Avoiding Difficult People

I know for years I prided myself on having a natural honing instinct that steered me away from people I determined were difficult.

I figured it was a great coping mechanism that kept me out of a lot of drama and made my life easier.

And though that was probably true at the time, now that I have a different skill set and different tools, I don’t see avoiding difficult people as a very productive exercise.

Avoiding the difficult people only kept me stuck and prevented my personal growth.

Now I understand that first of all, there are no difficult people.  

People are just people, and it is my thinking about them that labels them difficult.

And second, what will be really useful to me is to learn to manage my mind around these people rather than just avoiding the people and thus avoiding the need to grow by learning to managing my mind.

Because growth for us as humans isn’t about learning to avoid.

It’s about choosing to think in ways that create our desired outcome.

I know for me, I desire personal growth.

And growth isn’t about learning to avoid or even control all the people.

It’s about learning to control myself around all the people.

So that family member you struggle with over the holidays?

It’s not about not inviting them or not showing up at the same family gathering with them.

It’s about learning to accept them for who they are and learning to stop judging their behaviors.

What makes us uncomfortable is not the fact that they are engaging in certain behaviors.

What’s uncomfortable are all of the judgy thoughts and feelings we have when we are around them.

This is how coaching can help you.

It can teach you how to clean up your own thoughts and feelings so you can feel better and respond better rather than expecting others to change to make you feel better and make it easier for you to respond.

Coaching is about learning to take 100% responsibility for how you engage with others, recognizing that no one has to behave any differently in order for you to feel better.

No one else has to change, which is good, because we don’t have any control over them anyway.

We only have to learn how to manage our minds and change ourselves.

This is what empowers us to be in control of our own lives. 

Learning how to do this is the power of coaching.

Want to dig a little deeper? Check out podcast #163 Difficult People.