I stumbled across a Flickr group full of “The Way I See It” mugs from Starbucks, and this particular image rang a lot of bells.

I get heaps of emails from people asking me about how they can be confident enough to deal with people who put them down and it’s one of the biggest ways people find my blog.  This quotation says it all.

Pay attention to it.

“Oh my God, look at you. Anyone else hurt in the accident?” – Don Rickles (to Ernest Borgnine)

“She’s like an apple turnover that got crushed in a grocery bag on a hot day.” – Camille Paglia (about Drew Barrymore)

“She speaks five languages and can’t act in any of them.” – John Gielgud (about Ingrid Bergman)

“I never forget a face, but in your case, I’ll make an exception.” – Groucho Marx

That’s just a tiny handful of some of the best put-downs around, and a good put-down can have me laughing like a choir girl in a tickling contest.  But put-downs aren’t always so funny or witty – sometimes, often-times, they just plain hurt.

What I’m talking about here is when you have a friend or loved one who habitually says things to put you down, someone who regularly seeks to diminish you.

It hurts when someone says something that diminishes what you’ve done or who you are.  It hurts when someone demonstrates a fundamental lack of respect towards you.

Here are my thoughts on how to respond.

1. You have a choice.

Chances are you can brush off the odd flippant remark or throw-away comment.  People sometimes say silly things (I know I do) and taking everything personally is going to turn you into an anxious, paranoid wreck.

So while one school of thought suggests that you should just brush off the comment and carry on regardless, there’s another school of thought that says you shouldn’t tolerate someone who puts you down.

To be brutally frank (and, frankly, brutal), I think that too many people take too many things personally when they’re not meant to be, but both choices have their place and I’m not going to say that one way is better than the other.  What I will say is that if you’re told enough times that you’re not good enough it’s entirely possible that you’ll start to believe it, especially if the someone who’s telling you you’re not good enough is someone you care about or love.

In cases like this, where your self-esteem is on the line, leaving things alone and carrying on is definitely the wrong call.

It’s easy to feel powerless in this situation, but you have to recognise that you’re in a position to make a choice.  You can choose to be a victim and to take what’s said as the truth, or you can choose to remember who you are and to stand tall.

Always remember that having someone who puts you down doesn’t have to define you.  You have a choice about how it affects you.  You can choose to have something better.

2. It’s them, not you.

The reasons that someone decides to put you down are many.  They might be taking anger or bitterness from one part of their life and venting it onto you, for example, but frequently it’s about making themselves right.  By putting you down they’re able to reinforce their own position; by lessening and damaging your position they’re able to achieve personal validation.

All of this – and you have to fully acknowledge this – is about them, not you.  What they say isn’t truth and their method for achieving validation is just plain wrong.

3. Teach them how to treat you.

If the person putting you down has learned previously that it’s acceptable to do what they’re doing, they’ll keep on doing it.  People are dumb like that, they’ll do what works until they have evidence that it doesn’t work.  That’s why the emphasis is on you to make a choice and to let them know that you expect to be treated with respect.

Your responses to others’ behaviour teaches them what is and isn’t acceptable.

If your response to their behaviour is to smooth things over, try to ignore it or accept it, you’re teaching them that their behaviour is acceptable.

All the time you’re rolling over and taking it you’re making it easy for them to believe their behaviour is okay.  If it’s damaging your self-esteem and self-confidence their behaviour is not okay – you need to teach them that through your responses.

This can be tough to do, especially as it means shifting the status-quo.  It means you need to do something differently, and that’s scary.  If you’re scared and don’t know how to stand up and tell them that their words are unacceptable, pretend that you’re the kind of person who finds this stuff easy.

Act like you’re comfortable standing up for yourself, like you’re someone who’s confident enough to ask for respect and consideration.

4.  Make the hard choice.

If they continue to put you down when you’ve changed your responses and done your best to teach them how to treat you, then it’s crunch time.

When you’ve done what you can and they’re still putting you down, you need to consider 2 questions – “How else can I turn this around?” and “What am I prepared to do to turn things around?”

If, having considered those questions, you’re coming up blank then there’s really only one choice left to you.

Get out.

