Dealing with toxic people can be challenging because it often requires us to dehumanize them and label them as villains. It can be difficult to distance yourself from someone you care about or have a close relationship with. Most of us do not want to treat another human being with cruelty, even when they have treated us poorly.
Instead of focusing on whether someone deserves the label toxic, try thinking in these terms: “I just need better social prompts.”
🌱 Take Responsibility for the Environment That Shapes Your Development
Growth is often less about changing yourself in isolatione and more about changing the developmental context you’re immersed in.
Whether you are pursuing a goal or simply trying to maintain your own standards, the people around you matter. You may believe that your values and mindset are strong enough to withstand any influence, but over time the social prompts you receive begin to shape your thoughts, confidence, expectations, and choices.
This is why it is important to intentionally shape an environment that supports your values and long-term goals. Sometimes, the wisest decision is simply to choose the people whose influence helps you grow.
💬 Choose the Social Prompts That Help You Grow
As I mentioned earlier, it can be emotionally exhausting to decide who is “toxic” and who is not. Instead, pay attention to the social prompts people consistently bring into your life.
Spend more time with people who inspire you, make you feel accepted, encourage your curiosity, or challenge your ideas in constructive and respectful ways.
Focus less on judging people and more on understanding the developmental effect of your interactions with them.
🧠 Choosing Prompts Instead of Labels Lowers the Barrier to Change
When you evaluate people, stepping away from a relationship can feel emotionally difficult. When you evaluate the social prompts they repeatedly bring into your life, the decision often becomes clearer and less painful.
For example, instead of telling yourself:
“I need to avoid toxic people.”
Try saying:
“I want more conversations with people who encourage learning, curiosity, creativity, or share my interest in this topic.”
This approach feels less confrontational and far more agency-oriented.
Rather than organizing your life around avoiding certain people, you begin organizing it around the kinds of interactions that support your development.
Don’t spend all your energy deciding who deserves the label toxic. Spend your energy increasing the number of social prompts that help you become the person you want to become.
❤️ Choosing Prompts Instead of Labels Helps You Stay Human
Many people simply pass on the social prompts they have learned throughout their own lives. Their intentions are not always harmful; often, they are repeating patterns that shaped them.
You do not have to make them your enemy.
You can respond with understanding while still recognizing that their influence is not helping you grow. Likewise, you do not have to blame yourself for choosing a different developmental environment.
🧭 Decide Which Voices Will Help Shape Your Future
You don’t have to win every relationship. Sometimes the healthiest decision is simply to spend more time where the social prompts invite your best self to emerge.
You do not have to become immune to negative influences. You simply need to become more selective.
Don’t optimize yourself for a poor environment.
Optimize your environment for the person you’re trying to become.
No drama.
No villains.
Just a conscious reallocation of your attention.
Don’t organize your life around avoiding negative people.
Organize it around increasing positive developmental prompts.
🛡️ Keep Traditional Strategies for Situations Where You Have No Other Choice
This perspective does not replace well-established strategies for dealing with difficult people. There are situations in which changing your social environment is not immediately possible—for example, within a family, a workplace, or other unavoidable circumstances.
In those situations, setting healthy boundaries, building resilience, and challenging internalized beliefs remain valuable and effective approaches.
When you can, change the prompts.
When you can’t, change your relationship to the prompts until you have the freedom to choose differently.
✨ Conclusion
Perhaps the question is not whether someone is toxic.
Perhaps the better question is:
"What social prompts does this relationship consistently bring into my life?"
That small shift in perspective changes everything.
Instead of spending your energy judging people, you begin shaping the developmental environment that influences your thoughts, confidence, choices, and future.
You don't have to make villains out of others to choose yourself.
You don't have to become emotionally immune to every negative influence.
You simply have to become more intentional about whose voices you allow to shape your life.
After all, the people around you are constantly prompting your next thought, your next decision, and your next version of yourself.
Choose your social prompts as carefully as you choose your goals.
📈 Get Wise Series
Bandura, A. (1977). Social Learning Theory. Prentice Hall.
Bandura, A. (1986). Social Foundations of Thought and Action. Prentice Hall.
Bronfenbrenner, U. (1979). The Ecology of Human Development. Harvard University Press.
Bronfenbrenner, U., & Morris, P. A. (2006). The Bioecological Model of Human Development. In Handbook of Child Psychology.
Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in Society: The Development of Higher Psychological Processes. Harvard University Press.
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