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| Category: Self Help |
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| About the Book | |
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Change the Things You Can is about learning to deal with the difficult people and situations in your life and one of the great lessons the author learned after making every mistake possible was to stop focusing on other people and to re-focus on the things you can actually change. That usually means something about you, your thinking or your behavior. The more you work on you, the better you will feel. Difficult people have some common characteristics but every single difficult person that we encounter is different. That makes it harder to prescribe a simple remedy and needs a wide arsenal of tools in order to deal with “your” difficult person. But two things are almost always true about any difficult person. One is that no matter what you do you cannot change them. They have hardened their skins and their brains against any attempt to alter their behaviors and they are determined to stay difficult. Secondly, if you are particularly bothered by someone then you have to do something about yourself or the situation. As Mahatma Gandhi said "You must be the change that you want to see in the world." But if it makes you feel any better go ahead and try to change the difficult person in your life. Let's see know how that works out for you. The good news is that if you are willing there are lots of things you can actually change about yourself, at any age. They include your thinking when you are open to new ideas and your attitude when you are willing to try a different approach. When you are faced with a particularly difficult situation in your life it's important to remember that you always have choices. The first is whether of not you want to stay in that situation. This can apply to a job, a relationship or even a marriage; even small situations like a restaurant that is too crowded or noisy for you. It is true that there are consequences if you decide to leave that may be extreme but don't fall into the trap of saying that you are stuck. You always have a choice. If your decision is to stay in that noisy café, lousy job or unsatisfying relationship then you will still have choices but they will be limited. It is unlikely that the company you work for will suddenly change or that the restaurant owner will tell everybody else to be quiet. It is almost equally unlikely that your partner is going to change the way you want, no matter how much you may want it. The reality is that you can either accept the difficult situation or person exactly as they are and hope that someday they or it will improve or you can whine, complain, or work out. One path will let you sleep at night; the other has the potential to become a living nightmare. You can fight or you can accept and Change the Things You Can.
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| About the Author | |
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Mike Martin is a freelance writer and consultant specializing in workplace wellness and conflict resolution. |