Reject These 5 Behaviors For A More Peaceful Life

You control what you tolerate from others (and yourself).

Whether we realize it or not, we ask ourselves an internal question every single day.

That question is: What behaviors am I willing to tolerate today?

The answer to this question is dictated by our level of self-worth. The higher we perceive our value to be, well, the less bullshit we’ll tolerate.

This is a blunt but truthful way to address the challenge of setting and maintaining emotional boundaries. Our boundaries quite literally draw the line around the treatment we will (and won’t) accept.

Bonus: Sometimes we need to stop accepting poor treatment from ourselves, as well.

Let’s discuss the behaviors that happy people have a habit of rejecting in order to maintain the happiness that so many strive for:

1: Frivolous gossip.

You’ve likely heard the quote: “Great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, small minds discuss people.”

I believe that if we really dive into the message behind the words, we can uncover multiple layers about the tendencies of people who spend their time talking about others.

Gossip is a sort of junk food for the brain. Sure, it’s enjoyable in small doses, but if you overdo it you’re quickly going to regret how you feel as a result.

And, if you overdo it too often, you’ll start seeing real adverse affects.

There’s a term I frequently use with my private clients: Upward trajectory.

When your life is on a generally positive path, an upward trajectory, you simply have no interest in wasting your time chatting about what other people are doing. Sure, you should care about others and be interested in them, but we all know the difference between connecting with people and gossiping about them.

Happy people value their own time, and they know it’s not worth spending on frivolous gossip.

2: Being manipulated.

Sometimes at first, we don’t always know we’re being manipulated, which is a manipulator’s entire goal in the first place. But, I do believe that honing a sense of self-awareness will quickly open your eyes to those who are intentionally misguiding you.

Manipulation doesn’t have to be directly harmful or abusive, it could just be someone taking advantage of your kindness in order to get their way. For example — Doris knows you’ll always cover her shifts at work, so Doris always seems to have a convenient excuse for not coming in, knowing that you’ll offer to pick up the slack even if you don’t want to.

Doris is now manipulating you into doing her work for her.

You can begin responding to Doris by letting her know you have your own plans and obligations and are unable to cover for her this time, but you’re sure that someone else will be available to pick up the shift.

Or, maybe it’s more nefarious. The new person you’re dating is staying intentionally distant, forcing you to fight harder for their attention. You begin feeling insecure, and continue raising the volume on your efforts, at time even doing or saying things that you wouldn’t normally, in order to win their attention.

They are manipulating you by making you doubt your own worth, and subsequently prove it to them in order to get the validation you’re seeking.

You can simply let this person know that you enjoy their company but it seems they’re not in a place to fully invest in a relationship right now, so you’re best going your separate ways.

3: People talking down to you.

Back when I worked in corporate cultures before becoming a full time coach, speaker, and writer, I had roles on various marketing teams. One of which was to lead the virtual coverage of the new Cadillac Escalade reveal. (I think this was a 2015 redesign, quite a few years ago).

We came out of a meeting with a large creative agency and the CEO of our company told me that I “knew my place” and that I was right to stay quiet during most of the meeting.

Thinking about that interaction now makes my skin crawl. Never would I tolerate that type of patronizing language as the person I am today.

You’re probably thinking to yourself: “James, that’s nothing, I’ve had FAR WORSE things said to me.”

We can’t control what people say to us, but we can control how we respond to it.

You don’t need to lash out at them, or cause a fight, or put yourself in an even more tense situation — but people with strong emotional boundaries and self worth will remember that they’re human beings too, and someone’s title within a company doesn’t make them any better or worse than you.

People have no right to talk down to you as if you’re some sort of incompetent child — and the truth is that other happy and fulfilled people don’t do that in the first place.

It’s only those who doubt their own personal power that will try to sabotage yours.

4: Disrespecting your time and energy.

This is different than manipulating you, because it’s more about someone else’s actions towards you rather than actions they’re trying to get you to perform.

Imagine you set a meeting, or a date — how long do you wait for that person to arrive if they’re running late?

Imagine they don’t call, don’t text, they just…show up when they show up.

Maybe it’s 15 minutes, or 30…and now the meeting is going to run overtime. They don’t consider that you likely have something else to do after, which will now be affected as well.

That’s not just disrespect of your time, it’s disrespect of you.

You take on a new client in your business and you set parameters for what your services include…

Before long, they’re drastically overstepping beyond the scope of work and are expecting much more to be done than you’d discussed. Of course, though, they’re not offering to pay anything additional.

In all of these scenarios, it is your responsibility to set, communicate, and maintain the boundaries that you work within (both personally and professionally).

The giver must set the limit, because the taker never will.

5: Negative self-talk.

Self talk is a big one, and possibly the most important.

Your inner dialogue quite literally defines yourself…to yourself.

You’re telling yourself things about yourself all day long, and for most people, it’s reactive.

“Ugh, I can’t believe I did that again.”

“I’ll never learn.”

“I don’t know what I’m doing.”

“I’m not talented/smart/pretty/handsome enough for this.”

While these statements can pop into our head unwittingly, they serve as an opportunity to rewire our sense of self.

Instead, try:

“That’s the last time I’m going to make that mistake.”

“I’m gradually getting better.”

“There’s a lot of opportunity for learning here.”

“I have unique strengths that make me right for this.”

Here’s the kicker about self-talk: If you allow it to run away from you, to remain negative and critical, to feed you false and disparaging messages about yourself…you’ll never stand up against the other negative behavior in this article.

Why? Because deep down in your soul, you don’t actually believe that you deserve better treatment.

It starts from within — rewriting your own story — rephrasing the narrative so that you focus on where you can improve rather than how you’re falling short. And then, you take action to fill in the gaps so they’re no longer whispering to you in your quiet moments.

Whether you realize it or not, people are paying attention to how you’re treating yourself. They see how you present yourself, the discipline you implement in your life (or lack thereof), and what you accept from the world around you.

Then, they will act in alignment with it.

Start giving more to yourself, and you’ll start getting more from others.

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James Michael Sama is an internationally recognized speaker, author, and personal development coach.

Finding success in creating hundreds of viral articles and videos on building limitless confidence and healthier relationships, James has accumulated over 39 million visitors to his website and a collective social media following of over 400,000.

James speaks at live events and in the media across the U.S. and has become a go-to expert with outlets such as CNN, Bravo, The New York Post, The Huffington Post, The Daily Beast, CNBC, The Boston Globe, CBS, and more.