Why it really is so difficult to deal with difficult people, and 5 things you can do about it

“If we change the way we interact with others, they will have no choice but to change the way they interact with us.” ~Victor Schueller

After my interview with yesterday’s guest, Janice Harper, I thought about some of the things we discussed, particularly in regard to labels and the “consequences” of labeling people.  It reminded me of one of the most significant lessons I learned a few years ago, and I wanted to share it with you today.

A few years ago, my wife and I attended a seminar titled something like, “Dealing with difficult people.”  The information we gleaned from that session was extremely valuable.  I learned a lot, and to be frank with you, I do consider that session that day to be the start of this chapter in my life of helping people forge better relationships.  I still have the workbook and notes I took, and from time to time I refer back to it when I need to refresh my memory of some of the concepts of that session.

Who is a difficult person anyway?  How do you define it?  Is it someone that doesn’t agree with you?  Is it someone who shares a different way of dealing with problems than you?  Is it someone who makes you feel uncomfortable?

The reason it is so difficult to deal with difficult people is because it’s very difficult, if not impossible to define exactly what a “difficult” person is.  This doesn’t mean that people who give us difficulty don’t exist, or that we are excusing what we would consider “poor” or “ineffective” behaviors…It just means that it’s hard to know who the difficult person really is and how they are defined as such.

Whenever you start attaching “labels” to a person, you are judging them.  When you judge someone, you are unconsciously putting them into a category of either “good” or “bad,” and when someone ends up on your “bad” list, it’s darn hard to get them off of it.  What’s more is that once you are convinced that your judgment about that person is correct, you will go through significant lengths to validate your opinion.  You will seek behaviors and words that support the fact that you believe this person to be difficult.

One major take-away that I got from the session, and the real “ah ha!” moment that I experienced had everything to do with perspective.  Some people call it a paradigm shift.  Once I figured it out, there was no going back…Are you ready for it?

Here it is:

Did you ever stop to think that everything the difficult person is to you may be the “everything” you are to them?  Did you ever think that perhaps — get ready for this one — you (yes you) could be considered a difficult person in the eyes of someone else?

That’s why it’s so hard to define who a difficult person is, because everybody has the potential to be labeled as “difficult” in the eyes of another.  It’s all about perspective.

So, now that I perhaps broadened your perspective a bit, you may be thinking what you can do about it, now that you have this person who you think is difficult, while at the same time may think you are difficult.  It’s a bit of a dance.

Here’s my list of 5 things you can do about your dealings with people you may perceive to be difficult:

1. Accept people’s perspective to be 100% accurate in their eyes.  We all view the world through our own eyes, mind, past experiences, emotions, assumptions, judgments, and thought processes.  We are in no position to question the validity of what others perceive.  This doesn’t mean we have to agree with their perspective — we just have to accept that what they see is what they see.

2. Show that we value another person’s needs (the need to be listened to, respected, valued, etc.) as much as our own.  If we put our own needs as a priority over the needs of others, we will come across as being aggressive and uncaring, which rarely leads to positive outcomes.  If we put others’ needs before our own, then we will come across as passive (or passive-aggressive, which is even worse), and we will soon find ourselves unhappy and unfulfilled.  We need to maintain a healthy balance of valuing others’ needs as much as our own.

3. Realize that others do not make us “feel” anything.  Other people do not make us feel angry, upset, sad, disappointed, or happy for that manner.  By believing this to be true, two things happen…One, we shift blame on to someone else, excusing our role in our emotions and we become powerless; two, we assign tremendous power to someone other than ourselves, and then we become extremely “dependent” on this other person’s actions and words to provide a “barometer” to how we feel.  We need to maintain control of our own feelings, and the number one way to do this is to realize we — and we alone — make us “feel” the way we do.

4. Think about how the actions of others really impact our lives.  We naturally are curious about what other people are doing.  One downside to this is that if someone is doing something that we feel is wrong or incorrect, we can spend an awful amount of time pointing out the fact that they are doing something wrong without any real power or ability (or real motivation) to change what we see as wrong.  Another downside is that we start focusing more on what other people are doing wrong and letting it influence what we do than we really need to.  A great question to ask is “How is this really impacting my ability to do what I need to do?”  If we find that the actions, either wrong or right, are not interfering with our ability to complete our tasks, then we have to return our focus on to ourselves, and let things be.

5. Above all, practice empathy and compassion for others.  Peggy Smith, a certified N0n-Violent Communication trainer who joined me on my radio show a few weeks back, recommended (I am paraphrasing) that we interact with other people with a sense of wonder and curiosity.  When someone does or says something, we can try to ask ourselves why the person may have said that, and more so, what the person feels they need, which is contributing to their words or behavior.  Many times, when people yell or shout, it is really because they have a need they feel is being unmet.  If we can truly attempt to seek out what the other person needs, and why this unfulfilled need is leading to their words or behaviors, we will find ourselves exercising empathy — we’re trying to put ourselves in the “shoes” of another, and trying to understand what they are going through.  By practicing empathy and displaying compassion, we will have a much softer approach toward others and it will show, because we’ll be demonstrating that we value their needs.

If you hadn’t noticed, everything we can do to deal with people we may perceive as difficult has nothing to do with external actions or behaviors.  It all has to do with how we process our thoughts and feelings internally.  The key to dealing with people we believe to be difficult is that dealing with them is an internal job.  Our goal is not to eliminate those who we feel may be difficult, but to figure out how we can mentally manage our relationships with them.  If we change the way we interact with others, they will have no choice but to change the way they interact with us.

Best wishes,

-Victor

Photo source: freedigitalphotos.net