You can’t reach into their head and change their behaviour or thinking, and it’s not your job to tolerate unacceptable behaviour.  People either get how things work or they don’t, and there’s no way you should suffer at the hands of someone who just doesn’t get it.

If, at the end, you’ve done what you can and they’re still putting you down, you owe it to yourself to get out and get something better.

Ask any caveman and he’ll tell you that he’s master of his domain (and I don’t mean in the Seinfeld sense of the phrase either). Right after he’s established that he’ll probably beat you with a club and make Sunday lunch with you.

Why would he tell you he’s master of his domain and then eat you? 2 reasons–

1. Because he’s learned to shape his environment to suit his needs.
He’s made a lovely home in the cave around the corner, learned how to hunt and make weapons, learned how to make a fashionable coat out of an elk in the winter, etc.

2. Because his environment has shaped his behaviour.
He knows he has to hunt food to survive, so when a tasty-looking mammal strolls up and starts asking him questions he sees dinner.

This is the same with you and me. We don’t go around eating each other (if you do, you’ve got more to work on than your self-confidence) but we have the unique ability to shape our environment and are also shaped by it.

Just like Mr Caveman, we respond to and adapt to the environment around us – that’s the only way we can survive and live effectively. If you live somewhere that’s hot all year round then you’d be stupid to walk around in a thick wool coat, your home won’t need underfloor heating or a roaring fireplace and you’ll probably have air conditioning. You might have one of those silly hats with a fan attachment.

The same goes for your beliefs and behaviours – they’re shaped by your environment.

If your environment is filled with people who lack confidence or who tell you that you won’t amount to a hill of beans in this world, then that becomes the truth that your environment feeds you and you respond and adapt to it.

If you’re surrounded by unhappy people then you’ll be more inclined to unhappiness.

If you’re surrounded by people who bash down your ideas then you’ll be inclined to play it safe and to not let your ideas take shape.

If you’re surrounded by people who lack confidence it makes it so much more difficult to become truly confident yourself.

When you get down to brass tacks it boils down to the fact that if you surround yourself with the wrong people and you’ll be as miserable as a 10 month Winter.

I sometimes call these ‘wrong people’ negative swimmers. Swimming is all about using the water around you to propel you forwards. The water is there to help you move, your body works in co-ordination with it, and the whole things works gracefully.

Negative swimming is the opposite of swimming – you thrash around, cause a hell of a splash, swallow half the pool and go nowhere except down.

If your environment is one of low confidence – i.e. you’re surrounded by negative swimmers – the only way to become truly confident is to reshape the environment in line with that new life and new experience.

Of course, if you lack confidence yourself it becomes a huge task to find the balls to step up, think differently, do differently and become different.

Like Mr Caveman, you can’t wait for your environment to change around you. That simply doesn’t work. Did Mr Caveman kill a moose to feed the wife and kids, then build a nice pile of branches and sit down waiting for them to catch fire?*

No. He figured out a way to make them catch fire, using some kind of catalyst to create a spark.

That’s exactly what you need to do.

You can’t wait for your environment to change around you. That’s like waiting for the kettle to boil when you don’t have anywhere to plug it in.

Or any water.

Or a kettle.

You have to surround yourself with people who add to your environment rather than take from it, and sometimes that means making choices to remove people who are taking away from your ability to play a great game. That might sounds harsh but think about the alternative.

Think swimming rather than negative swimming.

You want people in your environment who support you, encourage you, cheer you and motivate you. You want to create a congruous environment that supports who you are and what truly matters to you.

That’s where you can become truly confident and create fire in your life.

* (Specific prehistoric and evolutionary details may be inaccurate, I’m no Simon Schama you know).

In my freelancing work that I do alongside my coaching I was given a Big Messy Project to run for an ad agency in London, and an old problem of mine resurfaced.

I like things to run smoothly and I like everyone to work together, have fun and deliver great results. So when conflict arises I really struggle with it; firstly because my life is generally conflict free, secondly because I always do what I can to set things up ahead of time to ensure there isn’t any, and thirdly because it makes me feel awkward and uncomfortable.

One part of the team wanted to deliver the project a particular way with a specific creative concept, while another part wanted another concept. Both sides were passionate about their position, and each was using all kinds of tricks to strengthen their position, even to the point of undermining mine. My responsibility was to find a workable solution that everyone could get behind, that (most importantly) gave the client exactly what they were looking for.

