6 ways to stop difficult people from draining your energy, productivity, and happiness

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One study of office workers found that 85% of coworkers will deal with some sort of interpersonal conflict.
If you have a difficult coworker, don't just fixate on thinking about how you'd change them. Instead, start trying to fix it, and examine your own behavior.
Also, don't assume you know why they're behaving that way, and try to hear their perspective. You can even bridge the gap with genuine compliments.
After you address it, don't let it bring you down anymore.
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The only certainties in life may be death, taxes, and the presence of difficult people. Whether it's coworkers or anyone you find hard to deal with, we all go through it. Regarding the former, a study among 5,000 office workers titled "The Global Human Capital Report" indicated that 85% of coworkers have to deal with interpersonal conflict of some sort at work.

Interacting with difficult people drains our energy, productivity, and even happiness. But those that are oil to your water don't have to cause more anxiety then they need to. In "Find the Fire," I discussed how to tackle this problem. Here, I offer the best of that advice to apply immediately in dealing with tough coworkers or any difficult people in your life.

1. Stop wishing they were different

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It's critical to remember when dealing with difficult people that you're trying to change the interchange; you're not trying to change them. You have to give people the space to be themselves and start from a place of trying to really understand what makes them different from you.

When we're interacting with someone, it's so easy to put labels on them: "He's not a good listener," "She's so spiteful," "He's an ego-maniac." Maybe there are some wisps of truth to what you're thinking, but they may well be rooted in the person's behavior relative to you, not their true personae. It's important to stay focused on the predicament, not the personality.

2. Get started fixing it — and start with you

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I've coached many a person over my career on a difficult relationship they were having with a coworker. All too often I'd notice that they were complaining about the coworker and their acidic relationship, but they weren't actually taking initiative to do something about it.

Don't wait for the other person — take the initiative to attack the issue immediately (it won't get better through stagnation). And start with you in doing so. Ask yourself what you're doing that might be setting off the other person. Ask if your ego is coming into play and causing you to escalate what otherwise could be innocuous exchanges. Talk to, not about, the other.

3. Understand the why

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You can't reach an understanding with a difficult person if you don't seek to understand why they're behaving in the way that's grating on your last nerve. When we're interacting with a difficult person it's so easy to focus on counterpoints and deflating their arguments and noticing their flaws.

Instead, put your energy into saying more thoughtful things and asking better questions to get to a deeper knowledge of where they're coming from. You might discover they're behaving the way they are because they have different reward systems than you do, because they have a serious personal situation in the background, or they have underlying insecurities driving the way they approach you. Knowing any of that would change your exchange.

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