Toxic behaviors that push customers away: How to recognize them in yourself and change them
When the way you behave scares and hurts your customers and forces them to distance themselves from you, then you have a toxic behavior. It is called a toxic behavior because it is bad and unhealthy for you, your relationship with others, and your business at large. It is called a toxic behavior because it is capable of destroying whatever beautiful relationship you have with people. People who exhibits toxic behaviors are sure to push everyone that care about them away, and if you have a business, your toxic behavior will destroy your relationship with customers. In this article, we are going to identify some toxic behaviors that can push your customers away, then list ways you can discover if you have toxic behaviors, and importantly how you change those toxic behaviors to healthy ones.
Toxic behaviors that push customers away
One of the most common toxic behavior is pride in oneself. In this context, it means having the feeling that you are everything or you have everything when compared to others. This feeling would make you esteem yourself higher than those around you, and when they notice this about you, they will begin to feel bad and hurt. If you persist in behaving that way, they will continue feeling hurt when around you and this would cause them to give you some gap. At some point you will notice that your friends have distanced themselves from you, people that used to patronize you have stopped, and you may be wondering why, but not realizing that your toxic behavior has destroyed your friendship and business.
Furthermore, another toxic behavior people exhibit is lack of gratitude and excessive complains. This means you are not grateful when you receive help from people, and this may be because you don’t value the help you have received, or you are just being ungrateful by your choice. Whatever may be your reason, when people help you but sense your ingratitude, they are not encouraged to repeat that help and start thinking somehow about you. Also, when you don’t appreciate the customers you have and feel their patronage is nothing, and they sense this behavior, they will definitely leave you. Also in line with that, when you complain about everything and see faults in everything, people will surely get pissed off hearing your complains over and over again. Hence, they move away from you, not able to tolerate your toxic behavior.
In addition, lack of empathy for others is a toxic behavior. Empathy means having a form of sympathy for someone by placing yourself in the person’s position and trying to understand how they feel, then using your judgement to relate with them. If you lack empathy, you would do things without taking into consideration the thoughts and feelings of others. Your lack of empathy would cause you to do things for your own selfish reason, regardless of the thoughts and feelings of others, even if your actions may hurt the people around you.
Also, another toxic behavior people exhibit is negativity and self pity. By negativity I mean when you constantly feel that things will go wrong with yourself or others. This behavior makes you look ill-minded, because you have nothing good to say or contribute. Negativity would make you feel discouraged if you want to engage in something, and also make you discourage others if they come to you for advice. Then in terms of self pity, it becomes toxic when you are constantly feeling sorry for yourself and acting like you are experiencing all the problems of the world, or as if everything is going wrong around you, or worst still, that everyone is against you. Self pity makes you only think about yourself and would cause you to neglect others. In the long run, your negativity and self pity would make people unsure of their relationship with you and unsure of patronizing you, and in the long run, they begin to keep you at arms length.
Another toxic behavior is the act of jealousy. This means when you are constantly envious of others, and you want to own whatever it is they have that you fancy. Jealousy is very toxic because it can cause you to engage in dangerous acts just to cause people’s downfall and uplift your status; it can cause you to backstab your best friend just to get whatever you are envious off them. This toxic behavior can destroy not just friendship and business but family as well. It can destroy anything it comes in contact with.
Also, you exhibit a toxic behavior when you blame people for your own poor choices and refuse to take responsibility for your actions. You may say you were advised to do something and it came out wrong, then you want to blame your advisor for the result, but you fail to remember that it was only an advise and only you can make the ultimate decision for yourself. When you blame people for your poor choices and your actions, you are only pushing them away from you.
These and many other behaviors are toxic and unhealthy for yourself and your relationships. How then would you know if you have these toxic behaviors?
You can discover this by asking yourself these questions-
- Do I brag about myself too much around my friends and clients? And do I praise the strengths they exhibit?
- Do I consider the feelings of those around me when making decisions or taking actions, and consider my customers when making business decisions?
- Do I take responsibility for my choices and actions, or do I blame people for my mistakes?
- Do I constantly complain about everything?
- Do I have a negatively fixed mindset?
- Am I envious of the lives and accomplishment of others?
- Am I ungrateful?
- Do I behave as if it’s all about me and my feelings, and don’t pay attention to the lives and feelings of people around me?
By honestly giving answers to those questions, you will discover if you exhibit these toxic behaviors or not.
How can you change these toxic behaviors into healthy behaviors?
- Practice empathy by considering the feelings of those around you when taking actions and making decisions.
- Consciously praise the strengths you notice in people and applaud their accomplishments.
- If you like something about someone or a company, strive to develop yourself to attain it rather than being envious and wishing it was you and not them.
- Take responsibility for your actions and decisions. In order to do this, you need to consciously make these decisions, in that way you cannot blame others for your actions.
- Learn to say thank you and express gratitude when you receive help from people. Also, learn to appreciate your customer’s patronage.
- Avoid complaining about everything by trying to see the good in things and appreciating them.
- Develop a positive attitude. You can do this by being open minded and hope for your positive expectations to manifest.
- Understand that everyone you see have lives of their own, alongside emotions and responsibilities. Understanding this will help you reduce your attitude of everything is about me, and start getting involved in other people’s lives.
By doing this, you are sure to change those toxic behaviors you exhibit into healthy ones. Thanks for reading!
