You can rise above it – don’t let them wind you up!

From looking at my podcast analytics, I see that the most popular, most listened to episodes are those around people – whether it’s worrying about what people think or how to work harmoniously with others and be able to manage more challenging individuals without letting it affect you personally.

And this would make sense as pretty much all coaching conversations I have revolve around people.  Colleagues, bosses, teams, customers, clients, friends, family.  Even when the conversation starts with wanting to consider why something’s not working – a system, a plan – after looking at the theory, and what might be getting in the way, we usually come to the people and who might be getting in the way (often it’s the individual themselves and that’s always a relief – so much easier change our own behaviour than that of others).

Listen to this on my coaching podcast

Reframe how you think about it for a start

Our interactions with others are always going to be richly patterned, complex, often unpredictable (what about the challenging, irritating, annoying? – yes, I get that, but I wonder if changing our thinking, reframing the way we perceive these relationships and behaviours and tweaking the way we respond to them is the key to unlock and open a doorway to a more relaxed and less stressful way of seeing things?

My own recent experience

I got wound up by someone the other day. They made me feel angry and I wanted them to know it. I could feel it rise up in me. I’d gone to a cafe and ordered a takeaway coffee and a savoury pastry for my son.  Before I had ordered, the server had wound me up by directing everyone they served into a seat and telling them to sit down there.  One customer, on being told twice to sit down, explained she couldn’t as she had an issue with her hip and preferred to stand.

My turn to order.  The pastries  had a sign saying they came with chutney, which I knew my son wouldn’t eat, so to save on wasting, I said no chutney thank you in a friendly way.

The server made the coffee and got out a pot for the chutney.  I said it’s fine, I don’t need the chutney, thank you and continued to smile.  He carried on and put some chutney into a small tub.  I said firmly again I didn’t want it – and didn’t want him to waste the chutney.

He put the pastry and chutney into a bag and handed it to me.  I took out the tub of chutney and said “maybe you can use this for someone else – shame to waste it” again in a light, friendly way. He took the chutney, looked me in the eye and dropped the chutney in the bin.

Emotional hooks

I was pretty furious as I left the cafe. This anger rose in me and took over – it started colouring my mood.  I’m generally not an angry person, and this was a bit of an over reaction – it was over some chutney for goodness sake. So I caught myself and decided to explore what was going on using emotional hooks.  When we get angry, somebody or something riles us, it’s usually because it goes against something we feel strongly about. These can be values, our own rules of how to live, something we were brought up to believe in or developed ourselves. The behaviour of others can ‘hook on’ to these beliefs or values and the better the match (or mismatch) the more it can get to us.

Serving people

So what was going on for me there? To begin with, as someone has worked in hospitality, I believe in looking after customers and helping them have a good experience. The server was not doing that with his tone of voice, ordering people to sit when perhaps they didn’t actually want to.  He could have phrased it differently by offering a chair if people wanted to sit.

We all want to be heard

Then I, like most people want to be heard when I speak. By ignoring me when I said I didn’t want chutney, I felt belittled, ignored, invisible. I make a huge effort to never do this to others as I believe everyone should be heard. So his behaviour had hooked firmly on to this belief or value.

Waste and sustainability

I also feel strongly about waste and sustainability.  By throwing away packaging and food, it hooked strongly on to these feelings and made me feel even more frustrated.

By working through these feelings and emotional hooks, I felt better and was able to let it all go.

Now I realise that an incident in a cafe with a pastry is not as challenging as having to face a disruptor or difficult person on a daily basis, but it is an illustration of how really ‘leaning in’ and exploring with curiosity what is going on and which emotional hooks are in play can help us get some perspective and hold on less stubbornly to wanting to control the situation.

Think of someone who winds you up

Now can you think of someone who winds you up? Just thinking about them starts to make you feel the emotions rising? You might be feeling angry, frustrated, want to avoid them? Or when you see them put them right on their opinions or behaviour?

Now lean in and think what is it about them that is making you feel like this. Which emotional hooks do they ignite or disturb? What does their behaviour go against in terms of your values or beliefs?

Really think about it.  Don’t think about how you’re going to change them or stop them.  Not now anyway – if you work through this and are able to feel differently about them, you’ll be in a much better position to speak to them and voice your feelings.  You’ll be doing it from a calm and clear perspective, not angry or emotional.

Hopefully you’ll start to get a different perspective.  They won’t be able to ‘get’ to you in the same way and you will feel less extreme when you think of them.  You might need sit with it for a while if this reaction is deeply ingrained. Or practise on less intense situations, like the cafe one and see how that goes to begin with.

