DON’T…
- Take it personally. When you take it personally, you get emotional and lose the ability to think logically.
- Go on the attack. Stay calm and keep your comments brief and don’t say anything out of anger and frustration.
- Repeat what doesn’t work. Very self explanatory.
DO…
- Choose your battles. Getting cut off in traffic usually gets me, but as they say: take a deep breath and blow it off. If it’s a long standing problem with a close friend or family though, try to work toward a resolution.
- Avoid “problem dwelling”. Move on rather than focusing on a problem.
- Accept people as they are. There are just some that are really relentlessly difficult.
- Work on yourself. Dealing effectively isn’t always about fixing the other person. If you try to be consistently respectful and positive, there will be fewer difficult people to deal with.
We have one and like it. Ours has several different sounds from which to choose but we just use our favorite one all the time.
Karen, author of “My Funny Dad, Harry”‘s last blog post..Great Exercise, Fun, and Free–Tennis Everyone!
Also, another thing that helps is to make up a reason (whether it may be true or not) as to why the other person is being difficult. Maybe someone close to them has died, maybe they have some health or financial problems, maybe they’re worried about something else and so are just stressed out. Give them a reason for being a pain and it will help you to forgive them.
Karen, author of “My Funny Dad, Harry”‘s last blog post..Great Exercise, Fun, and Free–Tennis Everyone!
You meet difficult people everywhere. I had a supervisor before who was hard to deal with and very strict especially with me. What I did when I can’t stand up her attitude, I quit and found another job. I don’t want to be around with people like that.