How to Keep People From Pushing Your Buttons Read online

  ALSO BY DR. ALBERT ELLIS

  How to Control Your Anger Before It Controls You

  How to Control Your Anxiety Before It Controls You

  How to Stubbornly Refuse to Make Yourself Miserable

  About Anything (Yes, Anything)

  How to Stop Destroying Your Relationships

  Anger: How to Live With It and Without It

  The Albert Ellis Reader

  Available from the Citadel Press/Kensington Publishing

  Corp.CITADEL PRESS BOOKS are published by

  How to Keep People From Pushing Your Buttons

  Albert Ellis, Ph.D. and Arthur Lange, Ed.D

  CITADEL PRESS

  Kensington Publishing Corp.

  www.kensingtonbooks.com

  All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

  Kensington Publishing Corp.

  119 West 40th Street

  New York, NY 10018

  Copyright © 1994 Institute for Rational-Emotive Therapy

  Updated edition copyright © 2017 Albert Ellis Institute

  Foreword copyright © 2017 Albert Ellis Institute

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

  CITADEL PRESS and the Citadel logo are Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.

  ISBN: 978-0-8065-3809-9

  First Citadel printing: January 1995

  First Kensington printing: April 2003

  First printing (updated edition): January 2017

  Updated electronic edition: January 2017

  ISBN-13: 978-0-8065-3810-5

  ISBN-10: 0-8065-3810-4

  Library of Congress Control Number: 94-47231

  Table of Contents

  ALSO BY DR. ALBERT ELLIS

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Foreword

  A NOTE ON STYLE

  Introduction

  Chapter 1 - How We Let People and Things Push Our Buttons

  Chapter 2 - Nutty Beliefs We Use to Let Others Push Our Buttons

  Chapter 3 - Realistic Preferences: A Powerful Alternative to the Nutty Thinking We Do That Upsets Us

  Chapter 4 - Ten Nutty Beliefs That We Use to Let People and Situations Needlessly Push Our Buttons

  Chapter 5 - How to Change Your Irrational Thinking: Four Steps to Success

  Chapter 6 - How to Keep People and Things From Pushing Your Buttons on the Job

  Chapter 7 - Spouses: The Ultimate Button-Pushers

  Chapter 8 - Parenting: The Penultimate Test

  Chapter 9 - A Plethora of Button-Pushers

  Chapter 10 - Go Get ’Em!

  Suggested Further Reading and Listening

  Appendix

  About the Authors

  Notes

  Foreword

  Years back, when I was the training coordinator for the Albert Ellis Institute, I was having a difficult time with someone at work. I had the kind of relationship with Dr. Albert Ellis—whom we referred to as Al—where I could go into his office and complain to him about how unfairly I was being treated. Foolish me, did I really think Al would let me get away with blaming someone else for my upset? Time and time again, he would simply respond, “You’re allowing her to push your buttons!” Hearing this bothered me at first. But Al was right—my buttons were being pushed, and I was responsible for that.

  We all have buttons, and we all have button-pushers. Button-pushers can be found everywhere: at work, school, family gatherings, at Starbucks, on the train, and so on. We can’t escape them, but we don’t have to succumb to them. In an easy-to-read manner, Drs. Ellis and Lange describe our buttons in detail and provide specific strategies to avoid having them pushed. Neither Ellis nor Lange was immune, naturally. The hilarious real-life examples provided in this book show us that both Ellis and Lange were mere mortals as well, prone to upsetting themselves every now and then.

  How to Keep People From Pushing Your Buttons is not the sort of self-help book that is meant to be read passively. Each chapter concludes with a set of practice examples that demonstrate the concepts discussed as well as exercises that can be tailored to the reader’s individual circumstances. By the end of this book, you will be more in tune with your vulnerable buttons and, more important, will be armed with a handful of proven strategies to fight back when they are being pushed. I reread this book and actually did the exercises in each chapter. I couldn’t believe how irrational I am at times! Kristene, a certified Rational Emotive Behavior Therapist, trained by Dr. Albert Ellis himself, was still allowing her buttons to be pushed at work, at home, on the highway?! The horror! Enter Al’s voice: “Kristene, you are human, which means you are fallible! Stop whining, and start using the tools from this book. . . .”

  Al spent his life dedicated to teaching people how to minimize their emotional upsets. His mission was twofold: to train as many mental health professionals in Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy as he could and to “cure” as many people as possible. How to Keep People From Pushing Your Buttons is one of Al’s many contributions fulfilling his mission. Even if you never met Al, I assure you that after reading this book you will have a window into his passion for helping others.

  One of Al’s many gifts was an ability to use his sense of humor to show people how their own thinking is largely responsible for their emotional and behavioral upsets. This idea is stressed and repeated throughout the book to reinforce the fact that we cannot control button-pushers but we can control our reactions to them. Al was known for never letting his patients (and staff!) off the hook for their upsets. In this book, with a combination of empathy and persistence, Al shows readers the error of their ways and offers them a variety of new ways to minimize their upset. You know the old saying “the best defense is a good offense.” Without a doubt, after finishing this book you will have acquired that good offense and be more prepared to respond to those button-pushers!

