Tips to improve your relationship with your coworkers

In the work context, relationships are an important part of the development and progress of any company. As often happens in other areas of life, these can become tense at work. This situation can affect work performance and the employee’s sense of well-being and satisfaction..

You may be in this situation, working in a place where no one loves you, where you have to live with looks of contempt and endure people speaking ill of you behind your back. Working knowing that no one loves you is stressful. Therefore, in this article we will provide you with some practical recommendations.

Why don’t my coworkers like me?

There can be many reasons why your coworkers don’t like you. One of them may be that you like to receive all the recognition for good teamwork. Perhaps you seek prominence before your superiors at the expense of others. If you act arrogantly and steal credit for your colleagues’ work, it is difficult for them to like you..

Another reason why you may not be wanted at work is because you maintain a negative attitude, with constant complaints: When you turn complaints into a constant pattern of negativity, you can ruin the work environment and the environment for others. By creating an atmosphere of pessimism and negativity, people can distance themselves so as not to be infected by your emotional state.

Another possible reason why they don’t love you is that you are passive-aggressive, unsociable, distrustful and lonely.. You are irritable, irascible, moody. You constantly resist what is demanded of you and adopt a passive attitude towards your work obligations. With this way of behaving it is very difficult for your colleagues to love you.

Your colleagues may not like you too because, perhaps, you are a gossip. Talking badly about your colleagues’ lives with others and divulging their intimate life is not something they can love you for. You can also be the object of hatred out of envy. They don’t love you because you occupy a privileged place in the company and they are envious of your position and what you have achieved with or without merit.

What can I do when my colleagues don’t like me?

Not feeling loved is an experience that can make you feel bad about yourself and affect your self-esteem. Next, we will give you several recommendations so that you can face these situations. But first we must determine if you are promoting a negative attitude in your colleagues or if it is just out of envy that you have earned rejection.

If your colleagues don’t like you because of the way you behave, then you should take some time to think about what you are doing wrong. You can also turn to a colleague who does not reject you to ask them. Keep these recommendations in mind so that you can promote a better work environment with your colleagues:

Avoid gossiping about the lives of your colleagues.Don’t speak ill of anyone.Be respectful.Collaborate without expecting recognition.Seek to improve the shortcomings you notice in your workplace, so that others benefit from your action and notice your interest in them.Be fair and give work credit to those who deserve it.Try to have a helpful disposition. But be careful, it is important that you know how to maintain limits, lest they end up taking advantage of you. Participate in social integrations.

I treat my colleagues well, but they still don’t like me

If when reflecting or talking to someone, you discover that you are not doing anything to feed the rejection, then it is time to learn to manage your emotions in these situations, so that it does not affect you. Let’s look at some recommendations so that you keep them in mind in these circumstances.

1. Keep your peace of mind in mind

Now that you know you’re not doing anything to make them dislike you at work, It is important that you learn to maintain your peace of mind and not let yourself be affected by the rejection of your colleagues. For this there is a stoic exercise that Massimo Pigliucci and Gregory López have proposed in three steps:

Step 1: Visualize a task that you probably have to face at work today and that can be manipulated by your colleagues.Step 2: practice mentally: “I want to do this activity, but I also want to stay calm and accept what happens.”Step 3: Lastly, imagine yourself behaving calmly in the situation.

2. Ignore what happens

If after trying to improve your relationship with your coworkers, you don’t get any results, then it’s a good idea to learn to ignore what’s happening. There are things you can’t change, because they are beyond your control.

When this happens, The most sensible thing you can do is change the way you perceive, feel and act on those occasions. Paraphrasing Epictetus, keep in mind that it is not things or situations that affect you emotionally, it is the interpretation you make of them.

3. Plan to meet complicated people

There is a meditation exercise that Marcus Aurelius proposed in his Meditations which can help you deal with your coworkers. Pigliucci and Gregory (2019) propose carrying out this exercise as follows:

Every morning, before starting your day, write down your own premeditations about encountering difficult coworkers. This will help you eliminate the impact of the surprise if it happens. Give yourself a reminder that you are trying to improve by focusing only on what depends on you. That they don’t want you at work, even if you are doing things well, doesn’t depend on you.

4. Use difficulties to grow

If you can’t change the situation or do anything to make your colleagues love you, Learn to use this adversity to grow. When you are in a bad situation, you can take it as an opportunity to cultivate virtue. So, if your colleagues are not nice to you, show them how to be nice; If they are bad to you, teach them, with your behavior, how to be good.

At the end of the day, think about how you could have been better at your job and when you felt that what your colleagues were doing was beginning to affect you emotionally. Reflect on how you reacted, what you felt and thought, and formulate new options to respond to these situations.

5. Focus on your work and continue on your way

To make decisions, take your own set of values ​​as a reference.. Feeling unwanted at work can leave you stuck looking for reasons (“why don’t they love me?”) or explanations (“they don’t love me because I’m incapable”).

Life goes on and you must do the same. Therefore, after you have accepted what you feel and the situation, focus on your own path. Learn from what you are feeling and living so you can improve and grow.

Finally, remember that your well-being comes first, if the work situation becomes very complicated and is affecting you greatly, both at work and personally, it is important that you consider other options to deal with the problem. If you can’t leave your job, asking for professional help is an excellent option so you can learn to deal with this situation.

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