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6 Basic Steps for Effective Coping with Difficult People

6 Basic Steps for Effective Coping with Difficult People. Assess the Situation. Consider whether the difficult person has usually acted differently or whether this is their typical behavior. Determine if your responses to the person seem appropriate or excessive with respect to the situation.

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6 Basic Steps for Effective Coping with Difficult People

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  1. 6 Basic Steps for Effective Coping with Difficult People

  2. Assess the Situation Consider whether the difficult person has usually acted differently or whether this is their typical behavior. Determine if your responses to the person seem appropriate or excessive with respect to the situation.

  3. Stop Wishing They Were Different Blaming the difficult person won’t spontaneously effect a change in their attitude or behavior. Do what you can do to improve the situation. Feeling virtuous and self-righteous for having done “all you can” is understandable, but unfortunately will not eliminate the difficult person.

  4. Get Some Distance Between You and the Difficult Behavior In order to break destructive patterns of difficult people, you must learn to gain some perspective on the person’s actions, even while they are talking to you. Labeling or categorizing others’ behavior is helpful, in that it allows you to see their behavior as happening outside of yourself and your personal responses. You become less paralyzed wondering what you did to bring it on and become ready for an active, more effective response.

  5. Formulate A Plan For Interrupting the Interaction Be aware of the interactional affects of dealing with other people. Our responses are a function of both personality and the specific situation, as we see it. Difficult people behave and respond in ways that manage to stimulate the worst in other. Once you determine that your own behavior was elicited by what the other person has done, you can alter your behavior to elicit a more positive repertoire of responses from the difficult person.

  6. Implement Your Strategy Choose the moment to implement your strategy with discretion. Select a time when the difficult person is not overburdened with other problems. Make sure you have the time and energy to carry out your coping plan. Be prepared! Practice what you intend to say in front of a mirror.

  7. Monitor the Progress of Your Coping and Modify When Appropriate You may discover that your new coping approach has had little or no influence because you have not adequately understood the situation. If so, you will need to review and modify your coping plan. If your repeated attempts at coping doesn’t work, you may want to get physical or organizational distance between you and the difficult person. Achieving emotional distance is necessary in order to get past a difficult situation.

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