The Mindset Mentor - How To Deal With Difficult People

Starting point is 00:00:00 Welcome to today's episode of the Mindset Mentor Podcast. I'm your host, Rob Dial. If you have not yet done so, hit that subscribe button so you never miss another episode. I put out episodes four times a week to help you learn who you are, how to grow so that you can create a better life. So if that seems intriguing to you, hit that subscribe button. Today, I'm going to be talking about how to deal with difficult people. Listen, people are interesting. People are amazing. They're the most intriguing thing in the world to me to learn about people, but people are also very difficult sometimes. And every person that you meet comes with a history of a million little teeny tiny moments in their lives that have made them who they are. You know, whether it's a co-worker who's really stubborn and hard to deal with, maybe it's a family member that's

Starting point is 00:01:00 really critical of you, maybe it's your crazy neighbor across the street. Maybe it's your children. Maybe it's your spouse. And so today what I want to talk to you about is how to work with and deal with people who are really difficult for you. And mostly the reason why I think this is important is so that you can maintain your mental health. Because in my opinion, you maintaining your mental health is the most important thing that you should be focusing on every single day. And caveat to all this, I'm going to mostly be talking about other people in today's episode, but I do want to actually say it is very important to look at how you also show up in all of your relationships and take responsibility for how you show up in a relationship. And this

Starting point is 00:01:47 episode is not just about blaming other people for the way that they are. I'm going to be talking a lot about other people, but as an adult, it's important for you to actually take responsibility for how you show up in all of your relationships as well. And so the first thing when you really start to look at people and you really start to see that someone is difficult, my first question that always goes off in my head is why? I always go back to the question why. It's important to understand and think about like, why is somebody difficult? And people who have the most difficult behaviors, you have to realize that those are either learned behaviors or they are coping mechanisms for really deep issues that are most likely unhealed trauma in their past. For instance, you know, if you find somebody

Starting point is 00:02:32 who you work with, maybe you have an aunt that's just a really overly critical person. Well, she might have grown up in an environment where she constantly faced judgment. And so she just learned that behavior and she adopted that behavior as just a defense mechanism. You know, if you're around somebody and somebody is really, really aggressive, there's a good chance that their home environment was very aggressive and hostile as well. And so you can look at that and say, man, like, yeah, this is a really aggressive adult. But as a child, if they had that aggressive behavior around them, I actually feel bad for that child. You know, if somebody is overly emotional, sometimes there's a good chance that that's just what they learned to get what they want when they

Starting point is 00:03:21 were a child. And now I understand I am definitely generalizing, but in most cases, this is how people become who they are. And so when I see an adult that is angry, that is critical, that is aggressive, that is really difficult to deal with, or that is throwing an adult temper tantrum, I know just as what I've been doing for a really long time, that what I'm actually seeing is just an unhealed child that happens to be an adult body. It's hard

Starting point is 00:03:51 not to have more and more empathy for the more that I hear that people have to go through in their childhood and the struggles that they go through, the traumas that they grow through, the terrible things that have happened to people in their life. And the longer that I do this, the more empathy that I have towards people. And so I understand if you've never coached people or worked with people, it's hard to have that empathy. But when you're seeing an adult that is mean, aggressive, angry, throwing a temper tantrum, whatever it might be, what you're seeing is a unhealed child that happens to be an adult body. And so many people nowadays are under so much stress, they're under so much anxiety,

Starting point is 00:04:29 and they have not been given the tools to work through it. And so as adults, let's be real, most of us were never taught how to work through emotions, how to self-pacify, how to regulate our nervous systems. And so that's the first thing I wanna say before we dive a little bit deeper into it is when you look at people who are difficult to deal with, there are reasons why they are so difficult to deal with and why they are who they are. So as we start to talk about relationships that you guys have, the first thing you need to decide in your relationships is really looking at them and

Starting point is 00:05:05 thinking to yourself, who should stay and who should go? And once again, the most important piece of this whole thing is your mental health. Your mental health is the most important thing in your life because it affects every aspect of your life. And so you also need to decide how you want your interactions with other people to be. And before we start diving into the different types of people and categories of people who you have in your life, I want to ask you a question. I want you just to think about this.

