show toxic trait examples. You are given a new task, one that could potentially lead to a promotion and a raise, but you’ve never done that type of thing before, at least not in practice.

So, you start telling yourself, “Nah, I can’t do this, never done this before, I won’t succeed, why don’t I just pass it on to Joe here, so at least I don’t mess up the company’s name…” Why? Why have you done that to yourself?

You studied this; you were given time to work on it, so why would you limit yourself like this? You only know A, so A is what you’d stick to; the rest of the alphabets are not needed.

But you know B and C and D may be even R, but because you’ve never gone beyond A, nope, you’re not going to take it on.

Do you see how you have severely limited yourself, bringing in all that negativity in your life and work because you feel you can’t do it when you haven’t even tried?

That’s not fair to you; that’s toxic behavior that you need to “remove” quickly. You may be wondering how to not waste your life, or how to stop wasting your life if you have noticed some toxic traits in yourself.

You can take a cue from me. Learn to override that negativity when you notice yourself doing it.

I do it all the time when I’m about to take on a new task, something I’ve never really tried before. I read up on it, then start telling myself, “child, you know you know this, you know you’re going to ace it, come on, child, let’s see you kick ass!” And before you know it, I’m all confident.

I’ve successfully gotten rid of the negative talks that were trying to set in, I’ve opened myself up to other opportunities and shown people that I am not limited to one thing.

So, do this too, watch how your life improves for the better. This won’t be easy but with consistent positive declaration and hard work, you’ll be able to achieve this.

Whatever you tell yourself becomes a reality, so always be conscious of what you think and say. That’s why you shouldn’t fuel the toxic traits in you by drowning in self-doubt and negative words.

5. You Are Allowing Your Past To Stifle Your Future

“No amount of guilt can change the past; no amount of anxiety can predict the future.” Why do we find it so easy to dwell on the past? Something that has happened before, we keep bringing it up, thinking about it, asking ourselves why?

Why can’t we get it into our heads that it has happened already? Move on already. We give sentimental value to the past that it stifles the future. The past has already happened, they are memories, and we should not let it cloud our plans for tomorrow.

Just because something didn’t work out in the past doesn’t mean it would also fail in the future. Don’t be scared to try again.

That you got married, and it didn’t work out, doesn’t mean you won’t get married ever again in the future, so why throw away that second chance at love.

The first attempt at starting a business failed doesn’t mean you are not cut out to be a business owner, sit down and go over what you did, learn your mistakes, and try again.

Just because you dropped out of college doesn’t mean you’re too old to go back and get a degree; get it and make yourself proud.

You see, if we let the happenings of our past direct our future, we’d go nowhere and make no positive changes in our lives.

We would be stuck in one position, building up resentments, and even start discouraging others too. It would help if you did not let the past stifle the future; it is an unhealthy trait to live with.

It does you no good. So, decide to start that thing you’re scared of because of how it went down in the past. Be confident that it would go well in the future.

FOR YOU

If these toxic traits listed above have a hold on your life, do not let that discourage you. Now that you are familiar with it, you can change your life for the better.

Sometimes or most times, our thoughts are the hindrances to our success, so do well to start today and change the pattern of your thoughts.

Learn to speak positively, do away with discouraging words, and reassure yourself that you can do it.

I’d advise you to get a journal where you write down your daily achievements, this could serve as an encouragement journal, just to prove to yourself that you and you will succeed, all you need to do is get rid of those barriers that were holding you back.

Never allow any form of toxic behavior into your life. Your life is very precious and with toxic traits in it, you will only end up wasting your time.

Your time is of value to you, and you should ensure that you pay attention to the habits you cultivate.

Avoiding the toxic traits in this article is key to knowing how to stop wasting your life. In fact, it would not be wrong to say they are signs that you are wasting your life.

Look into yourself, and be honest, are there toxic traits that you find in yourself that you’d like to do away with? You can still grab The AfamUche Self-development Journal (Here: The Life Compass Workbook) and Planner (Here: Goal Chaser) now.

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