Our past DOES NOT have to dictate our future, however IT WILL if we do not take some time to reflect on our experiences and how they have shaped us - who we are, what we believe and how we think.
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This applies to our history of conflict.  Conflict is a subject that people have varied reactions to.  Some find conflict incredibly confronting and emotionally overwhelming, others figure “best not to get involved” and don’t deal or resolve anything, while others view conflict as an opportunity. 

Where do you sit in the spectrum of your response to conflict?  What have you learned in childhood, as you grew, and in your adult experiences about what conflict is; acceptable behaviours within conflict; what outcomes to expect from conflict, etc?  Understanding how you view, respond and think about conflict gives you the power to be intentional about changing those thoughts and responses, if they are not serving you.

Here are 6 ways your past experience of conflict IS impacting you, whether you realise or not, deny it or not, like it or not:

1.  Your belief about conflict and how functional it is.  Did you witness or have you experienced healthy functional conflict?  If so you are likely to have a positive approach toward conflict now, you have seen and experienced the benefits that come from resolving issues and moving forward with increased understanding.  You are willing to invest in the conflict process because you believe it’s effective.  Have you experienced deep hurt as a result of conflict?  If so it is likely you will be apprehensive – for fear of being hurt again – about entering into conflict.  You are also likely to doubt that any value will be gained from entering into conflict, and thus will make extensive attempts to steer clear of it. 

2.  Your emotions around conflict.  What past emotions have you experienced during conflict?  It is likely that most of us experience some anxiety when dealing with conflict – let’s face it, no matter how well equipped we are, it is never an easy process.  But what levels of anxiety do you face?  Is that anxiety linked with fear?  Or a belief that conflict is “bad”?  And to what extent are the emotions you experience around conflict, controlling your behaviour?  You don’t have to allow your emotions to dictate how you behave.  You can recognise them, name them, and sit with them until they pass. 

3.  The attitude you go into conflict with.  Depending on what you believe about the functionality of conflict, will depend how your attitude sways when confronted with it.  Is your attitude positive – hoping to achieve understanding for both parties.  Is your attitude nonchalant, therefore you won’t genuinely invest in the process and aim for a positive outcome.  Is your attitude aggressive, because you fear being hurt, so have to go in “attacking”?  Or is your attitude generally negative because you have not witnessed or experienced functional conflict before?

4.  The results you expect and experience.  For all the reasons listed above from 1 through 3, the results you expect as you go into conflict, you are likely to receive.  This is because your beliefs, emotions and attitude will direct you toward those results.  IF on the other hand, you become more purposeful, going into a conflict with awareness of your beliefs, emotions and attitude, and intention around how you want to shape those three DURING the process, you are much more likely to gain a positive result. 

5.  The depth of your relationships.  If you avoid conflict all together, or you have a negative attitude toward it, or believe nothing good comes from it, you are limiting your ability to experience depth in your relationships.  Conflict is an opportunity for you and the other party -  in the most important case your intimate partner and immediate family – to increase your understanding of each other and come to a deeper level of connection.  Refusing to engage in conflict prevents this from occurring. 

6.  Your level of happiness and contentment.  To make it plain, the research and experience indicates that if you restrict the depth of your connection with “your people” you limit your life expectancy, mental and physical health outcomes.  Connect with your people on a deeper level….. and if that means allowing yourself to experience conflict with your partner, I dare you!
 
Whether your thoughts and responses to conflict are positive or negative, they are still “baggage” that you bring with you to your next conflict.  Identifying what it is you are carrying with you and how it is influencing you and projecting into your next conflict, empowers you to think/act differently if you choose.  Some of your projections may be completely unwarranted and unrelated to any current conflict you may experience, thus they are hurting your ability to see the conflicts in your life with fresh eyes, and to treat them on their own merits.  Recognising how you are influenced means you have the power to choose whether you will continue on, or change your course for a better outcome.  

