Regardless of your industry, developing strong relationships is one of the most important components of overall success. How far you advance in your career will be directly impacted by your capacity to establish and maintain constructive relationships. You will come across challenging people at times in work, school, and life. We all have to deal with challenging individuals.
Your entire day can be upended by a difficult interaction. You can spend hours reeling after just one conversation. You have no control over the behaviors or attitudes of other people, but you do have control over how you respond to those who seem to annoy you. Here are a few things you should not do if someone is ruining your day or making your job difficult.
1. Validate Your Feelings
When dealing with a challenging person, you might feel upset, ashamed, angry, or all of the above. Even though you may feel your blood pressure increase or your palms start to sweat, you may still want to convince yourself that you didn't let the other person get to you. Attempt to validate your feelings instead.
Recognizing your emotions and accepting them as reasonable under the circumstances is known as validating them. You feel irritated, and that's okay, you can tell yourself. You can start moving on from the interaction that sparked your negative reaction by using this straightforward validation of your feelings.
2. Set A Time Limit For Negative Emotions
Even if you don't like your feelings, you can't pretend they don't exist. The only thing you can do is exert control over them. Give yourself a certain amount of time to do the things you need to do, such as cry, vent to a friend, plan your retaliation, or consider all the ways the person who irritated you is wrong, rather than letting the interaction ruin your entire day.
Feel your emotions fully rather than suppressing them. They will continue to slowly creep out throughout the day and bring you down if you try to act as though you don't have them. You can feel everything and move on, which is what you want to do, by going about things in this manner.
3. Stay Detached From It
Avoid getting upset at your coworker despite how challenging it may be. They are getting up on the wrong side of the bed all the time and being moody is not your fault. Stay true to who you are. Avoid letting their behavior affect your communication by remaining calm, in control, and concise. You will serve as an example and a chance for your coworker to learn how to communicate effectively.
4. Talk to Yourself
That's right, talk to yourself! Constructive self-talk is not just a trendy buzzword. When used as a tool, it can be very powerful for getting past unpleasant experiences. Positive self-talk can be used to your advantage if you acknowledge that you are in control of your own emotions and responses. If necessary, speak the message to yourself (quietly or aloud).
It could be as straightforward as telling them that they won't ruin my day. Try to remember to breathe deeply. While you may not have any control over what others say to you, you do have control over the thoughts that you have about yourself.
5. Select Your Next Step
Consider a course of action once you have acknowledged your emotions and assured yourself that everything would be okay. The next step might be to simply forget about your interaction with the challenging person and move on. Alternatively, you might make plans for a useful reply or get ready for the subsequent exchange. Whatever comes next, decide to take it down in writing and commit to doing it. You can use this process to help you mentally get out of the unpleasant situation you were just in.
6. Use Humor To Deflect A Hard Environment
Someone unkind and challenging can make everyone around them feel tense and anxious. Always keep in mind that if someone is being rude, it's probably because they're upset or angry about something they're going through. Everyone can laugh it off when there is humor to provide a distraction and break the tension.
This can be accomplished by finding a humorous way to describe a typical circumstance or by making jokes about a familiar experience. Also disarming is self-deprecating humor. The key to helping everyone hit the reset button and start over on a better note may be to find a way to inject a little humor when someone is feeling out of sorts.
7. Do Not Escalate
When someone annoys you, your initial instinct might be to retaliate. But keep in mind that you are always (and alone) in control. Refuse to give in to the drama. No matter how someone else acts, you are responsible for your actions, and they are responsible for theirs as well.
Maintain your composure. If someone has upset you, take a deep breath and give yourself time to relax. Keep in mind that you don't have to act like them, and doing so will probably make the situation worse. Retain your composure and rise above the conflict.
8. Get Up And Move
Attempt to move at the end. Try to get up and leave whatever position you're in when you're thinking about this challenging person. Switching positions is especially crucial if you're sitting down. When you move physically after a difficult interaction, it's like pressing a reset button for your body and mind. You can choose how much of your life will involve dealing with challenging people, but dealing with them is a necessary part of life.
Bottom Line
There might have been times when you did everything you could to control a difficult situation, but it didn't work. If that is the case, you might require additional assistance to manage the ensuing interactions. It might be beneficial to consult a trustworthy coworker and request their opinion. Otherwise, comply with the advice mentioned above about what not to do when someone spoils your day or makes your job difficult.