Starting point is 00:05:31 And if anybody comes up, these are the people you should obviously deal with first. And the question is, in your life right now, who are you tolerating? Who are you tolerating in your life where you're just like, I'm doing this because I have to, or because I feel like I need to. What I would do is I would write down those one or two or three people

Starting point is 00:05:51 that you are tolerating and start to work through those relationships. Those are the first relationships that you need to have some analyzing with. Does anybody come to mind? If they do, those people that pop up, those are the ones we got to work with first. Right. And so the important thing to realize that is if, if you don't know how you feel about someone, like if you're like, okay, I'm not really sure how I feel about this person.

Starting point is 00:06:18 I want you to understand this. Your body will always tell you how you feel about somebody. You know, if you're stressed, whenever a certain person is around and you're trying to talk yourself out of it, well, then your body's trying to tell you something, you know, if you're stressed whenever they're around, but you know, like say it's, you're, you're really stressed whenever you're around this person, but they are your husband's aunt and you're, you're mentally trying to talk yourself into it, is you can mentally try to talk yourself into anything, but your body's going to be telling you what's going on. Or, you know, it's saying, hey, you need to fix this problem. You need to check in with your body and always realize that

Starting point is 00:06:55 your body is giving you signals. And those ones, if you're tolerating, or if you're trying to figure out how you feel about somebody, you're checking with your body, those are the first relationships I would try to work through. And before we go any further, I'm going to say this in the nicest way possible. It is okay to give yourself permission to cut people off, even if it's just for a few months. Like it doesn't have to be forever. It's okay to cut people off. And so the first category I want to kind of go through and have you start to think about is your family, right? If it's someone in your family, sure, I've definitely dealt with people who have cut people off in their life.

Starting point is 00:07:32 But if it's someone that you want to maintain a relationship with, you might need to figure out how to deal with them and how you actually want your relationship to be. You know, like if your mother calls you uh, mother calls you and every time she talks to you, she's just doom and gloom and talking about how terrible things are. And you notice that, that you feel worse after, I'm not saying like, don't pick up your mom's phone calls, but you teach people how to talk to you. And so you could say to her like, Hey mom, I'm working on my own mental health. Please stop calling me and telling me all of the things that you see in the news. And please stop telling me about all of the stuff that you're reading online.

Starting point is 00:08:10 And then someone's like, oh, you're going to say your mom's like, oh, well, I'm just trying to protect you. Hey, listen, I appreciate that. And I love that you're trying to protect me, but I'm just setting a new boundary. I'm really working on my mental health. Please don't call me and tell me anything bad or anything negative. Can you respect that? Yeah, maybe she can. And do you think that she's probably going to do it again? Of course.

Starting point is 00:08:33 And so when she does, it's about maintaining the boundaries, which we'll talk about in just a few minutes. And so the important thing is to realize is you teach people how to talk to you. And through that, even if you've never verbally actually said your boundaries, people are always picking up your boundaries or lack of boundaries for a lot of people is a better way of saying it. Let's say, for instance, you got coworkers, right? Let's say you have a coworker that's just brash. They're just a complete asshole. Maybe there's a little bit of an asshole and it's like, hey, you know, you teach people how to talk to you. Hey, George, listen, I'd appreciate if you don't talk to me that way. Cool. What you're doing is you're setting your own boundaries. You are teaching

Starting point is 00:09:08 him how to talk to you. If there's resistance towards it, stay firm to it. It's not, we're not coming at somebody and like arguing with them. It's just, hey, I'd appreciate if you don't speak to me like that. Cool. Hey, I just appreciate if you don't speak to that person that way. And so what you do is, is if you have coworkers that are, that are hard to deal with and you have to be at work, well, you know, make sure you communicate what your boundaries are in a very firm, but loving way. And, um, you know, if you have old friends, let me first say that it's okay to grow apart. You know, it is okay to grow apart from people. Some people are only meant to be in your life for a little while. And so it's important for you to go through and assess every friendship that you have, every relationship that you have, and decide whether they're coming with you into the next

