How to tolerate people

Toxic people defy logic. Some are blissfully unaware of the negative impact that they have on those around them, and others seem to derive satisfaction from creating chaos and pushing other people’s buttons. Either way, they create unnecessary complexity, strife, and worst of all stress.

Studies have long shown that stress can have a lasting, negative impact on the brain. Exposure to even a few days of stress compromises the effectiveness of neurons in the hippocampus—an important brain area responsible for reasoning and memory. Weeks of stress cause reversible damage to neuronal dendrites (the small “arms” that brain cells use to communicate with each other), and months of stress can permanently destroy neurons. Stress is a formidable threat to your success—when stress gets out of control, your brain and your performance suffer.

Most sources of stress at work are easy to identify. If your non-profit is working to land a grant that your organization needs to function, you’re bound to feel stress and likely know how to manage it. It's the unexpected sources of stress that take you by surprise and harm you the most.

Recent research from the Department of Biological and Clinical Psychology at Friedrich Schiller University in Germany found that exposure to stimuli that cause strong negative emotions—the same kind of exposure you get when dealing with toxic people—caused subjects’ brains to have a massive stress response. Whether it's negativity, cruelty, the victim syndrome, or just plain craziness, toxic people drive your brain into a stressed-out state that should be avoided at all costs.

The ability to manage your emotions and remain calm under pressure has a direct link to your performance. TalentSmart has conducted research with more than a million people, and we’ve found that 90% of top performers are skilled at managing their emotions in times of stress in order to remain calm and in control. One of their greatest gifts is the ability to neutralize toxic people. Top performers have well-honed coping strategies that they employ to keep toxic people at bay.

While I’ve run across numerous effective strategies that successful people employ when dealing with toxic people, what follows are twelve of the best. To deal with toxic people effectively, you need an approach that enables you, across the board, to control what you can and eliminate what you can’t. The important thing to remember is that you are in control of far more than you realize.

Maintain a proactive attitude.

Instead of merely reacting to a person you do not like, view your relationship with that person in a proactive manner. Think of ways to make dealing with him or her easier ahead of time rather than waiting until the moment you have to meet.

• Rely on logic and reason when dealing with the other person instead of relying on emotion.
• Avoid complacency in your interactions. Intentionally deciding to make the best of a situation can help you prevent it from turning worse, but if you let things develop naturally, things are more likely to turn out worse after all.

Monitor your own emotions. The only feelings and thoughts you have control over are your own. When interacting with people you don't like, stay calm and focus on thinking positively. If you sense your mood turning sour, quickly pull yourself out of it to avoid turning the situation into a major meltdown.

• If the issue is important enough to discuss later, giving yourself a "cool down" period might give you a chance to analyze what the other person said or did to make you so upset while giving you a chance to figure out how you need to approach that person later to avoid getting quite so flustered.

Analyze your own feelings. Ask yourself why you don't like the people you don't like. You might have a valid reason for not liking someone, or the problem between the two of you might lie entirely on your shoulders. Usually, though, both of you will have some role to play, and you need to be honest with yourself about the truth of the situation.

• When analyzing the reason for your dislike, ask yourself specific questions, like:^[2]
• Is the problem the individual or someone else who he or she reminds me of?
• Am I afraid of becoming like this person or do I recognize a negative character trait of my own in this person?
• Is my dislike for this person due to a prejudice I have against a larger group of people?

Set boundaries. Know how much you are willing to take and don't be afraid to draw the boundary somewhere. Even if you want to be a patient, understanding person, it is perfectly okay to admit to things that make you uncomfortable or unhappy. Figuring out how much you can take before losing your cool can help defuse a situation before it turns explosive.

• You're entitled to your own personal space, and if others are invading it, you do have the right to protect that space. Even drawing mental boundaries can help you determine when to take a stand and when to let things slide, and the more willing you are to take a stand for yourself, the less likely you are to clash with the person you find yourself at odds with.^[3]

Try not to take things personally. Sometimes a person will intentionally pick on you, but in most cases, people you don't like will not be going out of their way to upset you. If the problem between you and another person deals with his or her personality, you need to understand that the other person does not mean for you to take their actions as a personal insult.

• A good way to figure out if this is a part of that person's personality or not is to watch how he or she behaves with other people. If the behavior is similar to the type of behavior he or she shows you, you probably don't need to take those actions personally.

Observe others as they interact with the person in question. If you do not know how to deal with someone, watch others and see how they deal with that person. In doing so, you have a chance to see what works and what doesn't without having to experiment yourself.

• Even if the people you watch cannot deal with a difficult person well, you can still get a good idea of certain actions that will not work when dealing with that person. Viewing the situation objectively can often give you a new and helpful perspective.

Look for the positives. You will very seldom run across someone with no redeeming qualities. Even if the positive qualities a person possesses are buried under layers of unpleasantness, identify at least one or two positives and focus on those traits so that you might come to appreciate the other person better.

• By figuring out positive character traits of someone you don't like, you might be able to think of a context in which that person would not be quite as hard to tolerate.

Trust your instincts. Even though you should generally try to get alone with people you don't like, if something about a specific individual leaves you feeling threatened in some way, don't be afraid to listen to your gut.^[4]

• For example, if you recognize that a coworker has a habit of stealing credit for others' ideas or work, you would do well to avoid taking on projects with that person. Similarly, if you're a girl and a guy you know frequently intimidates you physically or makes unwanted advances, you would do well to avoid him.

Keep your distance. If you can afford to stay away from someone you don't like, doing just that might actually be the best thing for everyone involved. Try not to be too obvious in your efforts to ignore him or her, though, since any rudeness you demonstrate is likely to be returned later on.

• Staying away from someone for a while can also help you become more objective about the relationship between you both since you will not need to directly face the personality quirks that usually make you upset.

Disarm the situation before it gets out of control. If you have to deal with people you don't like and the conversation is quickly going downhill, find a point on which you can sympathize to stop them in their tracks. Doing so can defuse any hostility building in the other people, thereby making your interaction with them slightly more tolerable.

• This point is especially important if the feeling of dislike is mutual and you often find yourself getting into arguments with the object of your hostility. Even if the other person tries to pick a fight, it will be hard for him or her to do so if you are in agreement.

Switch topics during conversation. If someone you don't like has brought up a topic of conversation that annoys or frustrates you, switching topics can minimize the annoyance you feel and make it easier to deal with him or her.

• When changing topics, make sure that the topic you change to is happy or neutral.
• You also need to make the transition naturally instead of abruptly. Telling someone outright that you no longer want to hear what he or she wants to say about a particular issue will do nothing but make that person even angrier at you.

Create a positive experience. It can be a bit tricky, but if you can gradually build up positive experiences and interactions with a person you don't like, you can change your own attitude and make it easier to deal with that person long-term. Even brief positive interactions are better than none at all.

• If possible, switch settings to more neutral grounds when trying to create positive experiences. If you continually interact with each other in the same setting, the setting itself could contribute to an overall mood of hostility.