How to Deal With a Negative Coworker

Add a coworker’s negative attitude to a long, stressful day, and you’ll be ready to burst by five o’clock. Absorbing too much negativity at the workplace can consume your emotional energy, decrease your productivity and sour your mood.

Don’t let negative coworkers bother you. Learn how to avoid catching their bad vibes.

4 Steps to Deal With a Negative Coworker

1. Deal with the coworker on only a professional level

Negative people will inject their emotional venom into everything if you let them. Avoid lengthy venting sessions with them. Only discuss work-related issues. Chances are they’ll also be negative during these discussions. However, the less negativity that you take in, the less you’ll have to combat.

2. Recognize when a person is being negative, and put up a mental barricade

You first must recognize that the negativity before you can protect yourself from it. When a person says something negative, remind yourself not to let it affect you. It is your choice to allow someone’s toxic energy to bother you.

3. Neutralize the negative energy with positive energy

If someone expresses negativity, remain positive. Your example might make the negative person realize just how malignantly they’re behaving. And even if he or she doesn’t experience a revelation, the negative behavior may cease in your presence. Usually, when negative people realize that they can’t affect your upbeat disposition, they’ll stop bothering you.

4. Be happy that you’re not a negative person

People embody negative temperaments for a number of reasons of which only they are aware. The good news is, it’s not you. Accept the negative person for who he is, and reinforce that your mood and behavior will not be altered by another person’s emotionally damaging outlook.

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