Whenever we are confronted by challenging behaviour from another person, the ultimate challenge for us is keeping our self-esteem intact and not allowing their actions and behaviour make us feel unworthy or doubtful of who we are.

Have you experienced that sort of challenge before? What did you do? What would you like to have done? I know I have experienced these situations throughout my life, sometimes dealing with them successfully, at other times not.

So, what can help us successfully manage other people’s challenging behaviour and maintain our self esteem and positive thinking about ourselves?

Here are a couple of ideas of my own. It would be great if you posted a comment to this blog post and share with us a strategy that has worked for you, or an experience you have had and are still looking for answers.

• Talk about it with someone you trust. Maybe they have some suggestions as to how you could deal with this person/behaviour

• Walk away. This is actually an assertive response, because you are choosing to remove yourself from their negativity……so long as you don not end up berating yourself for not dealing with the situation.

There really are just some people in this world who will never be prepared to look at themselves and how their behaviour affects others. You are prepared to do something about it, when you choose to walk away in order to look after yourself.

• Take care of your self esteem every day.

I think this is vital. Acknowledging your strengths, celebrating your achievements, appreciating the good things in your life (friends, family, simple things like walking the dog, enjoying a sunny day) are ongoing activities you need to engage in on a daily basis. They are not something to take for granted because you have thought about them once, in the past!

A great example of staying positive in these challenging situations is planning to actually develop some specific skills, such as completing an assertiveness course, getting some mentoring help, attending a self-esteem workshop, reading self-help books and using the suggested strategies.

Practical actions like these can give you a sense of purpose and definitely help you feel (and be) more in control of what happens to you when someone else decides to impinge on your world.

What do you think? How do you stay positive and hold on to your self esteem? Click on the ‘comment’ link below and post you ideas to this blog.