When Someone Annoys You What Do You Do

This topic, while a common occurrence in our daily lives, and is a sensitive topic for many. Getting annoyed with people is common. Being irritated with decisions others make happens to most of us. When it does happen, we ultimately have a choice, do we spend our days in negative spirals constantly noticing these annoyances? Or do we get curious about it? When someone annoys you what do you do? Learn how to uplevel your choices and finally stop the rollercoaster of emotions you feel when someone annoys you.

I recently read a meme on social media and it read: “You cannot change someone who does NOT see an issue with their actions.” This is true, but there is a deeper issue here than just making a simple choice against changing others. If that was all there was to it, then we can simply not say anything and walk away, letting others live their life.

Most times this is the better choice. After all, spending our days nitpicking others or being highly critical of others just repels people and pulls your energy down. There are many health concerns both physical and mental health-related that happen when we consistently go down this road. It’s not a road I’d recommend for anyone, but that is their choice.

Then there are people that understand others can’t be changed, and they can choose how they react to the situation. This relates to the saying “taking the high road”. It may not be easy to hold your tongue and walk away, but you do anyway. There’s an abundance of health benefits and relationship maturity that goes with mastering this life skill. However, there is a deeper healing possible when you are able to practice some self-reflection as part of this process.

If relationships are one of your pillars of life, but you are struggling, keep reading to find out.

When Someone Annoys You What Do You Do

Just asking the question, ‘when someone annoys you what do you do’ is a loaded question. In short, we all are given a choice. We can choose to:

criticize the person, and react to the situation.
realize that the person has the freedom to make their decision and we can choose to not say anything, then walk away.
recognize the annoyance as an opportunity to discover something about ourselves, using self-reflection.

The first choice is easy and one that we often unconsciously choose, especially when we are in stressful situations. The next choice is harder to do and takes intention and some will power. The third one is one I want to explore at a deeper level because when you are able to practice this choice you will start healing past trauma and expand your mindset to be more resilient.

But how?

The concept of ‘the world is our mirror’ was introduced to me at a deeper level recently. I’ve been slowly practicing this third choice for years, but it wasn’t until recently that I truly started seeing the massive shift in enlightenment this single technique could bring to a relationship and for personal growth.

In a nutshell, when someone annoys you, it is that annoying feeling that signals to you that there is something you are seeing in that person or situation that has triggered you.

When someone annoys you what do you do? Go deeper and ask why am I annoyed?

What was it in that situation that annoyed me?

If everyone has the freedom of their own free will then why would this bother me so much?

Essentially what I’m asking you to try and do is lean into the feeling of why you are annoyed. Get curious about it. Curiosity then turns to compassion. Compassion for that other person’s situation, compassion for yourself in understanding that you might need to look into your own past hurts.

Example 1: The Coworker Constantly Asking for Help

For example, say you find yourself consistently complaining about a coworker asking you for help about everything even though they choose to wait until the last minute to work on the task. On the surface, they are just asking for help. There is nothing wrong with asking for help. It actually is a sign of responsibility realizing that you need help, and are willing to ask. However, when in full context the situation brings in questions of boundaries.

Do you have healthy boundaries with this person?

Are you the person that consistently bails them out of situations?

Do you feel responsible if this person gets into trouble and you didn’t help them?

Is this self-judgment for not setting healthy boundaries with this person?

Over-responsibility is a trigger for fear, worry, and anxiety. When we tend to drop everything to help others we are feeding those feelings and it will start to feel like the people-pleasing is sucking the life out of you. When you become aware of the cycle then you can start to set healthy boundaries by only helping when you want to help, not because you feel compelled to.

Example 2: Competitive Relationships

Another example might be when you see someone doing well. They are smashing their goals and living the “good life”, constantly telling you about all the good things happening in their career, relationships, and life in general. At first, you are happy for them. Then as time goes on you find yourself annoyed with their “bragging”. There is nothing wrong with that person sharing their joy for how they’ve created their life. After all, the only competition is the person we were yesterday.

So why would someone expressing their happiness annoy you? Let’s look at this a little further.

Could it be that some of the successes they were able to accomplish you’re still struggling with?

Could it be that you thought you’d be personally further ahead than you think you right now?

Does this annoyance have something about your own self-judgment towards your own goals?

What can you do now to remedy this situation? What can you do to self-reflect on your personal actions towards your own goals to shift your results? Is there something in your own mindset blocking your progress? Coaching will help this.

This can also work for a situation directly opposite to the above, what if that person shows no ambition and yet you are extremely focused on taking action with your goals. You find yourself being annoyed that they aren’t doing anything to better themselves.

I challenge you to ask yourself why you are annoyed with this situation. What bothers you about that situation? Is it that they are happy where they are in life? Or that you have all these goals and they have chosen a different path than you? As an outsider, everyone is on their own journey in life. I would challenge you to ask yourself these next few questions. What are your expectations about this relationship? Do you expect the other person to be at your level of growth? Or can you accept them just as they are knowing they are on their own journey?

What to do to Start the Healing Process

When someone annoys you what do you do now? What choice do you make? Do you react? Is biting your tongue and walking away from them, your choice? Or are you fed up with constantly cycling this endless roller coaster of emotions and want resolution once, and for all. Do you want to start to heal and grow?

When you lean into the annoyance and practice self-reflection you gain insight into what you could be struggling with. You start to piece together emotions that have been bothering you but you’ve spent years pushing down instead of dealing with them. Today’s the day to start the healing process.

The steps to start using self-reflection when you are annoyed are:

recognize the feeling
name the feeling
lean in and ask yourself why you might be feeling that way – get curious
let the curiosity turn into compassion about that other person and about yourself
decide if you need to let it go, or take action

I’m going to leave you with one last example, one that I frequently like to remind myself every day. My husband and I have different relaxation routines. He prefers to listen to music as part of his routine. In the past, this would annoy me because when I’m stressed I find music not relaxing for my mindset. I asked myself why it bothered me so much?

I leaned into that annoyance and discovered that we had different needs for rest and relaxation. While he needs music to relax and de-stress, I need silence as a way to rest my senses. These opposing needs can be challenging but with my own self-reflection, I am able to use it to ask for a compromise when I desperately need it. Otherwise, I let it go, so he can enjoy his routine.

Given what you’ve read in this article when someone annoys you what will you do?