How to How Deal With a Stressful Person
Regardless of who you are as a person, there are always some people in your personal and professional life who freak you out with whatever they say and do. It is a completely natural fact, and you will rarely find such people who have the guts to get along with almost everyone. This situation gets worse when you are forced to spend some time with these people, for example with stressful family member on a holiday or when you are assigned a team based task with a persona non grata at your office. Under these circumstances, it is important to maintain your composure and don’t let your frustration get the better of you.
Although it is easier said than done, they are some techniques through which you can deal with stressful people and the situations they put you in. These techniques have been discussed in the article.
Instructions
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1
Understand Your Responses
Different people react differently to different stress situations. You need to sort out the characteristics of your response in the presence of stressful people. Evaluate whether you get angry, have a headache or the fight and flight system starts to take over. Understanding your own response will help you curb the feeling of agitation and the subsequent response it is bound to generate. -
2
Divert the Issue without Confronting
The important thing is to avoid confrontation. For example, if you have just completed a major office assignment and the minute you step inside your cubicle, your immediate supervisor asks you to start off with another task; do not go ballistic. Take a deep breath, pause and then respond politely that you want to have a cup of coffee or lunch before doing anything else. If you will sound genuine, the other person will have to back off.
Similarly if someone in your family is asking you questions, which you don’t have the capacity or the desire to answer, try to start another topic or even better, ask another question in response. -
3
If All Else Fails, Ignore Them
Annoying people love to annoy and even when you try to sway away from the topic, they will tend to persist and blow their own trumpet. As they do so, your anger level starts to rise proportionally. In this situation there are four things which you can do;
- Be bluntly sarcastic
- Let them talk and start playing with your mobile or any other gadget
- Leave the room by faking a mobile call
