It’s very difficult to deal with negative people. They can bring you down faster than a kite 🪁 without wind 💨. Oftentimes they want to bring you down without realizing it. Being around a constantly negative person makes you feel like you just bathed in a bath 🛀 of mud. You feel tired 😓 and down. Their negative attitude can rub off on you and can ruin your entire day. Here’s a few tips on how to handle a negative person.
1. Don’t take ownership of their attitude. Often they will make you believe it’s your fault but remember it’s not! Stay positive and upbeat. Don’t drink their coolaide. Don’t believe that it’s your fault for their negative behavior.
2. Try to empathize with them by saying, “It seems like you’re .....”. Sometimes they just need a listening ear. Let them vent and then move on.
3. Try to change the subject. You’d be surprised how easy it is to derail their conversation by changing the subject entirely. If they continue to get negative, turn continue to change the subject. Hopefully they’ll catch on. I know a mom who had a very negative child and would come home from school every day with a ton of negative garbage 🗑. Then the mom suggested her child say ten good things about their day before they could bring up the negative.
4. Stay away from the Debbie Downers. It can be hard, if you live with a constantly negative person so say something like, “I can’t be around you when you choose to be so negative so when you choose to be positive, I will stay nearby!”. Oftentimes people don’t recognize how negative they are until you verbalize it and name it. Make it your choice to be around them.
5. Try to see the good in their negative. This is like making lemonade out of lemons 🍋. Try to point out the positive in the negative like trying to see the glass half full instead of half empty.
6. Suggest to the Negative Nancy that they could write ✍️ down all of their negative grievances and then meet up next time.
7. Don’t play the “I’m-going-to-make-everything-right-for -you “ attitude. Don’t play the captain of their ship 🛳 whereby you take responsibility for their actions and attitudes. You can’t make people happy. They need to make themselves happy. It’s like trying to make someone lose weight or stop an addiction. You can’t force the human spirit. They must first decide to change. It’s their internal commitment!
8. Learn to walk away from Debbie Downer. Change the scenery. Get outside. Take a drive. Go somewhere.