How Not to Let Negative Behavior People Rule Out Your Peace of Mind!

There is no dearth of people out there who operate with other people with negative and bad behaviour. You may find them within your family, neighbour, workplace, associates and friends too. When you have to deal with the negative behaviour of the people every day or you when you cannot avoid them, then they will possibly make your life miserable. Today Psychologist & Relationship Counsellor Shivani Misri Sadhoo shares some important tips to deal with people's unpleasant behaviour effectively.

Psychologist Sadhoo shares that when someone exhibits destructive, mean or otherwise non-caring behaviour, they are usually acting out from something going on with them, not with you. They may say it is about you – “Oh, you make me SO mad!” – but the reality is that people who manifest these negative behaviours are showing an outward display of inward pain or hurt.

It is true that it is not easy to remember that the other person is in pain when he/she is yelling at you, trying to undermine you, being unnecessarily nasty, and/or ignoring you. However, if you don’t recognise that they are in pain, you will be at the biggest loss, their pain actually becomes your pain, you will keep thinking as to how to deal with them next time, you will think about saying just the right thing to knock them off.

In other words, your mind and your attention will be drawn to the person’s negative behaviour. The problem here is that the other person behaiour doesn’t change. Your attempts to say “just the right thing” won’t shift their unhappiness within themselves (unless you are a trained therapist). So the cycle continues. They act badly, you react and feel bad, and nothing changes.

Next time you encounter someone’s bad behaviour, realise that you can own your reactions and actions, and can actually shift the dynamic and lessen the sting inflicted by the negative person. It takes work and it isn’t easy, but if you are game, try these five steps next time you encounter the difficult ones:

1. Seek to understand.  When you first time experience a bad behaviour, instead of wasting your mental energy on pain , anger and emotions, ask yourself: “Is there something else at work here?” You typically react to the bad behaviour; instead, simply pause to ask what’s underneath the bad behaviour. Some negative actions require compassion, which mostly are loathed to give when they have been injured somehow.

2. Do Analysis. Instead of just reacting and then trying to find a pal with whom you can share what has happened and tell all the bad words about the person’s bad behaviour, take a moment to act like a detective and analyse the situation with facts and data: “My boss always yells, he seems to like to yell about everything, perhaps that’s what he thinks is the desired way of talking to juniors and delegate or assign work. I am not here to change him nor I have the time to do so, so let me just finish my work instead of focusing on the behaviour.

3.  Identify the impact. If your sister in law is just an unhappy and a rude person, but it doesn’t really affect anything in your life? If someone is negative toward you, and it doesn’t really impact you, just let it go. Let her stay happy in her world and you in yours.– just walk away, and get on with your day.

4.  Giving up the desire to win:  Yes, this one is extremely difficult, especially in personal relationships when you know you are “right”. Fighting to win doesn’t actually benefit anyone. It just leaves negative feelings in its wake and makes things worst for the future. So the intelligence is not in repeatedly trying to prove your point and wasting your time and energy, just learn to walk away.