Tune out the Negative People

Negative people and incidents ebb and flow in our lives over the course of time.  In the education world, negativity can kill a school culture, a teacher, and worst, a student.  Often a few vocal negative people can have way more power than they should.  The challenge we struggle with as humans is how to tune out the negative and not allow it to get us down.  We talk about grit and resilience, but not always the "how" to get rid of the negativity.

In the last few months I've struggled with a couple negative people getting me down, and struggled with them affecting me.  The constant road blocks thrown up, saying "no" to people just because, and simply not being committed to what is best for us all had worn me down.

As someone who is almost always positive and eager to take on any challenge, I felt defeated.  I was letting a couple jokesters get to me, and it was affecting who I was as a person.  The positive was I cared so for my work and the mission we are on, and wanted so bad to "fix" this situation.  The downside was, I didn't have the power in this situation to do anything to improve it.  I couldn't change the mentality and perspective of folks.  Some people just live in their little silo that isn't aligned with the rest of the team.

I hit the wall, and was ready to quit.  I even started looking around with the thoughts of a different job.  Finally, it hit me; I had two choices: 1) be a quitter and let them win, 2) find a way to ignore them and simply move on with what I know is my commitment to doing what I can to support constant improvement and moving the organization forward.

There were three steps I took to get over the hump.  Although they may not work for everyone, my encouragement is to reflect on what methods will work for you.  In the end, we HAVE to tune out the negative people.

1) I simply started ignoring and keeping my distance from them.  It's a choice to engage with negative people, it's a choice to let them get to us, and it's a choice whether we allow them to ruin it for the rest of us.  Although sometimes hard because you have to work with people, you don't have to go out of your way to hang out with them.  In time, I'm a believer humans figure out when their peers are clearly not fans of their attitude and behavior.

2) I made a conscious choice to hang out with those who keep me positive.  Utilizing my PLN and choosing to hang out with positive individuals who drown out the negative does amazing things for our mental well being.

3) I refocused my energies and work.  As an admin, we have many projects and tasks to complete.  I made a choice to prioritize anything that didn't involve certain people and move down the list the items that would require working with the nay-sayers.  Although not always realistic, as we often have to work with certain people, I was pleasantly surprised how much I could pull away and allow others to work with these folks.  I chose to focus my work on other areas and working with other people who share the same vision and goals as I do and remain positive and with a "yes" mentality.

In the end, we all encounter jokesters who just aren't part of the team vision and who seem to bring people down.  I've watched colleagues recently be affected negatively by the same crew, and hard to watch; however, my encouragement has been to ignore them.  We MUST keep doing the good work and can't let a couple negative people bring us down.  No matter what, find a way to tune out the negative people.  Our schools need us, our staff need us, and our students and families need us.  Keep fighting, and don't quit, and make the positive win out each and every day!