Starting point is 00:09:52 chapter or not. And once again, I'm saying you don't have to cut people off forever, but you can distance yourself for a little while and just see how you feel. And if you start to think about somebody, if you're like, okay, you've got this friend from college, maybe they were your roommate in college, you've been friends for 20 years, you can sit down with a pen and paper and say, how do I feel about this person? And check in with your body once again. And your body's going to say, oh yeah, like I can feel like a tightness in my chest whenever

Starting point is 00:10:19 I start to think about them. Okay, what is that? What's behind it? What am I feeling? Why am I feeling that way? And then you can start to think about them. Okay, what is that? What's behind it? What am I feeling? Why am I feeling that way? And then you can start to make some plans. And once again, it's super important to think through things, but it's also really important to check in with your body and see how your body is feeling through things as well. And then you have relationships, maybe your significant

Starting point is 00:10:38 other, you know, check in. How do you feel? Are there certain aspects of your relationship that you love? Are there certain aspects of your relationship that you love? Are there certain aspects of your relationship that you want to mold and shift and change? Relationships, no matter what relationship it is, whether it's a significant other, whether it's your family, whether it's your friends, whether it's your co-workers, all of them are meant to grow and shift over time. They're not supposed to stay the same as they were 15 years ago because people grow and change over time as well. And so it's really important to just get a pen and paper and start to work through this. Once again, you start at the question, who am I tolerating? And you start to work those relationships first. And then you start

Starting point is 00:11:13 to go through each and every relationship that you have, the ones that you spend the most time with, the ones that happen to be the most triggering with you and figure out what it is that you want to do in these relationships. So let's talk about how to deal in these relationships, right? The most important thing that you can do is to set boundaries. And I've said it three or four times this point, your mental health should be your number one priority. So you need to have a one-on-one session with yourself and figure out what your boundaries are. One of the problems with boundaries is that most people don't actually clarify and set their boundaries. They just know what it feels like when someone's overstepped their boundaries. So it's okay to sit down and figure out what it is and say,

Starting point is 00:11:57 what am I okay with? And what is absolutely a non-negotiable for me? If you're a people pleaser, absolutely a non-negotiable for me. You know, if you're a people pleaser, this is very, very critical. I've found that most people pleasers are terrible at setting boundaries, and they're also terrible at staying firm in their boundaries. So this is a skill set that you'll need to strengthen. And so establishing clear boundaries is really critical when you happen to be dealing with difficult individuals or people who are stepping all over you or people who are using you, whatever it might be. And I always tell people, it's very simple. Setting boundaries is very simple, but it is challenging. There's a three-step process to setting boundaries. Number one is you need to get very clear, extreme, crystal clear on what your boundaries are. Number two, you need to communicate them very clearly to the other people.

Starting point is 00:12:46 You need to express your needs and your rights respectfully and clearly. And then the third thing is, is understand you're going to have to stay firm because you're not going to just tell somebody your boundaries once and it's just going to be perfect. And so you need to stay firm on them. You need to be assertive, but not aggressive. You know, it's consistent reinforcement on these. Consistency is the key. If you set a boundary, you have to stick to it. You know, for instance, if you decide not to engage in negative conversations anymore, and somebody consistently goes towards negative, negative, negative, you're going to have to clearly communicate. Hey, remember that conversation where I said, where I'm not going to talk about negative stuff anymore, like I'm really working

Starting point is 00:13:26 on my mental health and trying to see the bright side of things. I'd appreciate if we stay neutral or if we go to positive stuff. So tell me about what's good in your life. Right? So that's a three-step process. The thing that's also important about, so that's the first thing is you have to obviously create your boundaries. The second thing is, and this is a skill set as well as to, is to learn how to maintain emotional distance from things. You know, um, it's important to be empathetic towards people, but it's also really important to maintain emotional distance from stuff to ensure that you don't take on someone else's negative energy and to try to detach yourself from that. And so like, if you're a really big empath, you must remind yourself not to take on other people's feelings.

