The Mood Hoover

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If, for example, your mood hoover continues to make negative comments during or after a team brief, this allows an inroad for a more focused but still informal conversation at a 1-2-1 about this and what’s behind it – try asking ‘why do they feel like this’ and ‘what impact do they think this has on those around them? So how do you navigate the doomsters and create strategies to keep your sanity intact and your team thriving when they tip over to the dark side? He was mischievous (well, personally, I'd have said 'unpleasant') and he had a secret: an invention, in fact. Whether a person ignores the way another person influences them or not depends on their own stance within the relationship; whether they believe it is possible to challenge a person’s way of social interaction.

We had a nightmare 6 hour car journey to our destination – we got lost 3 times (it was long before the days of Sat Nav). While mood hoovers are generally shunned by positive people, it turns out that they may just be doing what comes naturally because scientists believe humans are hardwired to be pessimistic. If a mood hoover is unable to blame somebody else for their failure, you’ll notice they quickly pivot to pointing out the unreasonable behaviour or actions of another as an excuse.The best way to inspire others to be happy and reach their full potential is to strive to be your best self.

Darrell started to see his negative behaviours and how he would feel good at one point but then pivot back to being grumpy and miserable. Is it ‘just’ a reaction to family life drudgery with small children, or is it work or health issues?True ‘mood hoovers’ however, can make for a more difficult employee, as they are entrenched in their behaviour. And then all we hear about is how much she did to help and the company that we've helped go on about how much she does and how we need more people to volunteer. Be polite, professional and supportive, but do what you need to do to protect your own mental health at the moment – it’s taken a bit of a battering recently. If he's claiming he's tired / depressed and doing nothing about it other than making it your problem that's also abusive. I know you say you cannot contemplate leaving him while the children are so young and I get it, I really do, about how overwhelming this may seem.

Build a network of positive people who you can spend time with (remember Jim Rohn’s five people average) and look at ways to build more positivity into your life to give your wellbeing a boost. Perhaps challenging their behaviour is a good thing for the affected person, but getting to the root cause of such behaviour, I’m sure, will also be more beneficial in the long run.For example, you may be concerned about world famine and whilst you can’t actually stop it (circle of concern), you could join a volunteer group and provide some of your time every week/month to help change things (circle of influence). A key strategy is to disengage from the negative conversation topic and switch to another, lighter or more positive subject.

Gather your team and talk through wonky thinking attitudes, and agree to use the phrase to support each other to think differently. As PP said, looking after children on your own as a single parent will likely be much less stressful than tip toeing around his moods and being constantly vigilant trying to protect your children from him.It’s easy to be drawn into their depressive world of ‘the glass is always half empty’ (or completely empty, in fact). We found a lovely little boutique hotel down the road, dropped our bags and went and bonded over the experience with a few (lots of) drinks. The kind of person who people draw straws not to sit next to at the Christmas Party because they’ve always got a worse problem than the person with the problem.