Feeling annoyed by someone can occupy a lot more mental space than is desirable.
But, we can’t always do much about having to interact with that person.
For example, you can’t opt out of your exposure to them if they’re a work colleague who’s in most of your meetings, or a classmate who wastes everyone’s time on tangents or who tries to show they’re smarter than the instructor.
When you’re in this situation, you may realize that you need an attitude change toward the person for your own sake. You might no longer want to allow them to interfere with your daily experience to such an extent.
Ask Yourself These Questions to Get Relief
Here are five questions you can use to attempt that mental shift. The purpose isn’t to gaslight yourself into believing the person isn’t annoying; it’s to jiggle free your perspective just enough that you can see another view is possible. You’re doing it to relieve your own tension.
Even if only one or two of these questions appeal and the others feel naff, that may be all you need.
Give them a try.
1. It’s 10 years in the future. You’re looking back on now because it’s when you accomplished what, 10 years later, is still the most significant achievement in your life to date. The annoying person was part of that significant achievement, in a collaborative way. What happened? Tell a few different stories, including a couple of unpredictable ones.
For instance:
- Mary wasn’t expecting to ever want to work closely with Maya, but when Mary discovered massive fraud within their company, Maya helped her document it and develop a plan for exposing it.
- Jeremy didn’t like Julian, but they were the only people who volunteered to move to the new international location their company floated opening. To go ahead, it needed two current managers to agree to make the international move. They each made it possible for the other.
2. Knowing X about [annoying person’s name] would cause your feelings and thoughts about them to change. What’s X?
You don’t need to know or expect that X is true. The question is simply an exercise in realizing something could change your perspective and therefore your perspective isn’t fixed.
I don’t mean a sob story. For example, perhaps you find out they’d been a whistleblower in a prior organization, at significant personal cost.
Or, you find out something else they did that was extremely generous, ethical, considerate, or open-minded.
3. You find out that you have X in common with the person you’re finding difficult. It changes your view of them and helps you create a non-forced bond with them. What’s X?
Example: You found out you’ve both donated gametes (egg or sperm) to friends who needed donation to have the children they wanted.
Or, you’re both pursuing “FIRE” (financial independence/retire early). You don’t have many other people to talk about it with, but now you have someone who is trying to do it while navigating the same systems at your company you are.
4. You find out the annoying person did something unexpected in relation to you that causes you to realize they respect you more than you knew. What might it have been?
Examples: They referred you for an opportunity, spoke positively about you to an influential person, used advice you’d given them to solve a problem, changed their mind because of something you said, or gave you full credit for an idea that they’d contributed to.
Again, the point here is just to consider that one data point or experience can shift our view and our relationship. This can help us not see the future as stagnant, or see escalating frustration as the only trajectory for the relationship.
5. It’s six months in the future and you realize you underestimated the annoying person. You hadn’t seen them as smart or valuable. What could happen to make you recognize their annoying aspects have more positive offsets than you’d previously seen?
Perhaps they create and share a resource with you that makes you significant money or saves you significant time. You didn’t think they were smart enough to create it or generous enough to share it, but they did.
Annoyance Can Feel Like Comprehensive Knowledge of a Person
If you find yourself bracing whenever you have to be around a particular person, consider if the questions offered here could help release that stress valve.
You don’t need to make the rosiest interpretation of the person’s behavior. Without that, it can still be useful to see that perhaps your annoyance isn’t the full story. When we see one side of someone repeatedly, and that experience is aversive to us, that can feel like comprehensive knowledge. Going through the process of considering these questions can help you recognize it isn’t.