Starting point is 00:14:10 Those are their feelings. Those are their reactions. They are not yours. You are not responsible for other people's reactions. And there's a lot of people I know after coaching so many people that they feel responsible for everybody's reactions and you cannot control other people's reactions. And so you've got to just keep reminding yourself that their behavior is not a reflection of you in any sort of way. You know, you can, if you need to, if you're in

Starting point is 00:14:37 a conversation with somebody and it's whatever it might be, you can visualize like a protective barrier between you and that person's anger or that person's negativity and just say, hey, this ain't coming in my sphere of influence. This is not coming in my bubble. Okay. So that's the second thing is to make sure that you obviously distance yourself and emotionally distance yourself from other people's stuff and not take their stuff on. And then the third thing I think

Starting point is 00:15:05 is very important is to learn to become self-aware when things become too heated or they get to a place where you don't want it to be anymore. Learn to remove yourself in the moment and distance yourself and come back when you are in a better state and they are in a better state. You know, when emotions are high, logic is low. When emotions are high, that's usually when you say something that you don't mean or the other person says something that they don't mean. And so let's say that you're in an argument with your spouse. Take a couple deep breaths, right? And then nicely remove yourself and get back to yourself, your true self, into normal, and then come back to that conversation later. You know,

Starting point is 00:15:45 it's very easy to say, Hey, listen, like I can, I love you. I can see things are getting heated right now. Um, but I don't think we're going in a good direction. I would like for us to take some space for a few minutes to get ourself back to normal for 30 minutes, 45 minutes, whatever it might be. And to come back and actually see if we can have a calm conversation, calm conversation so that we can work through this from a place of love versus a place of anger. How does that sound? Right? And that's how you remove yourself from a situation. It's not, we're going to distance ourself and never talk about this again. It's that we'll talk about it later. And we'll actually start to work through it in a very calm, collected way, because I want to make sure I come from a place of love and not a place of anger. How does that sound? And then what you do whenever you get to those situations is you start to

Starting point is 00:16:30 actually try to, when you come back again, is to focus on the solutions rather than like trying to be right or critique somebody else's character, right? One of the worst things you could do is critique or attack someone else's character. No, I want to find solutions. We're in this partnership together. Is there a way that we can both find a solution that we feel good with instead of saying, hey, you always do this. You make me feel this way. You're this type of person. That's the last thing that we want to do. And so when you come back and you're calm and you're cool and you're collected, focus on the solutions rather than trying to be right or attacking their character. And so really what it comes down to is,

Starting point is 00:17:11 and once again, I want to go back to what I said a minute ago at the very beginning of this episode, is we do have to take responsibility for how we show up in the relationships as well. But your mental health is very important and people will either bring out the best in you or people can bring out the worst in you or people can bring out the worst in you. And obviously we need to work on ourselves, but it's a lot easier. Like life is difficult. It's a lot easier. Life is a lot easier when you surround yourself with people who want the best in you, who are learning, who are growing, and who also want to celebrate your wins, but also at the same time, help you when times are tough.

Starting point is 00:17:45 And so it's really important for us to learn how to work with people, especially ones that are difficult and realize that your mental health is extremely important. So some people, they might just be past their season and that's okay.

Starting point is 00:17:58 So that's what I got for you for today's episode. If you love this episode, please share it on Instagram stories, tag me in it, Rob Dial Jr, R-O-B-D-I-A-L-J-R. And if you're out there and you love this podcast, you'll probably also love something I got coming out called Mindset Mentor Plus, which is a way to take this episode and every episode that comes out

Starting point is 00:18:15 and work through it and integrate it more into your life through worksheets, through journaling prompts, through assignments. There's going to be exclusive Q&A sessions with me. There's going to be a community and a ton of other bonuses. So if you want to learn about it, go to mindsetwaitlist.com. Once we announce it, we're going to announce it to the waitlist first. And there's going to be a chance to join in and get a discount when you're one of the founding members. So if that interests you, you want to learn more, go to mindsetwaitlist.com.

Starting point is 00:18:42 And with that, I'm going to leave it the same way I leave you every single episode, make it your mission, make somebody else's day better. I appreciate you and I hope that you have an amazing day.

The Mindset Mentor - How To Deal With Difficult People

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