Dismissing people – not only a task for HR responsibles

In the last period, and in the context I have been lately, I had the chance of having a totally different learning experience than I was used to before.

To be more explicit, I know there are two categories of learning experiences: where you  learn from positive, successful projects,  events, happenings, interactions and the ones where you have failed, or had negative outcomes, but if you are smart enough, you can learn a lot from.

I am not necessarily an adept of the idea that we should fail, in order to have success, but I have found out that the lessons you get from negative experiences tend to be more powerful than expected.

What was happening to me, is that being away from home, for almost an year, studying abroad, I entered in contact with a lot of new people. The curious thing was, that the cultural shock I was feeling was stronger than I thought it would be, since it was not my first time I lived abroad for such a long period of time. Sooner or later, I came to the realization that the unidentified negative vibe I had was not the result of the cultural shock that I was facing, but it rather came from the negative interactions I experienced with different people.

These negative connections/interactions came from a misalignment of values, principles, perspective on life, passions and dreams. It was obvious that these subjects never came out in the first conversations, and with most people, they never did surface, but just by spending time together with them it was more than obvious that we did not fit. Being in the middle of the action, it was hard to step back, and actually analyze what was happening to me. But taking the time to talk about it with different people, thinking about it, I came to the conclusion that I was being unhappy because of the people I had around me. And it was not necessarily because these people were bad, but the differences I mentioned before, were  so big, since they are very important to me, that it was bringing more dissatisfaction than satisfaction in the experience I was having.

The biggest learning point, was when I decided I need to dismiss these people from my life. I needed to do so because they were feeding me with negative feelings, taking me away from what is important to me, taking me into directions that were not beneficial for me.

With some I stopped talking, with some I talked it over and with some I refuse to spend my time. It has been a hard process for me, to identify that people can have such a huge impact on me (my superhero ego tends to think nobody can influence me), but it is one of the most valuable lessons I got so far from negative experiences.

The hardest part though, is when a person is not a bad person but totally different, and you need to explain why you are taking the conscious decision to cut them out from your life. Telling them you tend to prioritize the people you chose to interact with, because you are aware of the type of interactions you are looking for, and what you want to feed your mind/soul is a position I do not feel comfortable with, but I am aware I need to do it.

Sounds like the story of an HR responsible’s life.

Have you dismissed people from your life?

Who are the people you need to dismiss?