“You are what you do” is a phrase that has stuck with me for years.
It’s a simple, five-word sentence that says so much about how we think and act.
Essentially, the thoughts and habits we form influence who we are, for better and worse. In my case, I was an angry, resentful person for a long time, and I always thought badly of other people.
It made me quietly hostile to other people who were just trying to go about living their lives. It caused me to think worse of myself and to act badly toward others.
My negativity turned me into someone I neither recognized nor liked.
If I had known some of these habits, I might have avoided that path and years of healing. But that’s hindsight for you. If you’re not there yet, let my experience be a lesson for you.
9 habits that will turn you into someone you neither recognize nor like:
1. Allowing social media and the news to taint your view of humanity.
Life is hard, and most people are just trying to get through their day. They’re trying to make it through work, take care of their family, or handle whatever other responsibilities they have.
Most people aren’t maliciously trying to make your life harder. Though, it certainly doesn’t seem that way when you turn on the news or doomscroll.
But news outlets and social media algorithms have a vested interest in creating fear and anger in their consumers.
Fear makes people more reactive. It causes consumers to tune in more, which means more eyes on their product and more money in their pocket.
They create a distorted view of other people, and it will bleed into your personal life if you aren’t aware of it.
2. Avoiding difficult conversations to “protect your peace.”
Difficult conversations need to happen. Sure, no one really wants to be criticized or told they’re doing wrong, but we are only human; we are going to make mistakes or annoy people.
You are going to do things that bother other people, and they will do things to bother you.
The way that you find compromise and improve is by having difficult conversations. Yet “protecting your peace” has become an easy way for people to avoid that.
Silence won’t protect your peace, though. It will damage your personal relationships and breed resentment that makes you a bitter, negative person you barely recognize.
Trust is not built in the easy times of relationships, be they romantic or platonic. It’s built during the hard times.
It’s built when you can acknowledge that you did something wrong or hurtful, and fix the problem that you caused.
But if you avoid those discussions, you never get the opportunity to develop deep, trusting relationships.
What’s more, it may also cause you to perpetuate bad habits because you won’t get to listen to other perspectives.
3. Complaining about your life without doing anything to change it.
Personally, I have largely stopped complaining about my life at all. I just don’t see a point in it.
In fact, I believe it only makes things worse in the overall environment of my brain.
What I’ve learned is that when you focus so much on the negative, that’s what your brain continues to churn out.
It creates more and more negativity, which can drag your mood down and make you unhappy.
That doesn’t mean that you should never reach out for support or talk about your problems. It means that you don’t want to ruminate, which is dwelling on the negativity while you can’t or won’t do anything about it.
And hey, maybe it’s a problem that has no solution, but you still need to vent about it. That’s ok. You can still talk about it, just try not to live in that mental space. Don’t let healthy venting become unhealthy complaining.
4. Treating vulnerability as a weakness.
I spent many years thinking that vulnerability was weakness because I had drowned myself in toxic masculinity.
I could not have been more wrong.
Vulnerability is actually one of the strongest things you can do. And you have to be willing to show vulnerability to other people to form true, authentic connections. Otherwise, they don’t get to know the real you.
If you don’t show vulnerability, the result is loneliness and isolation.
You feel disconnected from other people, and your relationships suffer for it. The walls you put up create distance that doesn’t allow you to form those close bonds that almost everyone needs.
Instead, you wind up with superficial connections that never have the chance to grow into something deeper.
5. Constantly seeking external validation over your own judgment.
A need for external validation puts your decision-making in other people’s hands and gives them power over you.
By seeking outside approval, you are accepting a position where you will be putting the needs of others ahead of your own. By doing that, you can lose touch with yourself and what you really want out of life.
Maybe something that you’re excited about doesn’t align with what this other person wants. Then what? Do you do it anyway? Or do you change your behavior to make someone else happy?
Once you fall into the habit of trying to make everyone else happy, you start losing touch with what makes you happy. It’s a sure path to misery.
6. Looking for reasons to be upset and offended.
I’ve come to understand that you tend to find what you’re looking for.
If you look for reasons to be upset and offended, then you’re going to find them. You’ll find them quite easily, because these are the hooks that influencers and media personalities often use to keep pulling you back in.
On the other hand, if you look for reasons to be happy and hopeful, you can find those, too. They’re a bit harder to find, but they’re out there.
That does not mean that we need to turn a blind eye to the suffering and difficulties of the world. There is a time and a place for everything.
However, if you live in that space of anger and offense, then it will pull your personality in a negative direction.
It makes you an angrier person, which is hard to shut off when you’re constantly drowning in it.
7. Making yourself out to constantly be a victim.
Perpetual victimhood can have so many negative consequences for your mentality.
It creates fear and distrust within you, because you start seeing maliciousness where there wasn’t any.
Instead of viewing it as people making mistakes, which they often do, you start interpreting things as preplanned attacks on you. That, in turn, causes you to distrust other people, and it destroys your relationships.
Not only that, but you may find that your circle of friends shrinks.
It’s exhausting to listen to someone constantly talk about how the world is out to get them, how their boss secretly hates them, or how no one ever comes through for them.
Most people will just quietly pull away rather than put up with that, so you may find yourself standing alone.
8. Using “reality” to discount hope and positivity.
I used to be one of those people who would describe myself as a realist. I would focus on the awful and negative because I perceived that to be the most realistic outcome.
But in reality, I was biasing myself against seeing the good things in life. I was training my brain to always look for the ugliness instead of seeing potential and opportunity.
What I didn’t understand is that optimism is not inherently blind.
Optimism is simply believing that good things can and do happen.
It doesn’t mean you look away from the terrible or real, because sometimes terrible things are the reality. But so too are the good things.
If you train yourself to only look for the negative, then that’s what you’re going to see more often. And that can drag you into depression and anxiety.
9. Expecting others to treat you kindly, just because you treat them kindly.
People who practice goodness and kindness often make the mistake of assuming it will be returned.
Unfortunately, that’s just not how people work.
In my experience, the average person tends to act out of self-interest first. They are focused on their own lives, needs, and desires – and there’s nothing wrong with that.
Kindness and goodness should not be transactional. If they are, then they stop being kindness and start becoming manipulation.
Plus, transactional kindness creates entitlement.
You may find yourself expecting other people to go out of their way for you as you did for them, and they may simply not be as invested in the relationship as you are.
That lack of reciprocity can make you angry and resentful, to the point where you no longer recognize or like yourself.
Instead, when you want to give kindness, give it with no strings attached, and use boundaries and self-respect to teach people what you will and won’t tolerate.
Final thoughts…
There are so many small, subtle habits that can influence your overall attitude and well-being.
Of course, you’re going to do wrong things from time to time. Everyone will. That’s normal because humans are flawed creatures. However, what you want to avoid is turning these small actions into regular habits. Because it’s the little things done often that compound into much larger problems.
If you can avoid forming these bad habits, or become self-aware enough to identify when they’ve already formed, you can minimize the harm they can do to your personal life and mental health.
