HOW TO DEAL WITH DIFFICULT PEOPLE: Advanced Methods and Strategies to Deal with Difficult People

By Catherine Dizon

It's not always easy to smile and nod when dealing with difficult people, especially when they know how to push all your buttons. Unfortunately, we can't always limit our interactions with challenging friends, family members, co-workers, or bosses. However, we can learn to stand up to them and prioritize our mental and emotional well-being when

• Language: English
• Publisher: Catherine Dizon
• Release date: Jul 27, 2023
• ISBN: 9781088231760

Book preview

Introduction

It’s not always easy to smile and nod when dealing with difficult people, especially when they know how to push all your buttons. Unfortunately, we can’t always limit our interactions with challenging friends, family members, co-workers, or bosses. However, we can learn to stand up to them and prioritize our mental and emotional well-being when we have to deal with them.

No one can drain your energy like someone who constantly complains or is conditioned to focus on the empty half of the cup. Being around difficult individuals can make you feel anxious and trigger the release of stress hormones. If you have to deal with this person on a daily basis, you are bound to experience stress-related symptoms such as sleep problems, changes in your appetite, and cognitive difficulties, which can take a toll on your physical health.

Spending time around these individuals can significantly hinder your productivity. If you don’t know how to put them in their place, they’ll always find ways to criticize your work, belittle you, and point out your smallest shortcomings. This can be very demotivating and demoralizing, which causes your self-confidence to take a dive, and makes you doubt your abilities.

You have to be very tactful when handling a challenging person. Otherwise, your efforts will blow up in your face. Difficult people are often manipulative, are masters at turning the tables, and will do everything in their power to ensure that they get their way. This means that you always need to have a strategy and a well-thought-out plan before you approach them.

Fortunately, by reading this book, you’ll find out what to expect from difficult people so you’re not thrown off guard by their behaviors. You’ll come across techniques that will help you communicate effectively with them and understand why effective communication can make challenging people easier to deal with. Then, you’ll find several tips and tricks for handling difficult people and standing up to them. This book also explains why learning to influence difficult people is important and how you can do it.

Reading this guide will allow you to determine when it’s time to cut these toxic individuals off and how to avoid them safely, and it will teach you how to tackle changes with highly resistant individuals. High self-control and self-awareness are key when handling uncooperative people, which is why you’ll come across strategies and methods you can use to refine these skills.

Chapter 1

Communicating

with Difficult People

By reading this chapter, you’ll learn what effective communication is and how dealing with a difficult person can prevent productive interactions. You’ll find out how effective communication techniques can help you deal with uncooperative individuals and understand the basics of communicating with unresponsive people. You’ll also know the 4 key steps that you need to implement into these types of interactions. Finally, you’ll come across a few tips and tricks that will help you communicate effectively with someone who is resistant to everything you say.

What Is Effective Communication?

Effective communication techniques allow you to express your beliefs, thoughts, and ideas to others and openly receive those of others. Effective communication happens in a healthy and respectful manner.

Proper communication involves a lot more than merely verbalizing one’s message. The message must be meaningful, easy to understand, clear, free of ambiguity and errors, complete and straight to the point, and reliable. When delivering the message, one should account for their attitude, word choice, and setting. They should also consider the other party’s age, perceptions, cognitive limitations, educational level, and cultural background. Most importantly, the message should be worded and delivered with respect and modesty.

While some people are natural-born communicators, others require some practice before they are able to effectively get their messages across. The art of effective communication requires you to work on your observation skills. This will help you find out more about the recipient to determine how to speak to them and how they’re responding to you. Being an active listener and exhibiting emotional intelligence shows the other party that you understand and respect their point of view and allows you to come up with a response that addresses their concerns and creates the desired effect. Being a good communicator, especially when dealing with difficult people requires you to be assertive and confident in your ability to convey the message.

