https://medium.com/practical-growth/dealing-with-difficult-people-d486525afb37
Dealing with difficult people
It’s not always easy but it is always necessary. Learn how to understand them so you can deal with them effectively.
Photo by Frank Busch on Unsplash
by: E.B. Johnson
Whether we like it or not, living in the real world means dealing with difficult people. We’ve all known someone who is more headache than they’re worth, and we all know how aggravating it can be settling even the smallest of disagreements with such a person. Difficult people are all uphill battles and brick wall conversations. Learning how to deal with them, likewise, is an art-form that takes time and patience to master.
Difficult people can be frustrating, but they can also be frightening. Difficulty occurs on a number of different levels and stems from a number of different causes. If you want to get to the root of the difficult people in your life and learn the best ways to limit the effects they have on your happiness, take some time getting to understand the different types of difficult people and what makes them tick. They’re often more complicated than you might think.
The roots of difficult behavior.
The first thing to remember when dealing with anyone who makes our blood boil is that poor behavior often has its roots in heart-breaking circumstances. Grumps and cantankerous old gits exist in every size, shape, color and gender. They live among us, cloaked in the guise of normal human beings, and they often sneak up on us long before we have a chance to suss them out. Learning how to deal with Negative Nancy’s is all about learning how to identify not only these individuals, but also the things that feed their need to be nasty.
Unfulfilled expectations.
Most of the unhappiness and suffering in our lives comes from disappointment or a general sense of being let down when things don’t go our way. Sometimes, a nasty state of being is just a defense mechanism; a response to these frequent disappointments and unfulfilled expectations. When we get let down time and time again, it can become easier to be cold and callous, rather than inviting another round of hurt in.
Past experiences.
More often than not, a nasty demeanor is a defense mechanism, meant to protect us from the thousands of little hurts the world inflicts on us. When we learn to be disappointed, that negativity can often sink into every aspect of our being — personality included. People carry their past like baggage, and let it reflect in their attitudes and the way they treat and interact with others. Clinging to the past weakens us by weakening our confidence and it warps our beliefs and the beliefs we carry about others.
Personality disorders.
While everyone has “off days” that can result in them making an a** out of themselves, there are also concrete personality disorders that can make it harder to deal with certain people. Those living with personality disorders might have behavior that appears particularly emotionally charged or out of sorts with the situation at hand. These disorders can also be characterized by repeating patterns of feelings and behavior that are inflexible and pervasive. They lead to excessive distress for not only the person living with the disorder, but the people around them as well.
External factors.
Our lives are composed of threads, like a large and all-encompassing web. Each string is connected to the other and even the minutest of disturbances sends shockwaves through the other parts of our lives. When something is going wrong in your personal life, it has an effect on your professional life and vice versa. External factors do much to determine our outlook and moods, and the sooner we can accept that the sooner we can get to real world solutions that make life better for us all.
The types of difficult people.
According to David Brown, author of The Art and Science of Dealing with Difficult People: while there are many different kinds of difficult people in this world, there are a few basic archetypes. Understanding these people and learning how to spot them in our lives allows us to minimize their impact on us.
The Submissives
While we don’t traditionally think of submissive people as a problem, they can be extremely difficult to deal with when it comes to the big and important matters in life. The lack of confidence a submissive has can be a major source of frustration, and their fear of failure will leave them paralyzed in the most desperate of straights.
The Perfectionists
When we need to move quickly in life, perfectionists are the last people we need on the team. Their attention to detail can be a great benefit in certain situations but, like the submissives, a perfectionist’s need to “get everything right” can leave them frozen.
The Aggressive Defenders
Your typical “difficult person”, being assertive can help propel us forward, but it can also isolate and alienate the people around us. Aggressiveness and defensiveness are counterproductive to our relationships and are more corrosive than they are beneficial. Nothing kills a group dynamic like an overbearing or hostile leader or coworker.
The Control Freaks
Those who want to do things their way (and only their way) are hard to work and coexist with. An inability to compromise means an inability to connect. When we can’t make way for others, we can hardly make way for our true selves.
