How to Deal With Negative Co-Workers

When you're trying to develop or maintain a positive attitude, one of the biggest challenges is dealing with negative people that you can't really avoid. Work is often one of those environments. In this article, I'll share some ideas that I've found helpful through experience.

Difficulty: Moderately Challenging

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• A work environment that has negative people.

1. First of all, try to start the time before you go to work with something that will put you in a good mood. I have certain songs and audio books on my IPod, and it makes use out of commute time you'll have to spend anyway.

2. Probably one of the biggest things you have to be careful about with being around negative people is not getting pulled into a highly negative/complaining conversation. People get in these modes where they try to surpass each other's stories, and sometimes in the emotion of the moment you can find yourself adding to it. Instead, over time you have to learn how to not encourage more negativity and when possible steer the conversation back to positive things.

3. Outside of work, you need positive people in your life to encourage you and keep you moving forward in life. Without some kind of support system, it's easy to have your attitude dragged down. If you don't know a lot of positive people, books are helpful as well. A good balance of both is best.

4. Over time, having a positive attitude despite everything else going around you is going to do two things. The people who want their own attitudes to be better will be drawn to you because you give them hope, and the people who enjoy being negative will be repelled by you. Both turn out to be good things from a personal standpoint.

Tips & Warnings

• This is all a process--you're not going to be perfect at it, so don't put too much pressure on yourself. A lot of it is just being aware of your own attitude in relation to other people.
• Having a positive attitude will make you stand out from other people around you, and I've seen it advance people professionally even more than talent and ability.
• If you've been miserable in your work environment for a long period of time, it may be a good idea to start looking for a change. Negative attitudes don't only hold individuals back, but entire departments and corporations if its not handled.
• Don't try to change other people's attitude against their will--it doesn't work and will just make things harder on you. People have choices, and about the only thing you can control is just being nice to them and treating them well.

Resources

• How to Find Your True Passion in Life
• How to Prevent Negative Influences from Harming Your Success
• Jobs and Happiness
• How to Stay Positive in a Negative World
• Is Success Determined by Luck or Attitude?
• Life Skills/Success Resources Page
• Index of Cougar1002's Articles (Sorted by Topic)
• Cougar1002's Author's Blog (For Updates/News/Latest Articles)

[andre7514]

on 10/12/2008 This is a great article!

[MomWolf]

on 8/24/2008 Great article!