The next time you find yourself in conflict with someone you care about…

Disagreements and conflict occasionally arise in even the healthiest of relationships. I think they are an essential part of nuturing a healthy relationship, but we can bookmark that topic for another time.

For many years my mindset in the context of the outcome of disagreements was… win/lose, right/wrong. Specifically, I need to win and I did that by proving you wrong.

Somewhere along the way, I realized the result of this approach was too many hurting and broken relationships.

“If everyone is defining a problem or solving it one way and the results are subpar, this is the time to ask, what if I did the opposite? Stop following a model that doesn’t work. After all, if the recipe sucks, it doesn’t matter how good a cook you are.” ~Tim Ferriss

Here are a few thoughts I now call to mind when in a disagreement with someone I care about…

Is there something more important to me than winning/being right? Yes, the relationship. Specifically, preserving and nurturing the relationship.

Given the choice between being right and being effective… choose effective. As with the question above, this reminds me to remain focused on what is most important to me (the relationship), which can sometimes be challenging in a disagreement, especially when emotions run high. It also reminds me that I get to define what a successful outcome to the disagreement means for me. In other words, effective for me may not be win/lose, right/wrong, but a stronger relationship.

The outcome is already known… what is unknown is how we get there. Often, when I am aware that a conflict has arisen, before going further, I will purposefully say to the other person, something like…”Before we discuss this, I want you to know that the outcome has already been decided. Our relationship will only grow from this, and we are going to work through this together and figure this out together.”