Personal Development- Part 2: Surround Yourself with Good People & Communicate with Them!

Morning blogettes! While I’m still on the Personal Development track here, I just had to talk about something that’s been bothering me lately… negative energy. So, we’re skipping a step here.

How do we avoid negative energy when we’re constantly around this at work, school, or at home? I know… it’s got to be sad when you can’t avoid it, but you’ve got to deal with it. Whether it be a situation, or a person.  While I’ve been faced with a few situations over the past month, I’ll share some ideas with you (and how I dealt with it).

@ Work:

COMMUNICATION IS KEY. I updated my Facebook status with this last week and I got a bunch of responses to it. This doesn’t just go for work, but also just general in life. We can’t have expectations for people when they don’t know what we think or want. My mom and dad always told me that that’s why they never argue or fight. Did they disagree sometimes… for sure! This is one of the things that stick in my brain constantly. If I don’t tell my boss that I want to expand my “career balloon” then how will he know? If someone I sit next to is a distraction and is rather loud sometimes when I’m on the phone then how will she know?

Having projects or weekly meetings with your boss or team gives you the chance to work together more and opens up other random conversation. I have meetings with my old officemate a couple times a week about a project we’re working on together. She’s more experienced and older and lends me great advice. I wouldn’t be able to survive without her. Well maybe I would, but I think it’d just be harder lol.

My weekly meetings with my boss come in handy because we talk about what I’m working on and where I’m running into road-blocks and how I can improve in certain areas. Also he is giving me the opportunity to work on a project of a lifetime. Something I enjoy is being incorporated into something that I feel that I’m good at :-) We end the meetings with anything we didn’t touch on or anything he or I may have an issue with. We said we’d be 100% honest if either of us are slacking on our job. I don’t think I’ll ever have any concerns about that but I like for my boss to be straight with me so that other people don’t see when I’m slacking off. Ya dig? That’s communication my friend!!!

@ School:

I’m not attending school onsite, my classes are online at this time, so maybe others can attribute to this. One thing that I did grasp (from dating a rather hot Junior when I was a freshman and having his “first love” and her friends hate me) was that I did not let people bully or pick on me. I surrounded myself with good people who I could study and play sports with (and party with lol).

No need to be a complete bitch… BUT, you’ve got to let people know not to talk about you! Some people let things slide off off their back. NO. It’s not that easy for a lot of people… like myself. I’ll hold something inside until I explode. When you hold things inside, that creates more stress and anger for you. So just say what you need to in a nice way so that people “get it”. Because not everyone is socially smart ;-) Make sure you’re nice about it because afterall, when you live on campus, you have to see people everyday… *sigh* You don’t need to be friends with everyone, and those who are you true friends will appreciate the fact that you’re straight with them.

@ Home:

Before I moved in with my roommate I lived with M and his parents. The language barrier was a huge problem. How’d I deal with that one? Well I told them I wasn’t going out to eat with them anymore if they didn’t speak English around me. Lol. How do you want me to live here with you all but I’m not involved in simple conversation?!! NO! Not gonna happen! Now if you know me you know that I’m a no-nonsense type of person! :-P Again, let people know how you feel and everything will fall into place. This keeps you from being taken advantage of in a situation.

So, how do you communicate with someone that doesn’t understand you in your home? Well I think it’s important to have talks. Whether it be completely random about anything or if something’s bothering you, just bring it up and see what their reaction is. Think about it… if you never told anyone what was bothering you and they didn’t tell you, it’d be a fake relationship! You’re walking around like everything’s great and deep down it’s not. Ask them if you could grab dinner and a drink one night (that usually loosens ya right up- but some people should avoid this if they say stupid things… after one drink! lol) and ask some questions and throw in your two cents. Works like a charm ;-)

 

In general I think we all want to be around good people, but you can’t sit down and make a list of good and bad people. Everyone has characteristics. Who are we to decide if that’s good or bad. I’ve learned to appreciate people’s differences as good things. Things just happen a certain way sometimes and we can only control who we share our life and time with… oh, and how we let people treat us! Someone that doesn’t know me very well told me a couple weeks ago that I can’t control my relationship with M. I don’t want to control it. But do I WANT to control the direction it goes in? For sure! If you sit back and let everything coast right along… you don’t get anywhere.

Surround yourself with good people and don’t be afraid to plan your life. Things won’t always go as you want them to but in my experience it’s worked out pretty well and for the first time in my life I can honestly say that I’m happy with where I am at work, with my family and friends, and in my relationship. No one or nothing is ever perfect, but you can try!

 

Quisha