Every organization has people in it who can be critical, angry, or snide. However, if you want to keep your cool with these types of people and communicate effectively with them, you need to ensure you do not take personally the things that they do or say. Or don't do or don't say.

When you take things personally you become awash with unhelpful emotions and end up saying and doing the wrong thing, or escalating a conflict. Being able to keep your cool at work is important for your career success and for the relationships that you build with colleagues, co-workers, stakeholders, and customers.

Let's learn how not to take things personally:

• Laugh: Laughter can be a wonderful way to stop yourself from feeling hurt or upset. If you can keep light about a potential snide comment, then the comment has no power. This doesn't mean that you leave yourself open to abuse. Though you can easily brush off potential hurtful comments and not take them to heart. Then you don't get hurt.
• Delay your response: Delaying is like ducking when someone throws something at you. Pause before you respond. Then you give yourself time to think of a good response. And to make sure your reply is polite and kind, so as to not hurt the other person.
• Don't take it personally: Work out what is specifically about you and, what is a general complaint that you happen to get because you were in the same place as the other person. When it's not specific to you, don't take it as if it was.
• Monitor for early signs of irritation: Monitor for early signs of tension, irritation, or hurt and let them go, before they develop. Each of us will have physiological changes that occur early on, in the process of becoming hurt or frustrated. If you can catch your stomach tightening, your neck tightening, or your hands grasping, early on, you have more chance of letting go and not hooking into the other person's comments or emotions. Monitor them, and then let them go immediately before they take hold.
• Breath deeply: Breathe deeply so your breathing remains calm, regular, and deep. If your breathing speeds up and becomes shallow it could be a sign that you are getting hooked in. Keep breathing in and out. No, I'm not joking! You are more likely to take something personally if you aren't breathing! Your emotions are in your body. Even in a meeting, it is possible to put your hand on your midriff to give yourself a physical reminder to keep your breathing deep and regular.