How to Deal with Toxic People Without Losing Your Mind

In my last post, I identified the 7 Toxic Relationships That Will Ruin Your Success and Drain Your Energy. Though relationships are everything, toxic people are dangerous! These individuals can make life a living hell if you’re not careful. For review, the 7 toxic people we need to beware of are:

1. Liars

2. Gossipers

3. Time-Wasters

4. Haters

5. Complainers

6. Pessimists

7. Delusional

Now that we have identified the habits and traits of toxic people, what next?

How should you deal with them respectfully, decisively, and effectively? It’s not always easy to deal with difficult people but to maintain your peace, success, and energy levels, you must face the reality of living with people who get under your skin from time-to-time — and keep your sanity at the same time.

5 Tips For Dealing With Toxic People Without Losing Your Mind

1. Refuse to be bullied. Decide that your success, peace of mind and energy are worth protecting and maintaining. Make up your mind early that you will not needlessly suffer emotional baggage at the hand of toxic people. Read my post, How to Stop Tolerating Mess for more tips on how to do this effectively.

2. Confront them. If you’re like me, you probably dislike confrontation but I have found it necessary at times, to put time-wasters, complainers, and the delusional in-check. Confrontation does not have to be unpleasant, think of it as standing up for truth, justice, peace, the oppressed, and for a worthy cause. After all, are you not worthy enough to deal with any difficulty so that threatens your well-being and that of others?

3. Avoid them whenever possible. But not from a perspective of fear. This is an alternative to confrontation. Sometimes, you just have to ignore toxic people altogether. Minimizing your contact and exposure to them will immediately alleviate stress and drama. Consider blocking them from your social media profiles, let them leave a voicemail or send a text so you can screen the reason for their request, and tell them to email you so you can ascertain just how “urgent” their request truly is.

4. Don’t listen to lies and gossip. This is perhaps the fastest way to halt the spread of rumors. Again, if you lend your ears to the liar and hear gossip about others, they will also lie and gossip about you to others. Stop the mess!

5. Pray for them. Especially when all else fails, I just leave folks to God and pray that He will help them see themselves for who they really are. If you have done all of the above and have shared with the toxic person how you feel and about their behavior and nothing changes, then commit them to the One who can do what you can’t. Check out 7 Benefits of Prayer and 7 Blessings to Pray For to understand the power of prayer in your life, business, or ministry.

Remember, the stronger our relationships, the better and happier our lives will be. Therefore, do all you can to implement these 5 practical strategies to effectively deal with toxic people, without losing your mind.

Before you go, please share this post with your friends and leave your comments below. Thank you. All the best to you.