The Shapers
Shapers are those who like to take the reins of power whether they have been offered them or not. They like to take things over and reshape them to their own will. Thus the name “shapers”. While they can help drive action, they can also be a major thorn in the side of those who have to live or work with them.
The Creatives
We don’t generally think of creatives as difficult people to interact with, but they can be when we don’t know how to manage our reaction to the way they do things. Creative people are essential in generating the ideas that drive our society forward, but they can get aggravating when they refuse to look beyond anything but the “big picture”. Ideas are lovely, but they’re worthless without action. Creatives often lack the conviction of follow-through, which can make them difficult when it comes to support.
How to deal with the difficult people in our lives.
Dealing with the nasty or difficult isn’t about them. It’s about us. You’ve got to lay the groundwork before going to battle. Handling people we’d rather not come in contact with isn’t fun, but it can be managed with the skills above and a few solid tactics. After you’ve come to a better understanding of yourself, use these techniques to wriggle out of the nastiest negativity wallows.
1. Listen.
We often underestimate the power of just listening. Listening is the number one step with it comes to dealing with things that are otherwise “unreasonable”. When we listen — truly listen — we can unlock startling and transformative new perspective and opportunities. Listening takes opening our minds more than our ears, however, and that can be a hard skill to master.
Every single person on this earth wants to feel heard. Even when we’re in the depths of our darkest imaginings, we just want to know that someone sees us; that someone hears us.
Progress can’t be made — in any relationship or conversation — until both parties feel fully acknowledged and listened to. When you’re listening to someone else, really focus, and listen to what they say with open and honest intent. Even if what they’re saying is ridiculous or unfair, just listening can go a long way to reaching solutions.
2. Set some ground rules.
By setting clear boundaries of what you will and will not tolerate, you can avoid a lot of the unpleasantness that comes with confronting negative people. All healthy relationships (be they professional or personal) are based around healthy boundaries. In order for those boundaries to stick, you have to make them clear…and you have to stick to them.
Define your guidelines from the jump and make it clear that you know your worth and won’t accept any bullying or otherwise. When you make it clear that you demand respect (because you respect yourself) you’ll also make it clear that you’re not going to suffer unnecessary negativity.
Many of us were conditioned to believe that boundaries were self-serving, and in a way they are. They serve as a means by which we can protect ourselves from those who would take advantage, while also protecting ourselves from giving away more than we can or should. Boundaries are healthy limitations that we set for our selves and those who are worthy respect them.
3. Practice understanding.
Empathy is one of the most powerful tools we can use when it comes to resolving conflicts or negative confrontations. Putting ourselves in the shoes of others makes it easier for us to understand where they’re coming from and also allows us to get a different perspective on a situation.
You can get to understanding someone’s issues fully by listening to them. Humans generally only listen at a 25% retention rate, so put in some extra effort and you might just find the conflict resolved faster and more efficiently than you expected. Keep your mouth closed and your mind open. Drop the judgements and take in every piece of the experience with the knowledge that no human is perfect.
When we extend compassion and understanding to others, we encourage them to extend that compassion and understanding to us. Pay forward what you hope to get in return and you’ll find a sea of new opportunities unlocked.
4. Exercise body language.
We can do a lot more communicating with our body language than we sometimes give ourselves credit for. When dealing with a difficult person, the way we carry ourselves can do a lot as far as setting boundaries and drawing the line between what you will and will not tolerate, and it’s a tool we can userwith less guilt or feelings of shame.
Remain strong and firm in your position, using active hand motions to emphasize the points you’re making and the confidence that carries behind your words. Don’t slouch or pull back from the other person, remaining instead with your head held high and your shoulders tall, squared and fully erect.
If you find yourself in a particularly difficult confrontation, change the environment if you can’t immediately change your body language after making your point clearly and directly. Going for a walk or just changing rooms can do a lot for helping you re-poise yourself.
5. Manage expectations.
As humans, we aren’t always clear about what we want or what we expect out of a situation. By managing expectations, we can do a lot to prevent negative conflict in our personal and professional lives. Miserable people are often miserable because they have been disappointed so many times.
