8 Types Of “Friends” That Are Negatively Impacting Your Personal Growth

And Why It Might Be Wise To Start Letting Them Go

We all know that making majors changes in our lives is scary — especially because early growth usually happens alone.

If you are truly focused on improving yourself, you will outgrow certain friends. Consider this a good thing, because it means that you are becoming more self-aware of the person you are, and the person you want to become.

You will also start becoming aware of the types of people you’re surrounding yourself with.

For a while now, you’ve been carrying a feeling of not belonging. You feel like your environment doesn’t seem to support your goals and vision. It’s hard for you to find people to share all the things that truly fascinate you with. Few people seem to be interested in your work.

Your old group of friends seems like a tight family you haven’t felt a part of lately.

Negative people have big impact on:

• Your confidence
• Your mental health
• Your feeling of self-worth
• The amount of action you take in order to turn dreams into reality
• They way you experience the world

Furthermore, if you spend a lot of time with a certain type of person, you become that type of person. You will copy their vision, their fears, their limits, and most of all…their way of living. Negative people are contagious.

I’m not here to tell you who to ban from your life. That’s not my place. My intention is to guide you through a few of the many types of people you will encounter in your lifetime. In this case, the ones you’d best be avoiding altogether.

1. The Compulsive “Gossip-Geese”

The addicts of entertainment — thriving on other people’s misery to fill their own boring lives, and hide their own insecurities from the world. You know… “status being everything.”

If you constantly catch them talking about people who are supposed to be their friends, you can be certain they also talk about you when you aren’t around.

Is this a picture you like to visualize? Is this a thought you like carrying around while you are trying to focus on your important work?

2. The Insatiable Energy Drainers

In short, these are the people who constantly knock on your door to address their needs. They seem to only come to you when they need something.

Don’t be a tool of their wishes. Let them find other ways to improve their self-esteem. It’s neither your responsibility nor your job to make them feel content about their lives.

Helping others is important — especially the ones you love. But don’t waste time “fixing” things for people who never seem to get enough.

3. The Annoying Know-It-Alls

You always feel like you have to prove yourself to them, even while knowing nothing is ever good enough. They like the sound of their own voice, but what they absolutely love most is the sound of:

“You are right.” (And I am wrong)

4. The Shallow Drama Queens & Kings

• Always focusing on the negative
• Interfering with other people’s business
• Making a scene in public on a frequent basis
• Easily offended or upset
• Eager to argue about the smallest, irrelevant things
• Determined to point out everyone’s flaws and weaknesses
• Carrying the same addiction as the “gossip-geese”

Now be brutally honest with yourself. Do you really enjoy spending time with ( — the person you are thinking of right now — )? If no, then why are you still doing it?

Drama seems to follow them everywhere they go.

I wonder why…?

Please stop giving a damn about drama in your life.

And stop giving a damn about these irrelevant things too:

5. The Jealous, Envious Nay-Sayers

These are the people who will hate your new opinions if you are on track to success. They will not agree with the things you do because you are crushing boundaries they once gave up on themselves. The more successful you become, they more they will hate you. Don’t expect any encouraging words from them. Don’t expect any sincere support from them.

Instead, expect them to:

• Bring you down/hold you back
• Ridicule your ideas and efforts
• Convince you that everything you do is wrong
• Rally others against you
• Judge you for being different
• Get mad at you because they are not your priority

Spending time on these people will influence the way you think about yourself. Don’t let their opinions restrict your sense of freedom.

6. The Self-Absorbed Victims

Ever known some people who were very skilled in always making things about them? They would convince you that the world is out to “get them”, or that every job they got fired from consisted only of assholes who treated them like crap.

They will tell you about every fight they had with someone and explain to you how they were right, and the other was wrong.

Things are never their fault, never their responsibility. They always think they do things with “good intentions”, regardless of what those actions are, until someone dares to call them out when they are in the wrong.

They hate it when someone pisses on their pedestal

Also, people with a victim mentality tend to revert back to old, unhealthy habits after trying to get rid of them for a week. It’s usually all talk but no action.

7. The Self-Destructive Time-Bombs

I’ve been this person from my late teens up until my early 20's.

Binge-drinking several days a week. Hang-overs that made me feel like a piece of crap. Always complaining about work and life. Loud, obnoxious behavior in bars and at parties, to hide my insecurities. Abusing my body with unhealthy food and lack of sleep.

After setting myself free from a toxic relationship of 7 years, I started focusing on myself more. My confidence was at an all-time low because I had no purpose, I was overweight, and I had no ambition for anything whatsoever.

So the first things I started doing were:

• Losing that damn weight and dressing my age
• Figuring how out I could be of value to other people
• Studying philosophy to get a better understanding of our psychology
• Cutting back on the drinking, and cultivating healthier habits

This took a huge toll on some of my friendships because it made us grow apart. Some people didn’t understand all the “mumbo-jumbo” I was so fascinated about. Granted, it was hard for them to see why I wanted to change everything about myself that I thought was self-sabotaging.

It wasn’t about them, it was about me. I hated myself, my behaviours and my decisions. I was trying to changed everything at the same time.

My invitations were becoming sparse because I was the boring, odd one. We would only go out on weekends to the same bar, doing the same thing.

Meeting up →drinking games →getting drunk and funny →drinking even more →drama →going home with a bad feeling

That wasn’t me anymore, so I had to distance myself from it. Some egos got hurt, and up until today, some still remain to choose hate over understanding.

It was the hardest decision I ever made, but also the most important one. I would choose a different approach because I handled it very poorly, and I hurt the feelings of some people very dear to me. Yet, I would certainly make the decision itself again. I had to get better mentally and physically because I was about to kill myself.

8. The Close-Minded Conformers

An essential part of personal growth is trying new things and experiencing new places. You want to plan a cool activity with friends next Saturday instead of going to that same bar again. Maybe you would like to take a friend to some place where you can both volunteer for a good cause.

The big problem is, some friends either don’t care, or think you are weird.

Some of the people I mentioned earlier didn’t even like to go camping if there was no beer involved. If you have people around you who live only for the weekend, doing the same things, while you are the type of person who likes to have some variation, then trust me when I say that it won’t work long-term.

These situations make us feel lonely because we are used to sacrifice what we want, in order to hang out with people who don’t give a crap about what we want. The only thing that matters is what they want — what ‘the majority’ wants.

Your pursuit of giving meaning to your life isn’t important to those whose values don’t align with it. In most cases, they will even criticize you for it. This is because you have the guts to unapologetically go after what you want, while they are too lazy to do the same. They can’t handle someone else fulfilling those dreams they gave up on due to self-imposed excuses.

We don’t like feeling like ‘the outcast’. We’ve been conditioned to make decisions based on what the majority wants — repressing our own needs in the process.

We really have to stop doing that because it doesn’t get us anywhere.

If you surround yourself with people who lack drive and focus altogether, your ambition will slowly fade.

Conclusion

Outgrowing some relationships isn’t just inevitable — it’s necessary. It’s a sign you’re evolving as a person.

Sometimes, it’s better to walk alone for a while. Many people do this, you are not alone. People brave enough to wander the lonely path eventually tend to find each other.

Thank you for your time. I hope this article helped. Be a good friend. Remember you deserve the same from others.