Guy Reams (00:01.166)
This is day 35, running toward conflict.
You know, oftentimes when you encounter conflict, your instinct is to run away from it, to avoid it, to get away from the conflict at all costs. However, heading toward conflict rather than avoiding it often leads to better outcomes because it opens a path to resolution, understanding, and potentially growth. Avoiding conflict can cause issues to fester, lead to resentment, lead to further misunderstanding,
or bigger or more larger problems down the road. When you approach conflict head on, you're creating an opportunity to clarify your intention, to address concerns and prevent assumptions from clouding potentially great relationships. In my life experience, I've learned over time that avoiding conflict is actually very bad. It's a good idea to embrace conflict and try to resolve things quickly. Conflict has a way of
unmasking hidden frustrations, expectations, or miscommunication. And sometimes confronting these directly allows for more of an honest exchange between people. This ends up building stronger relationships, promotes more trust, and fosters a more authentic environment where you can work through challenges constructively. The problem with it is you have to go into a conflict willing to accept
that there may be something that you are doing that's wrong or that you may misunderstand something. In this way, running toward conflict requires courage, but it also sets the stage for mutual respect, personal growth, and potential learning. Facing conflict can teach us to approach problems more creatively and see others' perspectives with empathy, which leads to a more sustainable and even a more positive outcome.
Guy Reams (01:58.541)
There's a couple of different ways to do this to help you get in the mode to embrace conflict. Not everybody naturally does this. I don't. My natural instinct is to run from conflict or to avoid it. After being married for almost 30 years now, early in my marriage, I would avoid all conflict. But I learned over time,
that it's better to talk about things rather quickly so that they don't fester and become major problems down the road. So the first thing you can do is reframe your mindset, basically shift your perspective. You can view conflict as a natural part of a relationship and part of growing rather than something that's inherently negative. Conflict can provide insight and can lead to positive changes.
We all want to change to be better people. Do we ever stop and think what causes us to be a better person? Well, I can tell you conflict is one of those things that force you into becoming a better person than you are today.
So you can also practice what I would call curiosity. You can approach conflict as an opportunity to learn about others' perspectives and your own blind spots. Instead of heading into conflict thinking, OK, what did I do wrong now? You think of it instead of, OK, there's a conflict. What's going on here? Why is there a conflict? What am I not seeing? Curiosity can become a replacement for fear.
So it allows you to overcome that with the fear and have the courage by replacing it with a genuine curiosity. I think that really has helped me. Rather than approaching, if somebody has an issue with something I'm doing, I think rather than approaching it with a fearful mindset, if I approach it with a curious mindset, then it tends to open up doors to better communication.
Guy Reams (04:11.617)
I think also you need to develop some self-awareness. We all have different triggers, different types of conflicts that make us feel defensive or uncomfortable. I've noticed that there are certain things that I know that I have a problem with. If I were to really sit there and think about it, I know there's a few things that I have a problem with, interpersonal things that I do that are probably not great.
And so when somebody brings those up to me, I tend to be very abrasive about that. And it's because I'm defensive, right? I mean, that's just what it is. I think understanding what you're triggered by or what really causes you to react negatively, then that way you can be prepared for it. So when one of those comes up, you know what to do.
I think spending some time understanding how you recognize and how you deal with conflict can really help you. I learned in my mid to late 20s that I had this reaction to avoid conflict and I would actually run from it. And so that natural reaction was actually very harmful to relationship building. It took me a while to learn this. So I recognized it first. So I think understanding
that you need to recognize it before you can actually fix it. Also, emotional regulation. A lot of times conflict never happens at a time when it's best for us. Like usually whenever, I don't know if you noticed this, but this happens to me. I tend to have conflict in my life when I don't need it at all. It's usually when I'm...
feeling down or I'm sick or I've got a lot going on or I'm overwhelmed at work, whatever it is, I have a conflict that's going on. I have other things in my life that's happening and then the conflict comes. And my reaction is, don't have time for this, right? But there's a reason why conflict is coming up when you are down or out because chances are you have taken a step back from your normal workload
Guy Reams (06:29.698)
and people that are around you that are having conflict with you has seen that as a way in. And that's why it happens to be hitting at the time when you're the most down. So it's not because...
People are not trying to pal conflict on you to kick you while you're down. It's actually the exact opposite. What they're recognizing is that you're unavailable. But then suddenly when you become available, people are trying to approach you with a conflict. So you can manage emotions. I think it's important to notice that when you're feeling irrational or whatever, you can take some time to calm down.
I've noticed that I've had to do this a few times. If you know that you're feeling very defensive and very reactionary, it's a good idea to take a few moments, take a couple deep breaths and really think it through. And that can help you overcome this. When I was younger, I remember taking a couple of classes where they taught you how to communicate or speak with people.
And there's certain ways that you talk that can set people off, especially when talking about conflict. the final thing I'll talk about is you can build ways to speak that are less triggering to people. So for example, when you use I statements, like I feel this way or I feel like this or this hurts me, then it's making it more personal towards you and less attacking the other.
Some people like to use the word we to try to include them in them. I would be worried about using the word we too much. Because some people might take offense that you're including them and you in the same picture, unless of course you already have a really strong relationship. I would also listen as well. So using I statements is important. But more important than using I is that I would figure out how to convince yourself
Guy Reams (08:37.249)
that's important to listen to what other people are saying.
without interrupting and then when they're done summarizing what they said and then asking clarifying questions to make sure you actually understand what they're saying. You can practice your listening skills, nonverbal things like that. If you're just not even paying attention, it doesn't look like you're really listening. So if you act and look like you're listening and you actually are listening,
That'll go a long way to defusing a conflict scenario.
So, like I said always, never know. Embracing conflict is something that's very difficult for people to do. It's not something that you want to do and it's not something that you're very good at. If you're like me, I kind of trained myself to avoid it. So instead of just avoiding it all the time, you can slowly start to improve it.
And I would recommend that. would recommend instead of trying to just suddenly embrace all conflict, I would decide to be very purposeful about it. Maybe work on one or two relationships at a time and then go from there. You eventually you can become so good at resolving conflict that these conflict scenarios are actually something that you embrace, that you notice them and you actively seek to resolve them. So can you imagine that going from being a complete conflict avoider
Guy Reams (10:10.775)
to being somebody who identifies a conflict, sheds light on it, and then wants to work with the other person in order to make it smooth. That's interesting because now you're coming at it from the perspective of we are gonna work together to solve this problem together. And that's a whole different way to change the whole view of things. We often tend to deal with conflict in a reactionary setting. But imagine if we started dealing with conflict much more proactively.
Anyway, I'm not great at this. I still suffer and struggle with conflict, but I have gotten better over the years and I have to admit that the fact that I embrace conflict more now has allowed me to reflect and learn more and gain more meaning out of relationships than it has in the past. So I would recommend recognizing this issue. If you have the problem where you avoid conflict, seek feedback from people around you and see if you can start to learn to embrace it and run towards conflict rather than away from
Ahem.