Setting expectations clearly at the outset lets us relieve the stress and anxiety that comes from the unknown and lets us start making our best and worst case scenario plans ahead of time.
Always ask people what their expectations are of you and make sure they know what your expectations are of them. Agree and clarify these expectations until you can come to some sort of agreement that works for you both.
6. Choose battles wisely.
Fighting and conflict is exhausting. Sometimes, the best thing to do is just walk away from a nasty person, but it takes having the emotional awareness to recognize when things have come to that point.
Negativity affects us and the people around us. When we engage in conflict we actually upset the delicate ecosystems of our emotional environments. By prioritizing our issues and learning when to fight and when to walk away, we can preserve our precious emotional stasis and our inner peace.
Difficult people can seem like an uphill battle that needs to be overcome at all costs, but that win or lose mentality will get you nowhere. Learn when to walk away instead and you’ll give yourself some power back.
7. Use strategic influence.
Sometimes, we just can’t do anything to stop a negative person in their tracks. It’s at these moments that it can actually be more productive to use strategic influence, rather than expending your own precious energy on the situation.
Strategic influence basically means finding someone who can influence the particularly difficult person on your behalf. Perhaps this person is a boss or a manager or a spouse. Get creative and leave no stone unturned.
This type of influence can help remove some of the conflict from the situation, and make it easier for us to address our issues. It can also allow for quicker and smoother resolution, as the perspective of a third-party is often what is needed to find the middle ground that’s so desperately needed.
8. Interrupt the pattern.
Chances are, if a person is being difficult, they’ve behaved that way before. Behavior is a funny thing, and in a way our behaviors are programmed into us like robots. We repeat them over and over again, pushing them to their most extreme ends until we’re told to “rein them in” again.
Difficult people can be managed by interrupting their patterns. When a co-worker or acquaintance gets nasty, break up their behavior by asking a question that is completely off-topic. This kind of random tandem can offset their mental story and help snap their brain out of the negative feedback loop that’s winding it up.
When we stop our negative patterns in their tracks, we allow our brains to replace those one-track thoughts with positive ones, which by their very nature offer greater opportunity. There are all kinds of creative ways you can interrupt problematic patterns before they begin. Take some time and figure out one that works for you and your professional and personal circles alike.
9. Manage your reactions.
When confronted with a negative or difficult person, it’s sometimes necessary to just focus on how we can control our reaction to their provocation.
Take a moment to reflect on how you feel and ask yourself why you feel that way. Consider why the actions of another person evoke such a strong reaction in you.
Learning how to handle ourselves is an essential step in getting out of our instinctual zones and into a sharper, less-negative state. Forcing ourselves to think in a calm and collected manner also pushes our brain into a positive state of being, an invaluable asset when it comes to battling negativity.
10. Leveraging your self-control.
Knowing yourself is the key tp handling any adversity that appears in our lives. When we have a clear sense of self, there is no tension over limits or direction. You know who you are and what you want from your time on this Earth.
Stay calm and develop an awareness of your authentic self. Seek to understand a situation, rather than control it, and you’ll come out on the other side with a completely transformed sense of what it means to engage a negative person.
Gain clarity by asking questions and reflect on the things you see as satisfactory and unsatisfactory. Clearly defining your goals and intent before engaging a difficult person will help you maintain focus on the things that actually matter in this life.
Putting it all together…
The world around us is a challenging one full of challenging people, but they can be managed by developing some core skills and techniques that allow us to adapt and overcome. When dealing with particularly nasty people, it’s important to stay focused on controlling ourselves. Never lose sight of the goals and intentions you have set for yourself, and refuse to compromise the boundaries you set for your own peace of mind.
Manage your emotions by developing an awareness of yourself that helps in your understanding of others. Strategic influence, too, can be a great way to deal with a particularly difficult person at home or work, while listening is often the quickest and easiest path to reaching an understanding. Dealing with difficult people is never easy, but it can be made easier by looking within and looking to maintaining your own inner peace at all costs. The people around us only have as much power as we give them. Take your power back by getting in touch with yourself and mastering the techniques you need to stay sane in the midst of even the most difficult people.
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