Here’s what I did, and here are 5 strategies you can use to handle conflict.

1. Listen
   Make sure you’ve heard everyone and respect their point of view. You don’t necessarily have to understand everyone’s perspective (doing that can take a lifetime), but you need to have a true respect for their position. Not only does that mean that you’re fully informed about what’s happening and where people are, but it demonstrates the value of the relationships you have and that you’re happy to listen and willing to engage with others.

   It also means that you might see a way through that hadn’t occurred to you before; it gives you the opportunity to grab nuggets of gold from different people to create a way forward that’s a workable and effective compromise.

2. Do your due diligence
   If there are facts you need to gather or new areas you need to explore, make sure you go deep enough into those areas to figure out the depth and breadth of them. Of course, that assumes you have the time to do that, so this is a tricky balance between doing enough due diligence to be informed, checking in with your instincts and leveraging your experience to anticipate the different paths.

   So what do you need to know, and what’s the best way to get those answers? Work that out with an open mind and you’ll be in a stronger position to move forwards.

3. Don’t make it personal
   When someone’s disagreeing or even attacking your position it’s easy for emotions to get involved. Frustration, anger and blame can all get swept up, and before you know it you’ve got a bigger problem than you ever thought.

   Don’t make it personal. If someone disagrees with your position they’re allowed to, just as you’re allowed to disagree with others. The moment that you start taking differences of opinion as personal criticism and judgement (even if that’s exactly what’s being thrown at you) you’ll either be on the defensive or will come out on the offensive with all guns blazing.

   Be passionate if you’re passionate and recognise your emotions; but balance that with the facts and a liberal sprinkling of common sense.

4. Be ready to be wrong
   If you’re wrong, admit it. Don’t hang on to your position just for the sake of wanting to be right – that’ll get you into more hot water, will waste everyone’s time and will really screw things up.

   Being wrong isn’t a bad thing – it shows that you’re switched on enough to do the best thing for all concerned and find the best route through, even if that flies in the face of what you were thinking previously.

5. State your case simply and assertively
   The more complicated you make things the more complex it’ll be for you and other people to unravel. Simplify what’s happening, simplify your position (even take a moment to jot down some bullet points) and figure out the simplest way to move forwards. Even if you don’t have all the answers, you need to be confident enough in the solution to make a decision and state your case.

   There’s a point where the debate needs to be over, and you need to communicate that in a way that engages rather alienates. Let people know coolly and unambiguously what the facts are and the way forward.

Everyone has their own challenges when it comes to handling conflict, and these are just a handful of the strategies I’ve employed at various times. How do you deal (or not deal) with conflict?

Hey Steve
I’m a 28 year old gal who moved to New York from Oregon a few years ago and I think I’m doing pretty good. Great job, good friends, busy dating. One thing though. I’m always rolling over when there’s an argument, and I hate arguing with anyone.

I can think of so many times when I should probably have gotten angry and stood my ground, I don’t know why but I always let the other person get their way or let them win the argument. Why can’t I argue with people?”

Tania W. in NYC

It sounds like those times you’re in situations where you feel like you need to speak up, stand your ground or express your point of view, that whatever’s happening in your head has a stronger influence over you than your sense of knowing the best course of action. That’s darn frustrating.

It’s pretty likely that people have taken advantage of your compliant nature, and there may have been opportunities you’ve missed out on as a result. More and more frustrating, right?

3 things:

1. Any automatic behaviour – like avoiding conflict or rolling over in an argument – has a pay-off for you. That’s why you do it over and over, because on some level there’s something you’re getting out of it.

   The trick here is to figure out what the pay-off is (avoiding judgement and an easy life are two obvious ones for you Tania) and look objectively as to whether that pay-off is really worth the price you’re paying.

2. Boiling this down, the fact that you stop yourself doing what you feel is right tells me that you’re doing what you think you ’should’ do or what you think is easier instead. STOP IT!
   
   As the saying goes, the big problem with us people is that we ’should’ all over ourselves, and renowned therapist Albert Ellis coined the term ‘must-a-bation‘ for this. Some people are serial ‘shouders’ and ‘must-abaters’.

