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Self Help: How to Handle Moody People
You can use self-help to transform any relationship
that is troubling you, including a moody boss,
co-worker, friend, or spouse. Sometimes it is challenging when dealing with a
moody person because there seems to be two people in the same body. He's a cold person one day and a warm, supportive person the next.
To get respect and consistency from this person, your job is simple: Avoid the cold person and embrace the warm person.
Let's imagine you have a colleague who tends to be moody at work. Sometimes he even affects your performance, because you take it personally and feel down when he is uncommunicative.
In this situation, most people will try hard to please their colleague when he's in a bad mood. They'll go out of their way to be friendly and nice. This is an excellent approach to try the first time he is moody. If he doesn't respond, though, you must abandon this
demeanor.
When someone is cold towards you and you are continually nice back, you are saying that you want someone to be cold to you. This is the wrong move. You've got to avoid the cold person if you're ever going to get the warm person.
I recommend you keep your contact with the cold person brief. If necessary, look at your watch and say, 'Wow, I didn't realize it was so late...must get back to that deadline.' This way, you're not creating a distraction for yourself at work. You're also not creating a reason to become angry and resentful of your colleague.
But here's the most important self-help point:
People do not respond to negative words, but they do respond to action. When you accept others for who they are using these methods, you communicate self-esteem and flexibility. You're saying, "I don't need you to be any particular way at all."
Avoidance is not manipulation. It is acceptance. Avoidance works because you are not doing it in an attempt to manipulate your colleague. Instead of trying to change him by being super-nice (or getting angry), you are merely reducing your social contact with him because it is unpleasant for you. Using avoidance and indifference with people when they are unsupportive is a radical concept.
Most of us need to be in control. If a person is not giving us the support we want, we try to control him. We go back and forth between being angry vs. nice in an attempt to get our way.
This never works, because the person we are dealing with senses what we are doing and rebels even more.
I'll talk to you again soon.
Your friend,
Lisa B.
Advanced Self Help Institute
#106, 527 - 15 Ave SW
Calgary, Alberta T2R 1R5
Phone: (403) 261-2726
Fax: (403) 261-2725
Email: info@lisabrown.ca |