  I am confident Al would be flashing his famous grin, knowing How to Keep People From Pushing Your Buttons has been relaunched in a new print edition and as an e-book. For the first time, this new edition includes an updated self-help form as an appendix. Al had his patients complete these forms between sessions to help them identify the nutty beliefs they held that let others push their buttons. Feel free to make copies for yourself and complete them when your buttons are being pushed!

  Kristene A. Doyle, Ph.D., Sc.D.

  A NOTE ON STYLE

  In the interest of keeping this book as conversational and accessible as possible, we have included many illustrative first-person anecdotes. Since there are two of us, we have identified ourselves in each instance with the pertinent initials before launching into each personal account. This is why you might see, for example, “I (A.E.) went to the market. . . ” or “I (A.L.) have experienced the following button-pushing incidents. . . .” While we have done our best to present our material in a collaborative manner, we felt that our stories should at least retain such indications of our personal points of view.

  Dr. Albert Ellis

  Dr. Arthur Lange

  Introduction

  Today’s world can be pretty nutty. And not just at the global level (world events, the economy, social issues), but also in our day-to-day lives. In business, those who still have jobs after all the recent “downsizings” are working more hours. Competition, rapid response to opportunities, change, strategic redirection, risk-taking, doing more with less, and economic constraints are the names of the game.

  In our personal lives, both parents in most families work, lots of families break up and
recombine as new families, there are zillions of “things” to get done with so little time. (Remember the bubble-bath commercial “Calgon, take me away!”? Fat chance.) The challenges and demands of marriage and parenting can be staggering—and, often, single people have at least as many pressures balancing work, friends, intimate relationships, social activities, and tasks.

  It’s no wonder that in these times people and things alike can really push our buttons. It can be a person who pushes our buttons: a “know it all” colleague, an overly critical boss, a defensive super-visee, an insensitive spouse, a difficult child, a whiney friend, an indifferent service person, a negative relative. How many times have you heard people say, “I love my job, but my boss drives me nuts!”? Or, “You kids are making me crazy!”? Or, “I just hate it when he always... !”?

  Sometimes “they” push our buttons on purpose, and at other times, though it’s not even intentional, we still get upset, defensive, hurt, or furious. Sometimes it’s a “thing,” an event, a task, a decision, a deadline, a change, a crisis, a problem, or an uncertainty. Take for example changing careers, getting divorced or married, buying a house, going on a job interview, speaking in front of a group, traffic, boring meetings, mechanical breakdowns (car, washer, computer), or the babysitter doesn’t show up when you have show tickets.

  Many of the most popular shows on TV (Roseanne, Coach, Seinfeld, Frazier, Fresh Prince, Married With Children) are examples of people pushing each other’s buttons constantly. And we can all relate to them. But it doesn’t have to be like that! We’re not suggesting that real life is like Ozzie and Harriet or Leave It to Beaver! Most of us, however, can do a lot better at not letting people and things get to us.

  This book gives you specific, realistic ways to keep people and things from pushing your buttons. There’s no theoretical mumbo-jumbo and no touchy-feely psychology here—nor is this a shallow “positive-thinking quickie.” Rather, it is a very specific set of skills for directing how you preferably should react when people and things push your buttons. And it works! We have given over 10,000 presentations on these skills, all over the world. They are equally applicable in our work and in all our personal lives. The situations and circumstances may be quite different, but the skills apply everywhere.

  The goal of this book is to show you how you can live an active, alive, vigorous—even demanding—life and not be a casualty of your own efforts. We will give you a powerful set of skills so that your bosses, colleagues, supervisees, spouses, kids, parents, neighbors, friends, lovers, and other people you deal with day-to-day no longer push your buttons. Rarely do all these people get to us all the time, but most of us have let someone push our buttons sometime.

  Life is short and precious. We want to help you to succeed at what you are doing and enjoy the trip. We will show you how to take control of your overreactions to the people and things that push your buttons.

  Chapter 1

  How We Let People and Things Push Our Buttons

  There are only three things that human beings can do. And you’re doing all of them right now. (This eliminates at least some of the things you’re probably considering.) You do all three almost all the time, even while you’re asleep. First, you are thinking. Some of you are thinking about what the three things are. Or maybe you’re thinking about something that’s coming up tonight, or this weekend; or about what someone just said to you; or what this book is going to be about. But you are almost always thinking something. Sometimes you’re not even aware of all your thoughts—but if you stop and pay attention, you can recognize most of them.

  Second, you are almost always feeling something, and we don’t mean hot or cold or tired or pain, we mean emotion. Sometimes it’s a mild feeling, like “sort of” irritated, “somewhat” amused, “a little” down, “kind of” happy, or “a bit” guilty. Sometimes it’s a very intense feeling, like furious, outraged, elated, thrilled, depressed, bummed out, ecstatic, joyous, freaked out, or “really” guilty. There are enormous numbers of feelings and intensities—but you’re almost always feeling something.

