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Apply Understanding Liberally

In all of your relationships you need to think first, what can I give to this relationship? And then second, what can I get from the relationship? It’s all about giving and getting. No one is so altruistic that they will do anything indefinitely without some kind of a payoff.

Overview all of your relationships, especially those where you’re communicating effectively. What are you giving to that relationship, what are you doing to make it better for the people around you personally and/or professionally? What are you doing to enhance their reality, and what am I getting back? Because the give and take human experience makes logical sense to each of us internally.
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Instead of automatically arguing or moving into an argument, here’s something you can do that produces more favorable results. These five steps can help you break through areas of resistance if a conflict occurs around you.

Breaking Through Resistance

#1 Take a Pause

First of all–pause. Literally stop yourself, hesitate for a moment, let whatever is going on happen. Let that person say what they need to say. Awareness of the internal resistance, getting ourselves to slow down for a moment and just stop our automatic reaction to what’s going on is to our benefit. So the first part is pause. Use that quietness, take a breath, slow down- that count-to-ten thing is very valuable.
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On The Up Side

An advantage to telling the truth is it builds greater relationships. When you’re honest and let others know what’s going on, it’s going to either enhance the relationship or diminish it.

It simplifies communication. You again, like Twain, don’t have to remember anything because you’re telling your truth. It builds respect with other people when they know who you are and your perspective. Most often, they’ll respect you because of who you are, even if they don’t fully agree with you.
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Be Conscious of Going Too Far

A parent trying to control every movement, action or behavior of a child will both frustrate the child while making the parent absolutely crazy. We need to be aware of what’s going on around us so we can choose better what we can and cannot do so that we can have more control where we can have control. That always begins inside of us, with us.

This process of awareness needs to be conscious and ongoing. Some of the things that restrict clear awareness are things like having to defend our position vs. listening to someone else.
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A Very Harsh Reality

When interviewing concentration camp survivors after World War II, it was discovered that many of them were very helpful, very positive, and even though they had been starved, abused and had horrible things done to them and lost many people they’d loved–they had come out of the concentration camp as exceptional human beings.

In order for you to move out of your stuck state, whether personal or professional, you need to be able to take a risk. You need to be able to step up. You need to think about as Einstein did, is the world a safe place or is it not a safe place? Even if it is not necessarily safe, you need to think about how you can do something to move yourself and break free from that stuck place.
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Your Choices Make You

A number of years ago on the radio, the commentator Paul Harvey said, “We are all a product of our choices, not of the circumstances we encounter.” And then he told this story about twin brothers.

From the time they were born they were living in an abusive, alcoholic family environment. Both parents were barely functional, often times out of work with little money, little food, and they tended to fight and squabble and were very abusive to each other, the children and the people around them.
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Making Better Choices

All of us tend to get stuck in ruts. We have a tendency to stop and fixate on certain things and we just don’t move. Everybody has stuff, we have physical stuff and we have emotional and mental stuff. You have relationship stuff, you have stuff about self-esteem and how you feel about you.

You have confidence stuff, you have clothing stuff, you have household stuff. We tend to fixate on things and hang on to them tenaciously. Whether they are of real value to us or not, in many circumstances is secondary.
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A Signal to Wake Up

There was a good friend who had an epiphany a couple of years ago. He had been a loyal company man and the company was sold. When that happened, many were laid off–including him.

He had to find more work. When he went to a new job, again he settled in, found it was really a great job and all was going well, but the company was sold and he again got laid off. This really shook him, he didn’t know exactly what to do and he was having a hard time finding another position. But when he did, he went into the new situation and an epiphany dawned on him.
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