Communicating with Difficult People

Some people are naturally easier to deal with than others. You’ll come across individuals who are so easy to get along with that you don’t even have to think twice about what you’re going to say. On the other hand, you’ll meet people who’ll make you feel like you need to walk on eggshells around them. It’s almost like they’re ready to hold everything you say against you even if you don’t give them a reason to.

We all have different backgrounds, whether it’s due to gender, age, culture, educational, social, ethnic, or spiritual differences. The bigger the differences, the more challenging the communication process becomes. Even if the speaker’s message is tolerant and understanding, they can’t guarantee that the recipient would be open to a different perspective.

Difficult people are often characterized by their resistance to change and understanding. They are quick to dismiss slightly different views, which means that even if you manage to express your ideas, the recipient won’t necessarily listen to what you have to say.

Obstacles in communication don’t only arise from stubbornness, closed-mindedness, or differences, but they can also result from a poorly formed perspective or personal experience. The beliefs and perspectives shaped by personal experiences are often the most difficult to change. People who lack social and emotional intelligence are also difficult to communicate with. They’ll find it hard to relate to your experiences and messages, which makes them unresponsive to your opinions. Individuals who aren’t patient enough to listen to what a person has to say and jump to conclusions hinder communication efforts.

When planning to communicate with someone, it helps to reflect on your differences. This will allow you to determine where the communication gaps are likely to lie and how you can address them.

How Effective Communication Can Help You Deal with Difficult People

You must be very careful about what you say when dealing with a difficult person, which is why you need to practice effective communication techniques. Good communicators can carefully select the word choice and sentence structure needed to create the desired impact, leaving no room for misinterpretation and confusion. When your messages are straight to the point and unambiguous, the recipient won’t be able to hold much against you or twist your words around.

When you’re dealing with a difficult person, you may feel compelled to agree with them so you can take the argument to the grave. Excellent communication techniques, however, allow you to get the desired outcomes. Instead of being manipulated into letting the whole thing go, you can take charge of the conversation by learning to choose and deliver your words mindfully.

Talking to a difficult person can often feel like you’re talking to a brick wall. This can be infuriating and provoking. That said, you need to keep your anger in check when you’re communicating with an unapproachable person. Yelling and saying things you don’t mean will worsen your position and prove the other person right. Effective communication strategies can help you stay level-headed and teach you to choose your words without letting your feelings get in the way.

Even though it’s challenging, getting on a difficult person’s good side can be the key to great communication. This doesn’t mean that you have to agree with everything they’re saying. It simply means that you have to get them to trust you. You can’t expect anyone to listen to you, let alone be convinced of your ideas and opinions if there’s a lack of trust. If you want people to listen to what you’re saying, you need to show them that you can listen first. Even if you don’t share their opinion, they’ll know that they can talk to you without feeling attacked or judged. Active listening is one of the cornerstones of effective communication.

The Basics of Communicating with Difficult People

You need to learn a few basic communication strategies before we go over techniques that will allow you to communicate effectively with difficult people.

Conflict Resolution Approaches

When dealing with a challenging individual, conflicts are unavoidable. Learning how they approach conflicts and resolutions allows you to adjust your approach accordingly. This requires you to identify your own conflict resolution style and calls for a high level of self-awareness. By understanding the different approaches and how to deal with them, you’ll be able to determine which communication strategies would be effective in each of your interactions.

Direct Approach: Individuals with a direct conflict resolution approach are generally very productive and competitive. They are also driven, focused on tasks, and prioritize getting things done.

When dealing with those individuals, you won’t always be given an opportunity to get a word in. Don’t wait for them to give you a signal to talk. Instead, listen to what you have to say and build a direct argument accordingly. Make sure that your message is straight to the point and that you’re assertive when it comes to your ideas.

Avoidance Approach: Not all difficult individuals are ready to attack. Some won’t be willing to participate in a conversation or try to solve the problem. They’d rather avoid the argument or confrontation rather than endure the discomfort.

When communicating