“The person who constantly angers you or frustrates you…controls you.”
Do you know any difficult people? Have you ever worked or lived with a difficult person? Are you a difficult person?! It’s amazing how many participants come up to me at the end of one of my programs and confide, ‘Colleen, I think sometimes I’m a difficult person and just realized it today!’ We can all be difficult at times. But what do you do with the person who is chronically difficult?
A key to getting through the upcoming holidays is learning to live with difficult people. Because there will always be difficult people. Here are three points to remember:
2) Low self-esteem is often the culprit.
3) You won’t always please everyone.
All behavior has a positive intention. Take for example the gossip. When someone is always gossiping about everyone else, who are they trying to make look better? Themselves. That’s their positive intention. They frequently have low self-esteem. They don’t realize that when they’re gossiping about others, that people are thinking, “I wonder what they say about me when I’m not around?!”
Lastly, you can’t please everyone. Sometimes for whatever reason, someone won’t like you. Be careful with your words. I often have my participants take the following pledge. It adds humor but gets the point across: “On my honor, I promise, when dealing with a difficult person, that I will bite my tongue and count to ten, because if I don’t, I may say something that I will live to regret!”
Colleen Seward Ryan is a dynamic speaker and author who has appeared on television talk shows as well as conducted over 1,000 programs worldwide for top corporations and associations since 1995.
Colleen Seward Ryan is available for seminars, keynotes and breakout sessions by calling (623)340-7690.
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