Verbalise it and write it down

Even better if you can speak to a friend or trusted colleague about it.  Just verbalising the thoughts and feelings will already make things feel lighter. Or write it all down and read through the next day with new eyes. Back to the cafe – if I’d written this down and looked at it the next day, I probably would have wondered what the fuss was all about.  Applying this to more serious situations would then help me let things go.

Before I knew about emotional hooks and really leaning in to the feelings, I would try and disregard them, minimise them and try and forget as quickly as possible.  But the feelings would linger and could spoil the rest of my day or week. Just thinking back would bring back the negative feelings and I’d not learn anything new or change. So leaning in and exploring what’s happening is really helpful.

Let’s go back to the cafe.  Once I’d managed to identify the emotional hooks and lessen the annoyance, I had some perspective to put myself in his shoes.  This is a super useful way of understanding that most of the time, other people’s behaviour is not personal, it’s not aimed at you in particular, they’re just reacting to a set of circumstances that they are facing and this is how they know to behave.  They most likely have little awareness of how it’s affecting you.

Get their perspective

So I took a moment to think about the server.  I’ve worked plenty in the hospitality industry.  Most customers were delightful and easy to serve.  There were rare occasions, however, when a customer would come in and be so rude and ungrateful, belittling and patronising, that they would ruin my whole day.  And if I was particularly tired or had something going on at home, their effect would be so much worse.  Who knows what was going on for the server.  Perhaps they’d had days where customers stood all over the place, blocking the way in, stopping other customers coming in and losing him business.  He might get rude people in all the time.  He might have been feeling ill or had a bad night’s sleep.  Perhaps he had problems going on outside of work.  Maybe his business was not doing well.

I quickly realised that hie behaviour was not aimed at me and was not meant to upset me.

I have found peace with the pastry incident!

See if you can apply this to a situation you have encouter. Start small and with incidents that don’t really matter, like the pastry one. Take a moment to identify the emotional hook, let go of the anger then step into their shoes and imagine what might be going on for them.

Reminding yourself “it’s not about me. Let it go” really helps.  

Of course when it’s a colleague or family member that is winding you up on a regular basis, you can’t just walk out and forget about it.  But this thought process can really help even in the trickiest of situations. Working out the emotional hook, realising they are behaving in a way that suits them at that moment in time.  They are most likely unaware of the impact it’s having on you.  So taking a step back, seeing it from another perspective, realising it’s not personal and letting go of the emotion makes a difference.

Keep working on this, and develop your own mantra – it could be something like “it’s not about me” or “they’re dealing with their own stuff” and let it go.

A plan for next steps

Then of course, a plan for next steps is useful.  Thinking about your own boundaries and self protection is important.  If their behaviour crosses your boundaries, then it’s useful to let them know.  Calmly and clearly. I don’t particularly think this is something I should have done with the server in the cafe, but if I had to work with him, then it would have been appropriate.  They make not have been aware.  There is no guarantee that they will be open to your feedback or grateful for it (wouldn’t that make everything so much easier).  They may be defensive and be on the back foot.  Or may throw some stuff back at you.  Approach this with compassionate curiosity. Hear them out. Take it on board.  There may be some truth in what they’r saying even. But still it’s important to assert your boundaries, what you find acceptable and what you don’t and remember to do the same for them.  Like two adults together.

See if that helps..

There is no perfect

Remember it’s all a work in progress and there’s no perfect outcome.  Little steps in the right direction to help you feel less affected by others’ behaviour and towards being able to calmly and without too much emotion voice your thoughts. You probably won’t become best friends and agree on everything.  But that’s ok too.  As long as their respect.

There will probably be mistakes and troughs on the way.  See them as learning and be kind to yourself.  

Give it a go

So to summarise, if someone’s winding you up, work out what the emotional hooks are – which of your values or beliefs are they disrupting / going against, and accept that they are not doing it intentionally or making it personal.  Let go of the emotional reaction and consider things from their perspective.  Then approach them for an honest conversations explaining why you are not comfortable with their behaviour, being open to their comments as feedback and not be on the attack.  Try to understand where they’re coming from and help them understand where you’re coming from. This may be a process that you need to go through many times.  Each time, hopefully you’ll be able to feel less affected. Don’t think of it as a winning or losing the argument situation. Think of it as finding ways for you to meet in the middle.

If you’d like to talk to me about coaching for you or someone in your team, let’s have a chat.