How I changed my experience of annoying co-workers

I am fortunate not to be in the workplace anymore, but I had a good run of 14 years working in a large government office. I like to think of myself as a tolerant person, but obviously there were people that annoyed me: like the guy who seemed to be always checking his social media and the cold-hearted consultant who was clearly trying to throw me under the bus. I did not really have the mental energy to spend my career being annoyed by them, so instead I changed my experience of them.

I decided to believe that there was an opportunity to experience them differently.

I decided to:

think differently about them
speak about and to them differently
see them differently than the labels and fears that I had attached to them

And guess what, my experience of them changed.

So what exactly did I do?

I praised the slacker at every chance I got to him and to other people. I didn’t make stuff up, I just chose to notice what he did well. This took a deliberate change in focus over a period of time. I actually overdid it a little because I got to the point where I would practically swoon when he came into a room. I stopped seeing him as a slacker and just saw it as him having a different work style than me.

I accepted him the way he was instead of judging him as wrong or bad.

It changed my experience of working with him. Most importantly, it preserved my precious energy. Being caught in emotional reactions (even annoyance) takes energy that I would rather spend on other things.

What about the cold-hearted consultant?

To change my perspective of her, I found something to love about her. It took me a while to find a little something that we had in common as the door to enter to see her with more compassion. I came to see that she was just trying to work hard and succeed the same as I was.

Then I focused on loving and appreciating her instead of fearing and bad-mouthing her.

This took consistent effort. After a few months of this, before our project took a two-week Christmas break, she gave me a hug, something no one would have expected of her.

I realized in writing this that I still have much work to do. The human brain tends to have a negativity bias, so we may tend to notice negative qualities about others and that colours our experience. Although I had this success years ago, I still have to be aware of how I may be seeing others in a negative way.

I also realized that the way that I see others is based on my beliefs about and perception of myself. If I want to see myself is a hard-working, then someone else is a slacker. If I am the good guy, someone else is the bad guy. A key to changing my experience of others is to stop all judgement and to just let people be the way they are.

This was my experience. Will this work for you?

Techniques to change your experience of “annoying” people and conserve your precious energy:

1. Change the way you see them

2. Think and speak about them differently

3. Praise them. Speak highly of them to others

4. Find something to love about them

5. Find something that you have in common to be able to see them with more compassion

6. Imagine the potential stresses that they may be dealing with in their life

7. Pray for them

8. Never use a label to describe them. See them as a person navigating life with challenges and stresses just like you are

9. Drop all judgement

Caveat: If you are being abused or in a toxic situation, remove yourself from the situation.