You may know a few aggressive people who seem to do well for themselves, but they could be doing even better. Aggressiveness works, to a point, because most people avoid confrontation. However, confrontational people are disliked and suffer in many other ways.
Aggressive people often find themselves alone, disrespected, and unable to reach the highest levels of success.
If you’ve considered adopting an aggressive personality, you might want to reconsider. There are better options.
Consider these disadvantages of being too aggressive:
1. You show little respect for others and receive little respect in return. Aggressiveness ignores the rights and interests of others. The message is clear: your needs are more important than those of anyone else. As you can imagine, people aren’t thrilled when faced with an aggressive person. They may fear him, but they certainly don’t respect him.
2. Your relationships suffer. Your personal relationships are limited to those that lack self-esteem. Anyone else will avoid you as much as possible. At work, you won’t be able to trust anyone. When the only person that matters to you is yourself, you don’t matter to anyone else. Everything in life is better when your relationships are thriving.
3. Your self-esteem suffers. Down deep, aggressive people believe they can’t be successful any other way. The only way they believe they can compete is to steamroll the competition. It’s hard to feel good about yourself when you’re treating others poorly. If aggressive behavior appeals to you, ask yourself why. How would you rate your self-esteem, Do you think being aggressive would be as attractive to you if your self-esteem were higher, Do the aggressive people you know have high self-esteem,
4. Aggressiveness hurts your progress in the long-term. Aggressiveness can be very effective in the short-term, but hinders your long-term progress. You don’t get the support you need to ride to the highest levels. Give yourself all the help you can get by avoiding overly aggressive behavior.
5. You’ll be alone. Aggressive people struggle to create and maintain meaningful personal and professional relationships. There aren’t too many people that spend time with aggressive people by choice.
6. You fail to develop other skills. When aggression works for you, you fail to develop the other skills necessary to succeed in life and in relationships. You become a sort of “one trick pony.” Think about the aggressive people you know. They’re aggressive in most, if not all, situations. Now consider how others feel about them, too.
7. Others will attempt to derail your efforts. Life is easier when others are willing to help you. When you’re aggressive, most people secretly want you to fail. Some are bold enough to make it a point to get in your way. Isn’t life tough enough without having others intentionally sabotaging your efforts, Avoid making enemies.
Assertiveness is a positive and more beneficial option than aggressiveness. Assertiveness is viewed as a confident and agreeable trait. To be assertive, give your opinions, work constructively with others, and practice living a life of integrity. It’s also important to communicate clearly, directly, and to have excellent listening skills.
Assertiveness requires more skill than aggression, but the results are more pleasing and less limited over the long haul.
Aggressiveness has multiple disadvantages. You’re ultimately forced to take on the world alone. No one wants to help you or spend time with you. Those around you resent you, even if you manage to get your way. Consider a more assertive approach in your life. You’ll be more respected, liked, and admired.
You might think that your feelings and thoughts aren’t genuine or relevant to the world, and you might even feel like a big fake when you do try to follow your dreams, simply because you’ve heard for so long that you’re not worthy, whether directly or indirectly.
If you’re struggling with a toxic relationship, especially a family-based one, you may have had so much conditioning that you aren’t even sure which way is up.
When I was in my own toxic family situation, I struggled with feelings of hopelessness, worthlessness and more. I felt like nothing I did or said was genuine or worth knowing about, like I had to hide who I was in order to conform to the expectations of my toxic family member.
But I learned some important lessons as I began the healing process, and I want to share them with you. If you’re currently in this situation, you may have never heard these things–and when you first read them, you probably won’t even believe them. But these are truths–and you keep reading them until you get it.
Changing your mind will help you to change your life. I’m living proof it works.
Top 10 Things You Need to Know if You’re in a Toxic Relationship with a Narcissist or Sociopath
You are a real person with legitimate concerns, thoughts, feelings, and aspirations.
You are good enough.
You don’t need anyone’s approval or endorsement to help you succeed. You can get validation through success in your own, self-dictated endeavors.
It isn’t about you and that it isn’t your fault. You aren’t bad or broken.
You can literally do almost anything you want to do if you simply decide to do so. If you choose to do it, you’ll be compelled to take inspired action and you will make it happen.
You have something real to offer the world. You matter. You have value.
You can be exactly what you choose to be and choosing your own identity does not make you selfish, lazy, entitled or otherwise unsavory.
You get to choose my own identity every day. You decide who you are and how far you go.
You can compromise for someone you love to a certain point when it’s time to choose your priorities and choose a path. But compromise means that both parties bend and both parties are satisfied with the outcome. It’s not compromising to give up what you truly want in order to make someone else happy or to keep them from getting angry at you.
If you were to walk away from the toxic relationship, the world would not end. But it will be very difficult, and you’ll have a lot of soul-searching to do. Personally, I had to reexamine everything I understood to be true.
About the book: Do you find yourself giving all you’ve got and people still want more? Do you sometimes do without what you want or need in order to keep the people around you happy? Are you afraid to deal with confrontation and do you often find it easier to just go with the flow in order to keep the peace?
If you answered yes to any of these questions, you might be a people pleaser. Many people pleasers are also very empathic people, who are especially attractive to toxic types who love to take advantage every chance they get.
In this book, you’ll learn how to stop feeling the need to make everyone else happy and start figuring out what makes you happy, personally, and really – not someone else’s idea of what’s supposed to make you happy,
Listen up: you deserve to be happy just as much as anyone else. Stop beating yourself up and start embracing your personal power. Take your life back starting today!
There was a time in my life when I heard the word “mother” and associated it only with a woman who had given birth to and/or raised a child from birth.
But as I have grown, and since I have had my own children, I have come to understand motherhood in an entirely different way.
Now I know that giving birth to a child doesn’t automatically earn one the title of “mother,” nor does adopting a child.
All types of mothers deserve to be lifted up. But what makes one a “real” mother?
Mothers, as far as I’m concerned, have a few particular common qualities. They truly know the meaning of the word unconditional. True mothers unconditionally love, they unconditionally support. A true mother will always look at those she loves and see their best qualities, and she will never betray their trust.
Her loved ones can always count on her to pick them up when they fall and to celebrate with them when they succeed. She may offer constructive criticism, but she does not berate and destroy. A true mother always has the best interest of her loved ones at the forefront of her mind and of her actions.
Some mothers have biological children, others have adopted or step or foster children. Some are pet parents, others are loving aunts and grandmothers and godmothers and friends.
Some mothers take care of everyone around them, but have no children of their own. Others have their own children and “adopt” many more in their hearts. And, despite the fact that many people will adamantly disagree with me, I believe that some mothers are even men.
Some people only have one mother, but most often, people have many mothers throughout their lives. In addition to their biological and/or adopted mothers, some people are lucky enough to have mothers-in-law who treat them as their own. Other people find mothers in teachers, friends, neighbors, nannies.
There are all kinds of mothers, all around each of us. Today, celebrate all of the mothers in your life, not just the one you call “Mom.”
. 
