Turning Conflict on its Head

Conflict may be inevitable – how we successfully deal with conflict is not.

Someone once said, “Anytime you have two people in a relationship, it’s dysfunctional” and this seems to play out daily in our lives.  

Daily our realities bump into other people’s realities and when these realities meet and agree, things are golden.  Unfortunately, as soon as my beliefs, values, wants, or expectations bump into someone else’s beliefs, values, wants, or expectations and they are different, hold on, it’s about to get bumpy.  So, how do we learn to cope and manage conflict?  This all depends on your desired outcome or goal for the situation.

What’s your outcome goal? Whatever you’re about to say, think, or do will either take you one step closer to your goal or one step farther away.

We’ve all met people we don’t like. They are too different from us; they want something we can’t or won’t give, or they just rub us wrong from the get go.  Yet, we sometimes need to work with these people and figure out a way to either ‘get along’ and ‘move forward.’  So, the ability to manage conflict is key to a good life and healthy relationships.

Five simple strategies:

• Personalize nothing. Miguel Ruiz talks about this at length in his book the Four Agreements. Personalization is all about the ego. We get into trouble in a couple of ways with this one. Either we personalize something that is said or done to us and react poorly or we misinterpret something that is said or done to us, believing it’s about us and react poorly.  It’s hard, but important to remember that nothing is personal.  Everything that anyone says or does to you tells you about them.  It doesn’t mean you need to just sit and take it, but you may need to plan the best way to effectively handle the situation or behavior.  It might be time for healthier boundaries or it might be time for an important conversation about your perspective. Try to take time to breathe and let yourself cool down.  When you react without working through a planned response, it often hurts more than it helps.
• Listen to understand, not for ammo.  I first thought about this concept when I became a 7 Habits Facilitator.  When we find ourselves in a situation where we don’t like someone or are feeling angry or defensive, it’s easy to hear the other person’s words and not “listen” to understand. Hearing someone’s words and listening are different activities.  People sometimes assume that listening to someone equals agreement.  But listening and understanding where people are coming from doesn’t mean we agree with them, it means we are trying to understand their perspective.  Working to understand another person will often pave the way to reducing conflict, plus it models the behavior you want to see.
• Be willing to find the middle path.  In the past 20 years, I have worked with individuals, couples, organizations and teams, and a one-sided push for a one-sided outcome is often expensive.  If we want a way through conflict, we need to be willing to find the middle way. We often assume we are fighting a war and must win, but in fact when we respond with a win/lose mentality, we’re creating future problems.  In most relationships, if one of us loses, we are both ultimately losing.  A willingness to brainstorm solutions and create a plan that works for both people will lead to far longer lasting solutions.
• Take responsibility.  When we are defensive or angry, the hardest thing to do is take personal responsibility for any part of the conflict.  I’m not saying you need to take 100% responsibility for the whole situation. You do need to take 100% responsibility for your part. If you’re in a conflict, you’ve participated in the conflict on some level. Sometimes, even by accident, someone might personalize something you said or misinterpret your meaning.  If you can “own” your side of the street, you can reduce the drama of conflict.
• Turn conflict on its head. Most of us are taught that conflict is angry, maybe ugly. It is a fight and it has a winner and a loser. But, what if we change how we think about conflict? Conflict, or as I like to call it Passionate Disagreement, can also be a force of good. Conflict gives us opportunity to work through differences, build insights, see a situation from multiple perspectives, and this kind of constructive conflict is capable of bringing us together. Some would say we cannot deeply trust people until we know how they handle conflict. Until we experience how people will behave in disagreements, we don’t fully know them. Few important problems are solved because everyone was trying to be nice and just get along. I’ve experienced the connection that comes from having a passionate disagreement, working through that disagreement and building a more powerful relationship or solution. This level of connection is called intimacy.

If you change how you respond or react to conflict, you can shift the majority of conflicts that roll your way. 

You will meet people who do not want to compromise; they aren’t interested in your perspective and they may even be looking for a fight. Inevitably, I have found I get much better results with these five strategies.

images from Bigstockphoto.com

 

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Here are 10 truths that will change your life, your career, and help you meet your dreams?

There are so many mindsets that are important to create success, but these are the 10 Mindsets that I believe are among the most important.

