bythemethod.com blog

It’s hard enough staying confident in life without having to cope with people who talk down to you. Perhaps your Mum or Dad used to put you down all the time saying things like: idiot or stupid or you’ll never do that. Perhaps you have friends or enemies who do the same. Perhaps your employer or supervisor or your husband or your wife do the same.

So what do you do?

Your natural reaction is that your confidence plumets

It can be hard enough when someone you don’t care about says something bad about you but it is very bad when it is someone you love and/or respect. But it doesn’t matter who says it you will still feel your confidence levels go down.

It is important that you understand this because you need to protect your confidence levels.

How can you protect your confidence?

The first thing to do is to not let it upset you. I know this sounds difficult but you have to learn to be tough with any words that suggest you are bad or incapable. Try to develop a mental toughness.

A friend of mine used to use a word to stop this kind of thing from getting to him. I don’t want to repeat the word here because it’s a word that is better kept in the mind than written down but any strong word will do the trick. If ever he heard something he didn’t like he would simply mutter this word to himself or say it in his head. I learned to do the same and it can work wonders. Just be careful if others hear you say it they might get upset with you.

So use a word like say ‘rubbish’ and if someone says something you don’t like just say the word with feeling. Then remind yourself that you are better than that.

Don’t answer back

One of the worst things you can do is to answer someone back. There is something about human nature that if they feel attacked they will defend – even if that defense is pointless. If someone attacks you there may be a moment when you want to defend yourself and answer back. This will have two effects: a) the person will defend themselves and you end up in an angry argument and b) you are responding with agression which will make the comment hurt you more deeply.

If you are agressive in defending yourself it will make the impact of the comment last longer and become more ingrained in your mind. The more emotion you invest in any comment the more powerful will be it’s impact. You want to have more emotion with compliments and no emotion with insults.

Turn the comment around so it becomes a confidence booster for you

If someone says you are an idiot then say to yourself: I do this kind of thing well or I’m very clever. If someone says ‘you’ll never do that’ then say to yourself ‘I will succeed at this’. Put your feelings into the positive comment. This will take the power from the negative comment and put it in the positive comment.

Learn not to talk down to others yourself

Talking people down to people has become a part of modern day life for many of us. It is not funny or clever in fact I think it is the opposite. Sports people do it to try and get an edge on their opponents and I guess this is what many of us who resort to this way of talking are doing as well. We feel that someone putting someone else down raises us up. It doesn’t.

Make an agreement with yourself that you are not going to talk down to other people. You may experience a small lapse from time to time but try to make a habit out of not talking that way.

You will find that people will love you for it and they will start to talk nicer back to you.