Do you know what is that one thing that we have missed a lot during these two years of working from home?? It’s that chit-chat over the cup of tea with our coworkers/colleagues. Our coworkers make our professional journey happening but only if they are positive enough and don’t envy us. But not with everyone with whom we work our frequency matches. It’s quite obvious to get annoyed by the person who constantly takes credit for our work, who gossips a lot about us, spreads rumors about us, and who licks the shoes of the boss and seeks his attention.
In such a situation, how we act has a lot of impact on our career and our growth. As they say, difficult circumstances have the power to mold us, the same way dealing with toxic people may be way more difficult than we say, but that journey brings lots of transformation in us.
Let’s discuss the ways to deal with this toxic co-worker.
Don’t let them consume space in your mind
We constantly think about the person who bothers us, and it urges us to vent out our negative feelings by sharing with others. This behavior won’t help you in any way, but on the contrary, that will steal your peace of mind, which will impact negatively on your personal as well as professional life. So the best thing you can do is just stop thinking about them.
Don’t indulge yourself in bad-mouthing and gossiping about them. Restrain yourself from discussing them with anyone, either in person or in chat/mail. This way you can stay away from wasting your energy and time on the things you can’t control and focus on what is more important.
Set boundaries and have clear communication
Communication is the key to any healthy relationship. Running away from the people whom you don’t like cannot be the option, instead, tell them clearly about their improper behavior.
Once that person knows that it’s bothering you then he might stop behaving in such away. Along with that set some boundaries, don’t spend time with that person other than work. Learn to say “NO” whenever and wherever it’s required.
Appreciate them
At the workplace, everyone is an attention and importance seeker. And so that whenever any new person arrives with higher authority than them, they might feel insecure which made them doing all notorious things. In such a situation, you have to act rather than react. Such people love the appreciation, therefore highlight the work and efforts they are doing in front of their seniors and peers. This will add some positivity to their life and slowly they can change their thinking about you.
Stay focus
Don’t let others’ behavior distracts you from the purpose for which you come to your workplace. Make a to-do list of the things you want to accomplish in a day and stay focused on them, remember your quality of life depends upon what you focus on so if you focus on the things you can’t control you end up doing and achieving nothing. So try to focus on the things which are under your control.
Wrapping up
So dealing with toxic coworkers is quite challenging. All you can do is clearly communicate with them within the set boundaries and don’t hold grudges for them if you don’t want them to hamper your productivity.