Difficult people are everywhere. Difficult people evade logic and most of these people are blindly unaware with the impact they have among the people surrounding them.
It is obvious for most of us that some difficult personalities seem to drive their satisfaction daily, by simply creating chaos around them and also pushing other people’s buttons.
Either way, the difficult people create an unnecessary row of events creating a lot of stress for other people. In this article, I hope to show you how to handle the difficult personalities in your life now and in feature by sharing my own personal story.
Many studies have shown that stress can have a negative impact on your brain. By simply exposing yourself to stress every day you risk to compromise the effectiveness of the neurons hippo-campus.
This is the part of the human brain responsible for the reasoning memory. Realistically if you prolong your stress experience this can cause reversible damage to the neuronal dendrites. If you allow me to explain to you in a none scientific way. These are like small bridges between the brain cells. These bridges allow the brain signals to travel interrupted. However, when a bridge gets destroyed by the constant stress the consequences are unsuccessful and miserable personality.
How I dealt with difficult people
I would like to share my personal story in order make this more personal as, I really want to help people who got lost on their way to the top. If you do read similar patterns in your life, please share and let’s help more people in need.
Everything changed just before my graduation at University. I am the so called foreigner “alien” in the United Kingdom. I had to juggle my studies with part time job at McDonalds. This led me to change my mood and performance dramatically. There was a time, I just did not care, what will happen with my life plans.
Identifying the Problem
I used to face difficult people everywhere I go. Most of the stress used to come from my work places. I was unsatisfied, about what my job had to offer me as development opportunities. I was unsatisfied with the way, how people treated me.
Many people would say, if you do not like your job and if it gives you so much stress just quit. This is what, I eventually did but it took me years to fight over my position. It took me time to understand and overcome some of the daily problems, I was faced with. I was sucked in with the daily problems and uncomfortable situations of people on daily. This used to make me tired mentally.
Set Limits and Barriers to Handle Difficult People
Realistically negative and difficult people are among us everywhere we go. It is literally impossible to avoid them. However, it is practically possible to work your way around.
Negative people and complainers often flood your ears with constant complains and naggings. Often the complainers will want you to join their party of “self-regret”. This makes them feel better for themselves, however, it is only bad news for you. It is literally very overwhelming to listen the constant complains and lazy scenarios. I do not want to come across to be rude, but there is a fine line between being sympathetic and getting sucked into the negative emotional spiral behaviour.
For some people it is literally easier someone else to come along and suck out all the pressure by listening to their problems. I am not saying that most of the difficult personalities perform this kind of behaviour consciously either. It is very difficult to spot your own mistakes and analyse your own behaviour consciously.
You can easily avoid getting sucked into long spiral of complains. You can set limits and tactical distance, when necessary. I am not saying, stay locked up at home all day and avoid human contact under any circumstances.
If you think of the situation as a very heavy smoker. You are none smoker in the same room. Would you stay in the same room inhaling the smoke all day long if you know this would affect your health?
You could distance yourself by leaving the room for a while or ask the smoker to go on the balcony. In a conversation a great way to set distance is to ask the complainer, how they intend to fix the problem. You will observe unusual behaviour. The complainer will either quit or redirect the conversation in a productive way.
Rising Above the Difficult Situation
Difficult people will drive you crazy daily and this is guaranteed by the laws of human’s behavior. Make no interaction and involvement into difficult situation. By lowering your guard down and stopping and listening irrational behavior, will set you back emotionally. You should be able to identify the situation within seconds. The more irrational the situation is the, easier it should be for you to withdraw from the inconvenient situation.
Stay serious and focus all the time and this will be harder for the difficult people to approach you. Being too chatty, means that you are literally interested into “story telling” time.
Asking questions will be a sign for them to open up and begin with the mixed feelings. Distance yourself from particular situations. By simply avoiding such a situation, will save you a lot of troubles. This is not being rude. This is simply avoiding the emotional chaos and only responding the facts.
Stay Aware of the Emotions!
Staying aware of the situation will give you huge strategical advantages. You cannot physically stop someone, pushing your buttons, if you do not stay are and identify, when this is actually happening.
Sometimes the best way to go forward is to tactically re-group and re-think your strategy. You should not be afraid to act immediately and buy yourself time to take better conscious decision later on.
For example, if a complete stranger approaches you on the street, then that person tells you, something totally unrelated like, that he is the president’s best friend. You will automatically ignore that, no feelings hurt.
However, if you are engaged in a similar derailed conversation with a co-worker, perhaps the best thing is to smile and nod and throw no conversation engaging joke. This will win you back some time. As a result, you will find time to deal with the situation in a different way.
Focus on the Solutions Instead of the Problems!
Where your focus is orientated that current mind set dictates your current emotional state. When, you think about the problems for too long, you risk exposing yourself under long lasting negative emotions and stress.
These negative emotions are reversible. The only thing, you have to do is have better control over yourself. Furthermore, if you focus on solutions, you are creating and stimulating personal efficacy, which also produces positive emotions for yourself.
I have spent too much time thinking about the difficult people trying to fix them and their behaviour. As a result, it leaded me to lose control of my own personality and brought a lot of stress. Someone, once told me “You cannot fix all of people’s problems”.
Instead think about how you are going to handle them. Think about possible solutions to come out of the uncomfortable situation immediately.
Forgive to Move on, but Never Forget!
Being emotionally intelligent person means to be able to quickly forgive yourself or the others about particular difficult situation. Difficult people can be easily forgiven. However, this does not mean, that emotionally intelligent person will necessarily forget the situation.
Forgiving simply means to move on and focus on the solution and how exactly to get back on your feet. Furthermore, by not forgetting similar difficult situations or difficult people with negative attitude, will help you stay aware and help you prevent you, getting yourself into difficult situations again.
Bringing it all Together for Stress Free Life
Overall, before you making everything this work. You will be exposed to various behavioral patterns and your task is to experience them and analyze it. Thankfully the human’s brain is flexible and elastic.
It allows us to mold and practice with new behaviors created by difficult people. Lastly, you are always in control. All you should care and try to focus is finding the right and best reasonable solution for yourself.
If you go and apply all the stress-relieving suggestions for dealing with difficult people. Your brain will be simply armed and ready to handle stress effectively and efficiently.
