How To Deal With Difficult People At Work- Different Approach

All right. In this post, we’re going to talk about how to deal with difficult people at work. So if you have difficult people that you work with, you’re going to love this post.

So stay tuned.
 

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First off, I’d like to start with an example of a difficult person that I work with. I’m not going to say her name because I don’t know if she’s going to read this.
 
 

 
 

So first of all, I’m going to tell you a little story about this lady.

When I was doing office admin work, I would be in charge of keeping the kitchen stocked and doing everything that was required to keep the office running, you know, all the stuff that is reception kind of stuff, but just basically everything, right?
 

So we had this new lady come to work at the office, and she was very, very vigilant and very perfectionist with everything that happened in the office.
 

She would be right about a lot of things.
 

So because I was dealing with a lot of HR stuff as well, sometimes I wouldn’t be super on top of everything.
 

She would point things out, and I would be like, “Yup, totally right. Totally going to make sure that gets done. Going to either assign it to someone or I will get it done myself.”
 

But, it came to the point where she was just nitpicking about little things that really didn’t matter and I started to get really, really irritated by it.
 
 

 
 

So this is one of the things that happened…

She’d tapped me on the shoulder and said: “Hey, Natalie. Come with me,” when I was at my desk working,.
 

She’s like, “Hey, I need to show you something. This is really important.” I’m like, “Okay.”
 

So I got up. I went with her. She takes me to the kitchen, opens up the fridge, and she says, “Hey, I noticed that you placed these soy milk containers in, and they are the wrong way round. What happens when they’re the wrong way round is that you could get spillage, and then … “
 

Then she went on to describe to me what a horrible catastrophe might happen because the soy milk containers were placed wrong in the fridge.
 

She took me away from my work to show me this.
 

So I was like, “Okay, you could be right about that.”
 

But in my head, I’m just like, “Seriously?”
 

And I was getting really irritated by it, okay?
 

So several of these things would happen, long story short, and I let it bother me on a daily basis.
 

So instead of thinking to myself, “Oh my God. She’s driving me nuts. She could do my job better,” like I was thinking all these thoughts that were really driving me crazy.
 
 

 
 

I decided to shift it to how is it that her brain works.

Why does she think this is so important?
 

So I started asking her a bunch of questions, and she would just answering the questions. So, I got a better understanding of how her brain worked.
 

And now, instead of being like, “Oh, she’s so annoying,” I’m like, “She’s so interesting. Her brain works in such an interesting way.”
 

That was a way that helped me to change how I was reacting. We have a much better relationship now, and everything is fine.
 

So then, what I want to give to you is give yourself some criteria that you’d like to live up to.
 

So in this situation where you’re dealing with a difficult person, are you happy with how you are showing up? So for me, I was not happy.
 

I did not want to be that person who was irritated all the time, so I changed my thoughts around it and was able to show up in a different way now.
 
 

 
 

Now I’m just curious about it, right?

And I’m amused by it. I’m like, “Yeah, that’s funny that you think these things are so important. Why?”
 

I’m showing up in a better way. I’m happier around the situation, and I’m not suffering, whereas before I was like, “This is so annoying!”
 

That’s something you can give to yourself, is just give yourself some criteria. Ask yourself, “How do you want to show up?”
 

Because you cannot control this person. They are who they are. They’re going to act how they’re going to act. You can’t do anything about that.
 

How do you want to show up in the face of this situation?
 

And are you happy?
 

And if you’re not, if you want to show up differently, then ask yourself, “How would you have to think to show up differently?”
 

So basically, what type of person do you want to be in this situation?
 
 

 
 

Because that’s the only thing you can control.

So when you realize this, you can’t control any other people’s thoughts or feelings or emotions, you can’t control how they feel about you or what they think about you, and I’m sure that you already know that, but once you just bring yourself back to that, you can control what you choose to think and whether it serves you or not.
 

And if you’re showing up in a way that you’re not happy with or you’re not proud of, then you’re thinking thoughts that are not serving you and you can become aware of them.
 

You’ll know they’re not serving you if they’re making you feel irritated, angry, like you don’t want to go to work, like you don’t want to talk to them.
 
 

 
 

Those feelings, those thoughts are going to make you feel emotions that are not very satisfying.

They’re not very nice, right?
 

So you could change those thoughts to I wonder what that person’s motivation is?
 

Why is that so important to them? Why are they behaving like this? Maybe I’ll just ask them a few questions or, ha, that’s really funny.
 

Why are they doing that? Or, yeah, that’s just how that person is.
 

They just overreact sometimes. Just some examples there of how you can turn it around and everything that you can do is in your control, right?
 

The things that you can do are what you’re thinking, how you’re showing up, and who you are being in these situations.
 

Because difficult people are going to come along no matter what, right? So it’s all about what you do when they come up, right?
 

When you meet them, when you work with them, when you got to work on a project with them, it’s all about who you are being.
 
 

 
 

In conclusion

That’s it.
 

Choose to think thoughts that are going to serve you, thoughts that are going to have you showing up as the person you want to be, as someone you’d be proud to work with and not somebody who is pulling down a situation because of your feelings or your negative emotion.
 

Just keep in mind the results that you want to get.
 

So if you’re working on a project with somebody, the results that you want to get are more important than your feelings towards the person, right?
 
 

 
 

Your feelings towards the person can be changed with your thoughts around it.

So you can say, “You know what? This person thinks this, this person is doing that, but what we really need to focus on is what’s important here. What do we need to get done, and how can we do that?”
 

What that person is dealing with right now is going to have to be worked around.
 

Maybe you can find out more information. But what’s the end goal here?
 

And if that person’s behavior is getting in the way of it, then we need to talk about that.
 

We need to explain to them why their behavior is getting in the way of our result.
 

And if it’s not getting in the way that the result, then it’s just a personal thing and you need to work your mind in a way, manage your mind in a way that makes you show up in the way you want to show up.
 
 

 
 

If you’d like more information or you want to talk about working together, I have a free workshop to get you started.

What you’re going to get on the workshop is the two main components that lead to success in any situation.
 

I’m going to walk you through the main coaching tool that I use to solve problems with any of my clients.
 

Bring any problem.
 

We’ll work through it. I’m going to show you how to apply that in your life.
 

I’m going to show you how the thinking that you’ve been thinking up until now, the thoughts you’ve been thinking up until now have created the results you have now and how to change those results, if you want to, and what your next steps are going to be to get started immediately on the right path in the direction that you want to go in your life.
 

So if you’re interested in working with me, check out that workshop below.

SIGN UP TO WATCH THE FREE WORKSHOP HERE

Get started right away.
 

I hope to see you there.
 

So I hope that made sense. Little story there from me.
 

I have some lots of experience working with “difficult people” and I hope that that helped.
 

Do you know one person who could benefit from the information in this post? If so, do your friend a favor and share this info with him/her.

And remember, the current system isn’t perfect, but you can outsmart it. I’m here to prove to you that you do have what it takes.

I’ll see you next time and I can’t wait!

In Work & Life

I’ve got your back

– XO Natalie