People Who Are Mentally & Emotionally Negative Usually Say 8 Phrases In Casual Conversation
Oleg Golovnev / ShutterstockA negative outlook can come with serious consequences like high blood pressure and difficulty focusing, but some folks claim to naturally have that kind of attitude and don't believe they can do anything about it.
These people don’t only make life harder on themselves, but on everyone around them as well. Their lack of positivity seems to rub off on anyone they talk to, which makes it a good idea to avoid them as much as possible. Listening out for these phrases they say often can help you do that.
People with a mentally and emotionally negative attitude say these phrases often in their casual conversations
1. ‘There’s no way this will work’
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This is the kind of phrase people throw around when failure is their default setting. They’ve taken the idea that mistakes are inevitable too far and decided that nothing will actually work out the way that they want it to.
A 2019 study found that people often get so upset when they don’t succeed at something that they actually have a hard time learning anything from the experience. Having a negative mindset makes that an even bigger problem because it means someone wasn’t able to even hope for something better in the first place, and an expected failure can hit even harder.
2. ‘Why should I even try?’
Feeling like there’s no reason to put effort into something is common for negative people, and it also creates a self-destructive cycle. They obviously don’t think anything good will happen, but there’s also no way for them to prove themselves right faster than by not trying. It’s the worst kind of cycle.
When someone is under a lot of pressure, it can make it feel even easier to just not do anything at all. That sends them creeping dangerously close to persistent apathy, which could also be a sign that something deeper is going on.
3. ‘That’s a waste of time’
The truth is that no one really knows if something is a waste of time until after they do it, and even then they can usually find something good in the experience no matter how it went. People who are naturally more negative can’t think about things that way, though. They see everything as a black-and-white issue based on the results, and they don’t pay attention to other ways it could benefit them.
These are the people who aren’t going to be able to say, “It might not work, but I’ll give it a try anyway.” They’ve already written the ending of the story in their minds, and they see no reason to try to change it.
4. ‘I just have bad luck’
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Our perception of luck has a lot more to do with the way we all think than most people realize, which makes it even harder to come by when someone is a mentally and emotionally negative thinker. Psychology professor Richard Wiseman explained that people who actually think they’re lucky usually have more good things happen to them.
This means anyone who’s starting out with a pessimistic attitude is more likely to continue feeling unlucky, but not because the Universe has something against them. Instead, they don’t frame the way things happen the same way, and they find it easier to get stuck on the bad things.
5. ‘You can’t trust anyone’
Some people have very real trust issues that stem from past traumatic experiences that showed them they couldn’t depend on anyone else. That’s not the same thing as someone feeling like no one is trustworthy, or at least claiming they aren’t, because they can’t be positive.
This isn’t a true case of not being able to trust people as much as it is an example of someone just automatically assuming the worst from everyone. Instead of asking for help with an optimistic attitude, they don’t think it’s worth it because everyone is bound to let them down at some point. And while that’s technically true, it doesn’t do any good to focus on it.
6. ‘It’s not that great’
There are few things worse than being really happy about something, only to have a negative friend step in and say it’s not as big of a deal as you think. This puts a damper on everything from personal achievements to exciting events.
Counselor Eliana Bonaguro, LMHC, said this happens when someone is “driven by fear of being overshadowed and the dread of failure by comparison.” It makes sense that negative people would worry about that, but that doesn’t make it less hurtful.
Aside from affecting their relationships with other people, this kind of perspective will also make it nearly impossible for that person to enjoy anything themselves, which is no way to live.
7. ‘No one knows what they’re doing’
Plenty of people think they’re smarter than everyone else, which usually has more to do with them being arrogant than them being negative. When someone uses other people’s general lack of knowledge as an excuse for why it feels like everything is going wrong, though, that probably comes from a pervasively negative mindset.
It would be pretty much impossible to find someone who is truly an expert on every single topic. Everyone is incompetent in some way, and we all have to face that at some point. Some people accept this as well as they can, while others still think it applies to everyone but them.
The idea of knowing what you’re doing is incredibly subjective. Anyone who leans into negativity will have an even harder time figuring out what that means to them, and they might judge some people harshly because of that.
8. ‘The world is ending’
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Although the world at large does feel pretty unstable these days, having the mentality that it’s always falling apart and nothing can be done to fix it is a sure sign that someone is negative. This is an example of catastrophic thinking, which basically means exaggerating how bad something is. Negative thinkers do this frequently as either a coping mechanism or possibly because of their brain chemistry.
People who think this way don't only say the world is ending when something seriously bad happens. They’ll throw it into a casual conversation on an ordinary afternoon after being faced with a minor inconvenience. That kind of negativity can easily snowball over time.
Mary-Faith Martinez is a writer with a bachelor’s degree in English and Journalism who covers news, psychology, lifestyle, and human interest topics.
