Welcome back! This is episode #023 of To Take It Or Leave It, a podcast to help you change the way you look at things, end your mental suffering and give you some motivation and inspiration to live your best life! I’m so glad you’re here! I’m Val Poirier and I’m your host. If you haven’t done so yet, please hit that subscribe button so you never miss another episode. Today’s topic is: How To Deal With Difficult People
Subscribe to the podcast
Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Spotify | TuneIn | Deezer | Stitcher | Amazon
Everyone is born a difficult person – demanding and entitled, unable to communicate your needs. And as you grow up, hopefully these things change. You learn the skills of compassion, understanding, forgiveness, communication and empathy. Sometimes this is from your caregivers, but other times you are left to learn these skills on your own. And sometimes you never learn these skills. The world is full of difficult people never looking inward to improve themselves. They aren’t going away and you can’t ever rid them from your life BUT you can learn to get along with them.
As a recovering difficult person myself, I am an expert at spotting difficult people. The reason I’m really great at this is because the more I learn about myself and outgrow my difficult behaviours, the more I can spot them in other people who have not outgrown that behaviour yet and in some cases aren’t even aware of it. And let me tell you that as an adult child of an alcoholic, I had a ton of difficult behaviours to outgrow and I’m still working on some of them!
Signs that you might be a difficult person:
- You hardly listen to others. You have fixed & rigid ideas. The only way of thinking is your way and you’re unable to see a different perspective. It’s very black and white thinking. Your communication style is to listen to respond instead of listening to understand. Or sometimes you change the subject completely if it’s not something that you are interested in, regardless of the other person’s interest. You are not the center of the universe and neither is anyone else. For a short time, babies and kids are the centre of the universe because this is how they learn to meet their own needs. This is a necessary part of the growing up and learning process for them.
- You are quick to criticize and easily irritated by others. Their behaviour really bothers you and you have trouble accepting their individuality, especially when it’s very different than yours. Some people claim to be for diversity and inclusion, but yet their social circle is a bunch of people exactly like them and you don’t belong if you’re different. People are unique and that is one of the most exciting things about them. There is only one of them! They have so much to offer from their perspective on the world and so much they can teach us to expand our minds!
- You focus on the negative and draw-backs to an idea. When someone is excited and tells you about an idea they have, do you automatically start talking about some of the challenges they might encounter or the negatives to the idea? Do you become the devil’s advocate? This is really demoralizing for the person with the idea. Supportive people ask questions about the idea and ask how they can help. I remember when I had first decided to start a life coaching business and I told one of my friends, she immediately jumped to what she perceived as the negatives. I remember thinking “Why can’t she just be excited for me instead of picking apart something that I am very excited about?”
- You lack patience and tolerance. When people don’t catch on to things as fast as you would like, you get very impatient. You have trouble understanding why you have to clarify yourself when people don’t understand you. As a mom of many, this was something I had to learn and I had to learn it FAST. Not only for my sanity, but for the sanity of my whole family. No one will ever see the world the same way you do and the sooner you can drill that into your brain, the better off you will be. No two people process information the same nor do they have the same experiences, so it makes sense that they would have different thoughts, feelings and perspectives than you do. As a mom, I had to get very good at breaking things down to the basics to teach my children how to do things without shaming them for not knowing and to put myself into their shoes. How would they know if no one had taught them yet? And sometimes, it takes more than once for them to really get it. But sometimes it takes me more than once before I get things too!
- Every time there’s conflict, you tend to blame others without considering if you might be part of the problem. Do you look at yourself to find your part in the conflict? Conflict always takes two people. A good example of this is when a misunderstanding happens. First, it’s important to note that misunderstandings can happen often when communication is not clear and/or people don’t clarify what they understood. It’s never always the other person’s fault. Either someone has misunderstood something, someone wasn’t as clear as they could have been or sometimes they have an unrealistic unstated expectation and get mad when you don’t meet it. An example of an unrealistic unstated expectation would be when someone expects you to meet all of your responsibilities at the expense of your mental and physical health. Sometimes we feel under the weather or have a lot on our plates and need a break. Maybe you didn’t get the laundry done today that you said you would. This is where good communication can eliminate conflict from happening in the first place.
So how can you learn to get along with difficult people and stop being difficult yourself?
- Seek to understand before being understood. You will find that difficult people listen to respond instead of listening to understand. This makes conversations very difficult though often you will find that they are unavoidable. It becomes your responsibility to find out what they understood, especially if it’s clear by their response that they did not understand you. Good communication states that when someone speaks to you, you should tell them what you heard them say in your own words to make sure that you received the information correctly before responding. People say things in their own way and may have different meanings than you.
- Sometimes you will find that people only talk about themselves but when you reflect back on your conversations, are you contributing to the conversation? Do you give one word answers or do you elaborate and give them something to continue the conversation with? I have found that “private people” we’ll call them can be difficult to speak to. They lock up their life so much that they make it extremely difficult to carry on a conversation with them. Be open about the things that light you up!
- Communicate, communicate, and communicate! About everything. Let people know what you need instead of making them try to read your mind about what you need and how you’re feeling. When you’re overwhelmed, let people know. Most people will cut you some slack if they you have a lot going on. If you have a preference, request it. If something isn’t working for you, make it known.
- Take responsibility for yourself and don’t ever blame other people. If you have a mindset of everything is your fault, this will help you grow even faster because you will never rely on someone else to change to get what you need. Be careful though, a difficult person will always tell you it’s your fault so make sure you’re only owning up to your part in anything. Like misunderstandings. Instead of telling someone they weren’t clear, you can say that you misunderstood and will try to clarify next time. Maybe you let your emotions get the best of you. It’s ok to own up to your part in it regardless of if someone else’s behaviour led you to it. That’s their part to own. Your responsibility is to manage your emotions in any situation. If someone blames you for their feelings, it’s ok to validate their feelings without accepting responsibility for it. That might sound like “Oh that sounds really awful.” If you did something wrong, then own your part. Maybe it was the way you said it or the timing was wrong.
- If someone is lacking patience with you when you’re learning something or trying to understand something, let them know that you appreciate them taking the time to break it down for you. Making them feel good about themselves usually minimizes conflict from ensuing and gives them a little more patience and tolerance.
- If people criticize you, get curious about their perspective. Often times they’ve made assumptions or haven’t stated their needs. Getting curious can stop this from escalating unnecessarily. I was once called rigid and never received a response when I asked how so I’m not sure, but that one stumped me. I’m one of the most flexible people I know! People tend to project so if someone criticizes you, get curious, but take it with a grain of salt. Usually it has nothing to do with you but rather is a reflection of that person’s inner world. Either communicate how that made you feel and/or let it go.
My last piece of advice for you today is to find your people. If your goal is to become easier to get along with, and as a result less of a difficult person, then surround yourself with people who are doing the inner work. It’s not easy work but it’s work you won’t regret.
That’s it for today! Please share this podcast with someone you know and help share my message. The goal is to grow the podcast and I can only do that with your help so I appreciate it. I do this for you! Remember to love yourself first. You know yourself better than anyone else and be confident that you will make the right decisions for how to live YOUR best life.
If you’re looking for more motivation to achieve YOUR goals in life, join my Facebook group! This is an amazing community of like minded people! You can find it in my profile on Instagram @valcpoirier. Also, tag me in your stories with my podcast and what you think or what you’re doing while you listen to it and I’ll share it right back in mine! You are worthy and you are beautiful and I truly appreciate you all. Keep reaching for your goals….you got this! See you next time!