   One of the first things you need to do is to get rid of the shoulds, oughts and musts from what you do and go with what you know to be right for you.

3. Rolling over doesn’t make things easier for you either (you wouldn’t have emailed me if it did). It causes you to worry, ensures that you miss out on expressing your view, reduces your self-confidence, makes sure that you don’t get to put your highly capable stamp on things and guarantees that you don’t get to be fully yourself.
   
   Don’t get hung up on ‘not rocking the boat’ or trying to ‘please everyone’. Sticking up for yourself doesn’t make you a bad person, it doesn’t mean bad things will happen and it doesn’t mean others will judge you negatively. It means that you’re exerting your right to express your point of view and you’re honouring what’s important to you.

Here’s an email I got from Sally back in September:

“There is one question I have for you – how do you handle family member(s) and a partner who have ways to destroy your confidence levels? Growing up, I was an over-weight girl and my Mom and sister put me down a lot, but I was not afraid to have fun & express myself and had lots of friends. Nowadays, I’m in much better shape, but I keep to myself – I don’t do anything but go to work & school (no time and no REAL friends to be with) and it seems my partner, my sister & mom still have a way to bring me down. How can I overcome this?”

– Sally in Boston

Anything to do with family is a really tough one, because at the end of the day there’s only so far you can go. You can’t choose your family, so with that has to come a certain amount of acceptance. It sounds like you’ve had a tough time growing up and have had to put up with a lot of negativity. Good for you for seeing that this doesn’t have to define you and that you can have something better for yourself – I can’t emphasise enough how important that is.

You know, if you’re told enough times that you’re not good enough you might start to believe it one day. What I can tell you without doubt is that you are better and more resourceful than you know. What your partner, Mom and sister say and do is just plain wrong.

Do they know how much their behaviour is affecting you? It’s possible that because they don’t know how you’re feeling that they assume their behaviour is okay. If it’s damaging your sense of self their behaviour is not okay.

Your responses to others’ behaviour teaches them what is and isn’t acceptable. If these people have learned previously that it’s acceptable to do what they’re doing, then it’s time for you to let them know that it isn’t what you expect anymore, and that you deserve to be treated with respect.

It may be that you’ve gone down that road and things are still the same. In that case it really turns into two questions – “How else can I turn this around?” and “What am I prepared to do to turn things around?”

It starts with you, and perhaps the biggest question you need to answer is “What are the reasons I’ve chosen a partner who puts me down and why do I tolerate how my Mom and sister treat me?”

Sally sent me an update recently:

“Thank you for thinking of me. I think there are a lot of people who can relate to me & my situation. I can honesty say I am not the same person who wrote you a few months ago. My energy level has increased, my confidence levels have increased. I know I have no control of other people & what they say and do but I can control how it affects me. I believe the way they treat others is a reflection of how they feel about themselves. No one deserves to be degraded by another. We are all flesh & blood. No one is more superior than another. Some people might be richer, skinnier or more beautiful but it doesn’t make them a better person. Some people might have nothing…..(material)…and still have everything.

You might feel like someone has control of your life but as soon as you realize that when you look in that mirror & it’s only you…it’s your life…..you can make the first step in taking control of your life. Only you can make it happen.”

Nicely done Sally.

There are certain challenges in building your self-confidence, like sweeping away old roles and expectations, silencing that voice that criticises your every move and – when you get right down to it – figuring out just who the heck you really are.

That’s sometimes made more difficult by the people around you, and some men in particular have a hard time dealing with confident women. Here’s what I’ve seen.

1. In the workplace a lot of men will use the word ‘bitch‘ to describe a confident woman. Other words I’ve heard guys use in the past (believe it or not) are ‘lesbian’ and ‘frigid’. Sure, it’s only a pocket of men that think this way and those are likely to be throwaway (albeit ignorant) comments, but it speaks to a lot of mens inability to deal with confident and successful women on a level playing field.

   I certainly hope that your contemporaries will think of you as nothing other than capable and bright, but a certain breed of co-worker and some old school management won’t know how to deal with you.

