The Toxic Trait Each Zodiac Sign Needs To Work On In April

“April is the cruelest month,” wrote poet T. S. Eliot. As another saying goes, “April showers bring May flowers.” But April doesn’t have to be a cruel, rainy month. If there’s something bothering you, dive down deep and figure out what it is. This April, do a little spring-cleaning of your unsavory personality traits.

Hopefully, this list will help. It’s the one trait that each zodiac sign needs to work on to ensure they have a fantastic spring and summer.

ARIES: ARGUMENTATIVENESS

Yes, you’re a Ram, and sure, you’re a fire sign, and OK, you’re ruled by Mars, the planet of war, but if you approach everything in life like it’s an MMA cage match, sooner or later someone’s going to knock you out with one kick to the head. It’s springtime, the season of warmth, sunshine, and pretty flowers. Take a moment to bask in the sun and smell the flowers. And also realize that when you’re constantly in combat mode, what you’re really fighting is something inside yourself. While you’re sitting in the sunlight and smelling the flowers, look inside to figure out what’s troubling you.

TAURUS: STUBBORNNESS

You’re a Bull rather than a Hamster, so of course you’re stubborn. And not gonna lie, there’s something to be said for standing by your convictions. There’s also something to be said for abandoning your convictions once better convictions come along. If no one ever changed their mind, we’d still be living in caves or grass huts. This April, focus on something about which you may be a little too stubborn. Think about why you’re so defensive about that one topic and what your stubbornness may be costing you in terms of friendship or even money. If you decide you were right about being stubborn, there’s nothing lost. But if you were wrong, there could be something gained.

GEMINI: DECEPTIVENESS

Ahh, the two-faced Twins, saying something while believing something else. Saying something to someone’s face and something else entirely behind their back. Sooner or later, you’re going to be caught in a lie, and the results won’t be pretty. But just like everything with you, deceptiveness is a double-edged sword, and the lies you tell others aren’t nearly as destructive as the ones you tell yourself. And we usually tell ourselves lies to hide an uncomfortable truth. But no matter how uncomfortable, it’s still the truth. And the truth will set you free. I’m not gonna lie—you know exactly what lie you’re running away from. Face it head-on and conquer it. 

CANCER: SNEAKINESS

I was going to write “manipulativeness,” but it’s a whole lot clunkier than “sneakiness,” so I’ll go with that. You sometimes do things behind the backs of people you care about, and if they get suspicious, you try to gaslight them and make them think they’re crazy. This is not cool in any possible universe. Quit snoopin’ and sneakin’ and slippin’ around, and especially stop toying with the emotions and sanity of the people who are close to you. Once you lose someone’s trust, you’ve lost it forever. As the famous saying goes, “Sneaky snakes catch bad breaks.” Actually, it’s not a famous saying. I just made it up.

LEO: ARROGANCE

Here comes the Lion, roaring under the springtime sun about what a great, awesome, incredible, unbeatable, incomparable Lion they are. But here’s what the rest of the jungle creatures think: This Lion ain’t all that. In fact, this Lion ain’t half of all that. And even if you are all that, the fact that you can never shut up about it makes people resent you. Tone it down a notch. Maybe even two notches. The trick into being admired is to let other people compliment you. You might actually be as great as you say you are, but please stop saying it.

VIRGO: CONDESCENSION

No one likes a snob. Even other snobs don’t like snobs. While you may be better in several areas than most people you encounter, your fatal flaw is that you don’t waste a moment in letting them know that. When you strut around acting like you’re better than others, it triggers a natural instinct in them to try to cut you down to size. And let me tell you something—it’s not fun being cut down to size, especially if the cutting involves garden shears or a chainsaw. Even if you have to fake it, pretend that you don’t dislike people as much as you do. 

LIBRA: SHORT-SIGHTEDNESS

It’s good to have focus. But it’s not good to focus on a speck of dust in your rear-view mirror while your car is headed 90MPH into a brick wall. Likewise, it’s good to think about what you’re going to do today. But that only becomes bad when you don’t plan for tomorrow, next year, and the rest of your life. It’s also disastrous if you want to wreck a perfectly good friendship or romance over one mild insult or argument when there are so many good memories between you and so many potential good ones yet to come. Zoom out with your camera and take a look at the bigger picture this April. 

SCORPIO: BITTERNESS

Oh, little scorpion, covered in a brittle exoskeleton and with your tail always poised and ready to deliver a fatal sting, you have no idea how sad and lonely you look to others. And still you wonder why you have trouble with relationships. Well, let me serve up two famous quotes like I’m serving you a delicious plate of flapjacks for breakfast. The first is that “You attract more bees with honey than with vinegar.” The second is from Nelson Mandela: “Hate is like drinking poison and then hoping it will kill your enemies.” Put down the hate and drink a tall glass of iced tea with a spoonful of honey.

SAGITTARIUS: PARANOIA

No one is out to get you. And because I’ve said that, you’re probably wondering how I know that you think people are out to get you, which must mean that I’m out to get you, right? Relax. Take a deep breath. Stretch your anxious limbs. Take a chill pill. The only thing that paranoia will achieve is making people think you’re a little weird, and when they start acting like you’re a little weird, you’ll notice it and only start acting weirder. It’s a ruinous cycle. Sure, it’s a wild world filled with danger. But when a real danger actually confronts you, it’s best that you’re not so paralyzed by constant anxiety and worrying that you’re able to confront trouble head-on.

CAPRICORN: IMPERIOUSNESS

Maybe I’m the one that the stars chose to inform you that you are the Goat, not the GOAT—i.e., you are simple barnyard animal rather than the Greatest of All Time. You may not even be the greatest of the last hour, much less of all time. I realize this sounds insulting, but c’mon now—you walk around with your nose so high in the air, I can see all the way up your nostrils and into your brain. It’s not that you don’t have your good qualities. You have plenty of good qualities. But you don’t have a monopoly on good qualities. There are plenty of people who have better qualities than you do. This month, you need to realize that the reason you act so high ‘n’ mighty is that inwardly, you realize it isn’t true.

AQUARIUS: CONTRARINESS

There’s nothing wrong with being contrary if you actually disagree with someone. But there’s plenty wrong with sitting around a birthday dinner while everyone is saying how great the cake tastes and feeling the sudden compulsion to say, “Sorry, but the cake tastes lousy to me.” The reason you are sometimes prone to being contrary is that seeing others happy bothers you because you aren’t always feeling so chipper. Writer H. L. Mencken once defined “puritanism” as “the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, might be happy.” But if you learn to let others be happy, you’ll find that your unhappiness will evaporate like the morning mist in a meadow under the warm April sun.

PISCES: SELF-PITY

Pull out the tiny violins and call the wambulance—Pisces is going through another bout of acting like no one on Earth could possibly have had it worse than you. Look—you’ve been through plenty of bad experiences, some of which would have broken lesser people. But there are other people who’ve been through far worse traumas than you have, and they’ve refused to let it break them. Learn a lesson from those people. No one likes a whiner. It’s unpleasant to endure, especially if there’s no end to your sad song. Even worse than that, there’s nothing sexy about self-pity. Let it go this spring. Climb a mountain. Enjoy your life—you only get one.