How to Stop Being Petty in Trying Situations

Most people, if not all of us, have been guilty of it, making someone feel down. Or nitpicking flaws, wanting to have the last say in our futile efforts to be “right”, right? Well, there are indeed moments when you will feel unimportant and most often than not, you don’t mean to be. It sorts of happens. But you should work towards avoiding being petty in difficult situations. If this rings true for you, then you need to know how to stop being petty to handle situations with calm and get happier.

Being petty could mean exhibiting an immature reaction when retaliating against undesired outcomes, childishness, habitual overreaction, or even making things insignificant to give yourself an excuse to be uncooperative or stubborn. You get the picture, right?

Most people are pretty in their ways so this rings true for you, just know that you are not alone in this. For example, at your workplace, you could find yourself absorbing your workmates’ negativity only to give it back in a pretty undesirable way. Yes, life can be so stressful at times, and your capacity for handling stress could easily bubble over pettiness. Every one of us needs to know how to stop being pretty in any trying situation- that’s exactly what this article is all about. Read on.

Swallow Your Pride

Let’s get real a bit, can we?

Now, as you will realize, pride acts as the roots of all acts of pettiness, so it’s overly fundamental that we start there-at the roots. Pride can be a very hard and bitter thing to swallow. Pettiness is meant to “raise” someone, and as a result, people forget the importance of being humble. By being the bigger person, it proves that you are indeed a person who is emotionally mature to be dragged into petty issues. It’s hard to resist the urge to stoop to pettiness, but you can train yourself to act like the bigger person no matter what. Road rage accidents are a perfect example of ‘butting heads’ and it can easily be avoided if both parties handle it in a professional manner.

Some people will argue that pettiness feels satisfying, especially when people are rude at you- when they are the first one to throw a stone. But at the end of it all, being the bigger person and swallowing your pride means that you can’t afford to lower yourself to petty levels. This will not only give you a sense of great self-confidence, but it will also make people and the world to respect you for that.

Practice Meditation

Have you ever realized the power of meditation especially during the most difficult situations? If you haven’t learned that art today and you will be glad that you embraced it. You see, sometimes you need to get some comfort and peace for your mind by hiding in your comfort zone. If you can’t resist the difficulty of whatever situation, just take a step back from the trouble.

Meditation is known to calm your nerves regardless of the magnitude of a situation. Other people call it prayer, but there are many forms of meditation. Whatever you want to call it, when taken daily, this “medicine” is a truly useful ritual that promises to give you a better perspective on the most important things in life. Of course, pettiness isn’t on that list. For a matter of fact, life isn’t a matter of doing or dying but it’s rather about how to be happier with yourself. Do you get the idea?

Next time a situation hits your nerves, you will develop the much-needed calm and enough clarity that is worth it. This way, you will be pleasantly surprised how fast the situation’s annoyingness will roll off as you watch. Even if you’re in the heat and someone is becoming overly obnoxious, it doesn’t cost you even a single dime to take a step back and have a deep breath. Within those few milliseconds, you’ll for sure be able to find a viable solution to help you make an informed decision. Who said that you must do bad things to resolve a conflict? It instead adds more fuel to the fire.

So, give yourself a moment daily as not everyone or every situation needs your reaction, so just see how to stop being petty in whatever situation. Apart from helping you to stop being petty, meditation will also give you a solution to other problems that weren’t part of this situation. Try that today.

How to Stop Being Petty: Speak Up

It helps to talk out burning issues. Sometimes, people can annoy you big time and not even realize it, which means that if you don’t open up to them, they may never know it. Also, if you just choose to jump into pettiness, you’re going to create a wrong image of yourself. In real terms, that is how communication issues arise-someone gets on your nerves by saying something annoying or overly rude, not realizing that they are hurting you unknowingly, and this triggers you.

The thing here is, just talk everything out. Tell them that their behavior that triggers you makes you feel bad or annoyed, and of course, why you don’t like it. Find time and space to explain yourself to them better. Some people will understand your concerns and stop annoying you deliberately or even unknowingly.

Others will just scoff at everything and just say that it was a joke or you ‘re being extremely insensitive. Sorry but you are allowed to bring on your pettiness to these scoffing fellows. It’s OK because you already gave them a warning but they ignored it because they felt that it’s a joke. But only one in a million people will scoff at you.

Avoid What Triggers You

If you don’t want to reach a level whereby you will have to deal with pettiness, you can avoid everything all together- the triggers and the situation itself.

If everything fails and you can’t have those annoying fellows leave you alone despite your continued warnings, how about avoiding them altogether? Well, that can effectively work to your advantage because you won’t have to worry about anything, not even them or their annoyance. For most people, this is the easiest route out of trouble instead of even knowing how to stop being petty when troubles come your way. Also, you’ll learn how to be happier than ever.

You see, oftentimes, pettiness brings along negativity and a crisis into your life, so just know that it’s not worth your effort and time and avoid disaster. Make sure to avoid things that can affect your life to a greater extent. Avoid them if they don’t respect boundaries. Avoid them today.

Learn Acceptance

This is a fact- that all of us are human. And no human is more “human” than others, only that life has something unique for everyone. Every one of us can be easily infuriated by the smallest things in life and equally do things that infuriate others as well. The earlier you begin accepting that all of us are born differently, the better. It helps to understand that whatever other people do is just but part of who they are. It’s not necessarily a targeted attack towards you, it may be having nothing to do with you.

Lower Your Expectations

Learning acceptance goes hand in hand with lowering your expectations from people. Doing that doesn’t mean that you become a lesser you. You see, people with anger issues are said not to be with a problem but a problem with extreme optimism. Our fellows who are at risk of temper issues are believed to have an almost perfect vision for this or their world, and that’s exactly how they want things to work. Unfortunately, this vision is not guaranteed to occur, which makes them end up frustrated. If this rings true for you, it’s the highest time you lowered your expectations.

Learn the Art of Forgiveness

Knowing how to stop being petty in situations means that you should also practice forgiveness. It could also be a perfect combination of everything we have talked about above. When you find yourself getting pissed off at a thing that your loved one has said, the best thing to do at such a point and time is to forgive them. Why?

Well, you should truly care for everyone and value the people around you. Showing resentment towards them for what they do to you won’t help the situation either. Just assume that they didn’t know that they wronged you and move on. Or just tell yourself that what they just did is small or insignificant. But also make sure to let them know that they wronged you. Or you can just empathize with them and try to find what is going wrong in their lives. They could even be stressed without your knowledge, who knows?

Try to practice the tips above from today henceforth and see how they work for you. If you have other tips, feel free to put them into good use because everything that is meant to get you to know how to stop being pretty is also geared towards managing how you relate with the world!