I had a conversation with a friend recently, who wanted me to patronize his idea of self-pity and his inability to reinforce positive behavior.

Wait, did I just use too many of my future psychologist terms?

Lol, what I mean is he wanted me to understand (and accept) that he had no control over his situation, and had no way of creating a better outcome for himself. He essentially blamed everyone else for how he allowed himself to be treated.

Now, me being me, I certainly understood how he felt, but it was hard for him to accept that I didn't agree. It turned into me "shaming" him versus me encouraging him to change his perspective and set a standard of behavior for his interactions with others.

But, he had spent so much time being angry at everyone else, and being a "victim", that he refused to take my words as help...

Bottom line, we can only play the victim role for so long. And engaging negative behavior with a negative response, does not yield anything positive. PERIOD.

Now because I didn't want my good advice to go waste...

HERE ARE 2 THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW

I. REINFORCE POSITIVE BEHAVIOR!

Unfortunately it is so easy for us to yield to negative behavior by being angry. A lot of time that anger serves no purpose to your ultimate goal. Don't feed negativity with negativity, reinforce positive behavior by smiling or even educating someone politely on why you refuse to engage. And remember that being mean to make someone understand your point, doesn’t make you any better than them, nor does it get you the results you want...

When people recognize they have no power to evoke negative response, they are forced to face the reality of themselves.

II. DON'T LOSE YOUR VOICE!

Basically don't be scared to stand up for yourself! But don't fault people for how you allow yourself to be treated.

You can set a standard of respect and decency for people to engage with you, and if they don’t meet that expectation IGNORE THEM, until they communicate with you the way they should!