who are you pointing the finger at?
You know or work with this person
I spent the past few days helping out at a community event and found myself getting increasingly frustrated with my interactions with one of the other people involved. It seemed that this guy did everything to get on my nerves, no matter what he said or did it just seemed to rub me the wrong way. By the end of the first day I thought I was ready to “kill” him. You can imagine that I was not looking forward to dealing with him on day two, but there was really not much of a choice, the event had to go on.
Day two arrived and this person showed up and did the same things, said the same things and behaved in exactly the same way, so you would think that by the end of day two I may have been ready to literally kill him!
You probably know someone just like this guy or work with someone just like him.
BUT I didn’t want to kill him after day two….. and you probably want to know why.
A quick reflection
I take time out to try to figure out what it is about a person or a situation that gets me worked up and dealing with this guy was no exception. So when I looked at the situation there were a couple of choices. I could confront the guy with a litany of items about the things he was saying and doing that were getting on my nerves or I could take a different perspective.
It’s not about him (her or them)
That different perspective was that it is NOT about him (or her or them), it was about me, and when you are dealing with the person described above the truth is that more often than not it is about YOU!
So unless that persons words or actions are actually offensive, unethical or in some way illegal you have to acknowledge that this “annoying person” is doing the best that they know-how, and they probably maintain a whole range of relationships in which they do not get on the other person’s nerves. In which case what really bugs you is that their words or actions are rubbing up against a belief that you carry about how someone should talk to you or treat you, and if you spend a few moments in reflection to figure out what that belief is, then you are in a better position change YOUR approach to the person or situation and let those minor annoyances slide on by.
Who are you going to point the finger at?
So next time you need to deal with that annoying person that you know or work with are you going to keep pointing the finger at him, her or them, or are you going to point the finger at yourself? Have you had a moment like the one described above…. what were your thinking processes? How did you re-frame the situation? Share your thoughts in the comments section below……