1. Open Your Mind. Open any closed doors in your mind and allow that there are many different ways to be successful. Some people will focus on careers, some will focus on relationships, some will pursue a mountaintop, an idea, write a book, or work to have a positive impact on the world. But, any of these areas can be an aspect of your personal success. An open mindset doesn’t limit you to just one idea. In fact, you don’t have to limit yourself to one area of success, you’re allowed to be successful in all the areas that matter to you!
2. Keep Learning. The coolest thing in the world is to know you can learn, recognizing that you can develop tools to do anything. Our brains are capable of learning new things till the very day we die. You are walking in the footsteps of giants and most of them have either been written about and you can learn from them, or they have written a book about what you want are interested in. Learn all you can from the people who have gone before you. Find the people you admire and then consciously work to learn from them. But, for that matter, create a mindset of learning from every ‘mistake’ you feel you’ve made. Squeeze all the learning out of every experience, both positive and negative. Life is a big school and everyday is a school day if you’re doing it right!
3. Develop Self-Awareness. Notice when you’re on the right path, notice how it feels, learn to hear your gut. You will feel it in your body. It might show up as a bad feeling about something, or a buzz of excitement, or a settled calm that that moves through your heart. Listen to your guts; develop your trust of yourself. Start small, but start listening to what your truth is. The more you develop the mindset of insight, the more powerfully you will move in the right direction. The more you learn to trust yourself, the better able you will be to leap off tall buildings and fly.
4. Set goals. Begin with the end in mind. This doesn’t mean you have to know exactly where you are going. But having a clear goal significantly focuses the journey. Clarity means that you have an idea about where your want to go. Having short term, mid term and long term goals can help you stay on track. We lose energy and direction when we work for a long time towards an intangible idea. The mindset of having a goal means you bring your compass out into the open and then set a clear destination.
5. Visualize. See yourself being successful. Work to create as full an image of what that will look and feel like. What do you want your life to look like in 1 year, 2 years, or 3 years. What kind of job or career do you want to have? Visualize roadblocks and then visualize yourself working through those roadblocks. See yourself becoming what you want to be is an incredible tool and a brilliant mindset.
6. Work. I don’t know that you have to work hard, but you do have to work consistently. There is no movement without action. You must plug away at your goal relentlessly. Each day ask yourself, “Is what I am about to say, think, or do, going to take me closer to my goal or farther away?” Create a mindset that pushes you, prods you, and sometimes forces you to get off your ass and get moving. Those goals aren’t just going to come knocking on your door, unless your out there working on making them happen.
7. Persist. Success often comes to those who hold on, and don’t give up when it gets hard, or boring, or scary. Life will toss you and spin you and send you spiraling out into the universe. Your job is to find good places to hold tight and hang on. Recognize fear, learn to breath, keep a clear direction and then hold tight. It takes a mindset of making choices, allowing mistakes, practice, practice, practice, perseverance, and patience to muddle on.
8. Develop Confidence. Don’t worry about what other people think about you. There will always be people who don’t agree with you, or don’t think that your direction is a good idea. They are often loud and you will hear them. But, hearing and listening are different. Someone once said, “Your opinion of me, is none of my business.” It’s a hard thing to learn to do. But, develop the mindset that you are good enough and your dreams are worthy. Worry less about other people’s expectation of you, than you worry about your own expectations of yourself. Haters gonna hate, but who cares?
9. Don’t waste time. The only wasted time, is the time we spend wishing the past was different, or blaming some situation, some person, or some circumstance for why we haven’t been successful. The past is an interesting place; it’s the moment that this moment, now this moment, now this one, is done. I don’t have Mr. Peabody’s “Way Way Back machine”, neither do you. The mindset of letting go of the past means that you shift your focus on influencing the future. You will have a lot more success when you’re looking forward.
10. Breathe. Take time to clear your mind and breathe. Allow yourself to be uncertain and then breathe through the uncertainty. Take walks, meditate, pray, read, develop your tools to maintain your internal calm. Find people who will support your idea of your healthy self. Sit in moments when you’re feeling good, calm and happy, breathe in those moments, and then learn to carry the feelings over as you breathe into more difficult experiences. Breathe through every fear that marches by.

     

    There are thousands of steps that go into being successful and your mindsets are key to the steps working. Keep adding to your list.