2. Socially, the Average Joe will see a confident woman and experience a mixture of attraction and feeling threatened by them. I’m not necessarily talking about sexual attraction (although many guys are turned on by a confident woman) but a platonic attraction based on the air of wholeness that confidence brings. Mix in a little fear about it being more likely that they’ll be rejected by a confident, together woman and not knowing what role they should play (the manly man, the sensitive soul, the joker, etc), and a lot of men will start a bizzare little performance based on what they think will impress the socks off the woman in question. “You might be confident and successful, but check out what I can do“.
   
   Again, your contemporaries are going to be more relaxed and at ease, but the chances are that a confident and successful woman who’s out at a social event will engender these responses.
3. If a guy is in a romantic relationship with a confident and successful woman it’ll be for one of two reasons depending on what kind of guy he is. One guy will be genuinely attracted by you as a person, loves who you are and respects what you’ve achieved. That’s a Very Good Thing.
   
   Another guy will see you as a challenge. This kind of guy tricks himself into believing he wants to be in a relationship for all the right reasons, but the real reason is that he’s hoping some of what you have rubs off on him. He hopes that by being with you he’ll share your success and be more at ease with himself. Either that, or he’s the type of guy who’s motivated by the challenge of sleeping with successful and confident women. Either way, they’re looking to boost their own ego’s by being with you.

Let me spell it out for you. None of this is your problem. Do not change who you are because other people seem to be having a hard time knowing how to relate to you.

That’s not to say that you should run around like a bull in a china shop pissing off everyone you come into contact with, and of course there are times when it’s important to consider others. But that doesn’t mean that you need to compromise on who you are or what you’re capable of, and it doesn’t mean you have to squeeze yourself into a box based on others’ expectations.

Sometimes an attitudinal shift on your part will work wonders, sometimes an honest conversation with a positive outlook will do the job, but most of the time it’s simply about being nice.

”Steve, 3 months ago I moved a friendship on to the next level and now it’s ended pretty badly. We were fooling around anyway and I really liked the guy, so I took a risk and told him how I felt. This was met by total silence for a couple of days before eventually receiving an email from him saying that he’d love for us to get together. Not hearing from him after I asked him out rang alarm bells, but we launched into a girlfriend/boyfriend thing that seemed to be going fine until just after Christmas.

I think that he’s not over his marriage split and is scared of getting involved again. I don’t know all the emotional baggage he’s carrying around with him, but if I did I could perhaps understand why he’s shutting me out. I don’t know where I stand and don’t know if I’ve handled it right. It feels like I’ve hit a major brick wall.“

- Liz N in London

A tricky and frustrating situation for you Liz. Figuring out the reasons that a relationship didn’t work out can be harder than getting Amy Winehouse out of the pub, but it certainly sounds like he’s got some issues left over from his marriage and divorce. Chances are he’s confused by what’s happening for him and a lot of men find it much easier and simpler to withdraw from the things that confuse them or are a source of pain.

But let’s make this about you. This is about how you’re feeling about the situation, and it looks like what’s happened is making you ask all kinds of questions and has hit your confidence. I wouldn’t be surprised if what’s happening may be rippling out and causing you to pause and question other areas of your life too.

I can definitely understand your need to get some kind of answer, resolution or closure on this, and there may even be room to move the relationship forwards so that it’s good for both of you, but so far what you’ve been doing hasn’t allowed either of those things to happen. It may well be that at some point in the future you will get to speak with him and that you’ll get some kind of answer, but it’s also possible that you won’t get to speak with him and that even if you did you wouldn’t get the kind of closure you’re looking for. Bear in mind that you might not be able to get an explanation that makes sense to you and you might never understand it.

So that leaves you, and your job is to make sure you’re okay whatever happens. It sounds like you know your role in this and that you’re not dodging your responsibility in what’s happened, so what’s the real reason for wanting to get an explanation?

Be really careful that you don’t focus wholly on getting that explanation simply so you can feel better, accept things and move on. The impact that speculating or searching for that explanation has on your self-confidence can be pretty significant.

If doing what you’re doing will only cause more disappointment, frustration and even anger then you’re only going to do more damage to your sense of who you are. If that’s the case you owe it to yourself to make a different choice; one that serves you better. Considering that it’s possible that you might never get practical closure you need to look at how you get emotional closure, for your own sake. And by emotional closure I’m talking about acceptance and – get ready for the ‘f’ word – forgiveness.