Sometimes
things are just too annoying in life, from broken cell phones to people yelling
at each other while you're waiting in line to buy lunch and so on. How do you
deal with an annoying situation effectively without blowing your own gasket?
Figure out what you mean by “annoying”. Before tackling any problem, you need to be able to
identify the real source of your frustration. It's easy enough to huff that the
situation is annoying, but what is it really about other people's actions or
behavior that bothers you so much? Assess what is bothering you.
- For example: Are your co-workers being noisy? Is your property being inappropriately used? Is something preventing you from getting somewhere on time? Are you being forced to wait for someone else's input before you can complete what you're doing?
Whatever the reason, pinpoint the frustration you're
experiencing.
Don't
complain.
Complaining to the person in question (or to anyone who will listen) that they
are annoying won't fix anything. Try to be specific as you identify the problem
to yourself: “It bothers me when Dad treats me like I'm five when I visit and
won't let me watch “The Walking Dead,” even though I'm twenty-five”.
Spend time reflecting over the issues
that annoy you. Write them down and
consider them in detail, to try to find what you might be doing to make the
situation worse or to see where you might be making something out of nothing.
Consider other people's perspectives. When dealing with any sort of interpersonal conflict, it's
important to try to sympathetically identify with the other person. This means
that you need to try to put yourself in their shoes and attempt to understand
their perspective.
- Try to figure out why the other person is acting as they do. You may eventually need to have a direct conversation with the person in which you air your grievances, but you'll be better prepared for this if you first make some educated guesses on your own.
- Do you think that maybe the behavior has its source in the other person finding certain things too hard, uncomfortable or unpleasant for themselves? Perhaps they are trying to avoid something by making their life a little easier, without realizing the toll their actions takes on other people around them.
- Could it be that the annoying situation has arisen because the other person cares about or misses you and is trying to be helpful or get to see you more often?
Learn more about the background to the
situation. You have your own
unique take on the situation. However, you may not have a wider contextual
understanding of it. It is important to try to gather as much information as
possible about the situation and those involved in it, to gain a better
understanding of what is motivating any problem behaviors, comments, attitudes
or actions. It is only when you really understand the wider picture and
motivations that you can tackle the annoying aspects fruitfully. Once you do
this, you may be able to identify ways to begin to improve the situation and
any future recurrences of it.
- Ask questions of others. Why do you see it this way? Why do you do it this way? What outcome were you hoping for? How would you rather we did this? Do you see my input as helping?
- Ask questions of yourself. Should I have been more patient? Could I have come at a different time? Do I treat people reasonably? Were my expectations reasonable? Am I trying to control the uncontrollable?
- Ask questions of the system. Is the system set up to handle this well? Is the system capable of fixing this? Is the system a part of the problem? How can the system be tweaked to improve things? What is different about the system this time from previous times?
Assess what you could do differently
next time. It's rare for
problems to be one-sided, so you do need to work out how you're contributing to
the situation.
- Perhaps you're impatient with yourself and with others. This is a fault, and an attempt to gain a form of control over the often uncontrollable. Being patient is a way of self-calming and showing self-possession despite what is going on. It's a sign of maturity.
- Perhaps you dislike the person or people involved in the situation. This isn't an excuse to be annoyed; it's a reason to rise above the dislike and to prove that you can handle what is happening in a responsible and neutral manner. You don't have to like people in order to get along with them and make things work; rely on being respectful and courteous instead of being emotional about it.
- Perhaps you're sending mixed messages to other people. On the one hand you want your hot coffee with triple flavoring right now, on the other hand, you expect the blend to be perfect and not messed up. Good things in life come to those prepared to accept that good quality takes more than a snap of the fingers and you certainly can't demand that you have your cake and eat it too.
- Perhaps you're transferring your own traits that you don't like into the situation and feel irritated because you're seeing your own negativity reflected. In this case, you'll need to extricate your own issues from those of the situation. Perhaps it's nowhere near as bad as you think, it's just your dour overlay from prior experience that is dampening things. Is your own track record at dealing with such situations spotty?
- Check your language. The use of hostile, arrogant, snide, sarcastic, irritable or snappy language will make situations worse. The more annoyed you are, the more your body language displays this annoyance, disarming others and potentially making things worse. Be calm and thoughtful, accepting that remedying things requires kind words and a good level of patience.
- Knowing that you're someone who gets frustrated easily can cause others to produce the annoying situation out of fear or anxiety to try to do the right thing. Ball right in your selfish court on this one.
Learn to
remain calm and not respond immediately. Practice counting to 10 and considering the words you use
with care. Remember that it is often best to say nothing than to let out a
string of invective that stirs up the situation and makes it worse. Try to see
the positive side of the situation––what have you learned about yourself and
the situation? Will you know what to avoid or change next time? Are other
people always going to behave this way, and if so, how can you react in a more
constructive way that manages the behavior instead of responds to it with
irritation? You get the drift.
Motivational