  Lastly, you behave (i.e., act) constantly. Even the tiniest gestures and movements, while you are reading this, are behaviors. Did you just blink? Are you breathing? Are you making a face, or shifting in your chair? As long as you are alive, you are behaving.

  Now, it’s not terribly brilliant of us to point out that human beings think, feel, and act. But it’s nevertheless a great place to start, because if we’re going to keep people and things from pushing our buttons, we’d better learn how to direct and control the way we respond mentally, emotionally, and behaviorally to button-pushers. And that takes both systematic effort, and diligent practice of the skills and techniques we’ll soon describe.

  This book is not a “quickie” solution to life’s day-to-day hassles. The techniques are simple and very powerful, but if you want them to work you have to use them regularly.

  The Fatal Foursome

  There are four main “screwball” feelings in this world. That is, any time you experience one of these feelings, you will not handle the situation as effectively as you could, and you will probably upset yourself; somebody or something will push your buttons. These feelings are excessive anxiety, anger/defensiveness, depression/burnout, or guilt (we’ll tell you what we mean by excessive in just a minute). First, if you get yourself overly anxious (or nervous, tense, upset, agitated, intimidated, afraid, freaked out, fearful, scared), you will not handle that person or situation effectively. For example, maybe you get extremely nervous in a job interview, or when talking to an intimidating boss. Maybe you find yourself getting terribly upset about an impending deadline at work, or a major decision in your life, or about your child’s behavior lately. If you do, then someone or something is pushing your buttons.

  Second, if you get overly angry (or defensive, irritated, furious, outraged, argumentative, ticked off, frustrated) you will also likely blow it. Maybe you have felt really defensive when your spouse has criticized your work, your cooking, your parenting, or your lovemaking. Maybe you blow up when your teenager defies or disrespects you, or your colleagues at work are incompetent or uncooperative.

  Here’s an example of a fellow who let his buttons get pushed on a plane going from San Francisco to Los Angeles. This incident occurred just as the laws changed to prohibit smoking on most flights. As I (A.L.) and others boarded the plane, the ticket agent announced that ours would be a totally smoke-free flight. The passenger who was seated next to me did not hear the announcement by the agent and when it was reannounced on the plane, he was really ticked off.

  First he tried to get me to agree to his smoking anyway (which I did not do); then he went on for several minutes about how it was illegal for the airline to prohibit smoking. He thrashed and wriggled in his seat for several minutes, coughing and sighing. He then pronounced, “this restriction is going to piss off a lot of people”—and proceeded to light up.

  The flight attendant immediately came up to him and very politely said, “Sir, this has been designated a nonsmoking flight.” He asked, “By whom?” Startled, she replied, “Pardon me?” He repeated—“I said by whom?” She said, “The captain.” He shot back with, “Well, tell the captain he’s a pain in the ass.” She asked, “What should I tell him?” He then said (as he put his cigarette out angrily), “Tell him he’s got no business doing that, and he’s a real pain in the ass!” She said, “OK.” He then threatened to go into a lavatory (where no smoking is allowed) and have a cigarette. The flight attendant pointed out that this, too, was against the law. He growled and used more foul language—and the flight attendant excused herself.

  Interestingly, a little later another passenger nicely asked the same flight attendant about the smoking ban, expressed concern over it, and calmly disagreed with the decision. The flight attendant was understanding yet firm, and the passenger was polite. The flight attendant then offered the passenger a free drink for the inconvenience. What a difference between t
he way the two smokers handled the situation! The first passenger was awfulizing, shoulding, and rationalizing (mostly shoulding). The second passenger was thinking in terms of strong preferences, but did not overreact. Neither person got to smoke—but one made himself miserable, and the other got a free drink. I was also really impressed with how the flight attendant did not let either person get to her. In that job you get lots of practice in not letting people push your buttons!

  There are millions of potential button-pushers all around us. Our “mission,” if we choose to accept it, is to disconnect our button at will. Then they can’t get to us unless we let them. We don’t have to run away and hide from the button-pushers, or play “sticks and stones will break my bones, but names will never hurt me” mind games. We can deal with the button-pushers directly and appropriately, without losing our composure. If you get yourself excessively depressed or burned out (bummed out, don’t give a damn, ignoring, uncaring, down in the dumps), you will not be as effective, and you will likely be miserable. Similarly, if you persist in being depressed over the loss of someone you love, or of your job, or for having failed miserably at some effort, then you have in fact let someone or something push your buttons.1

  Fourth, if you make yourself excessively guilty (overly responsible, remorseful, blameful), then others can manipulate you, you will not make as good assessments, and you will make decisions for all the wrong reasons (because you felt so guilty). For example, maybe you let the kids get away with murder because you got a divorce and you feel guilty about having done that to them; or you spend too much of your personal time with someone you don’t really like because “you’re the only friend they have”—and you feel like a louse if you neglect him or her.