Kristy is the founder of Wellbalance. She is inspired to motivate leaders and workplaces toward proactive, effective and productive communication with their people, to achieve positive outcomes for all. Kristy enjoys long walks on the beach and holding hands at sunset (just joking - actually not really!) Kristy thrives on seeing relationships reach their full potential, and celebrates when people come to understand their true value - to love their flaws, accept their perceived failings and grow beyond these. She believes that the entire human race are healthier and happier when they CONNECT - with their people, GROW - in their self awareness and ability to engage with others, and LIVE - life to their full potential.

Self doubt has been a recurring theme in my conversations of late.  I have encouraged multiple people struggling with it, and never cease to be amazed at the calibre of people – those whom I view as having everything sorted, barging full steam ahead, not concerned with whether the world wants to hold them back or not – who have doubts about their capabilities. 
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It’s easy for me to look at others, their talents and capabilities, and tell them what I see and how I believe in them.  I’m often times taken aback by their lack of self belief.  It’s like an admiring fan looking at an Olympic diver – we can easily admire the beauty and talent from the outside, we can clearly see the results that person has achieved and the skills they have to offer.  But it’s only the diver who is privy to the entire picture – good, bad and ugly – of how they got to where they are; the fails, the heartaches, the practice and the challenges that have been overcome to achieve those results.  When we look and talk to ourselves we, like the diver, are privy to the entire picture of our minds, and all this extra information – negative and positive - can cloud our view of some of the character traits and strengths that outsiders can otherwise clearly see and identify.

Remembering this “clouded view” when self-doubt arises is important.  Knowing your view is clouded is one of your strategies of defense against negative self-talk.  It’s likely that your self talk may not be helpful, could be warped, could be an exaggeration of the truth or could be plain, downright incorrect.  Remembering your view is not entirely correct gives you the courage to keep going, challenge your doubts, and continue to believe that you can achieve your goals. 

When I’m plagued by self-doubt, I have also benefited from another strategy, which is assessing – and changing – the mindset which I have fallen in to.  I easily adopt a competitive mindset which means that I start to view everyone as either a threat to my ranking, or as beneath my ranking in the competition of life.  Needing to “win” the competition not only means there are always going to be losers, but that I start looking around and comparing myself to the next person.  “Am I prettier than her?”  “Am I more successful than her?”  “Oh no, she has more online followers than me, I must be hopeless.”  Etc. etc.  Comparing apples and oranges is a flawed approach, as is trying to set up a competition between the two.  I have learned that changing my mindset to adopt a “win win” approach (thankyou Steven Covey) in which I see myself – and others – as unique, and to be respected individually for the wealth of our experiences and knowledge, is much more accommodating of the courage and motivation I need to keep going in times of self doubt.

In my latest vlog I get personal about some of the thoughts I struggle with and how these have impacted me as I prepare for an upcoming seminar I’m preparing.  If you struggle with self doubt, I hope you find it helpful. 

Kristy xx

Kristy is the founder of Wellbalance. She is inspired to motivate leaders and workplaces toward proactive, effective and productive communication with their people, to achieve positive outcomes for all. Kristy enjoys long walks on the beach and holding hands at sunset (just joking - actually not really!) Kristy thrives on seeing relationships reach their full potential, and celebrates when people come to understand their true value - to love their flaws, accept their perceived failings and grow beyond these. She believes that the entire human race are healthier and happier when they CONNECT - with their people, GROW - in their self awareness and ability to engage with others, and LIVE - life to their full potential.

Can you relate to either party in this image? Chances are you can relate to both, depending on which relationship in your life that you're referring to! Whether you are the big guy who dominates the landscape, or the little guy who's smart and nimble, both hold power to influence, and both can be respected for their unique qualities. This picture is a beautiful representation of what you can achieve in professional and social relationships, when you are willing to bring your character assets to the table and work together for a win-win.
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Do you have to be the big guy? Do you feel threatened if you perceive yourself to be the little guy? Can you see that the little guy in this picture holds power and respect too? So much of our failure to manage healthy relationships is tied up in our fight for power and dominance. I call this the power/threat cycle. It works - usually - in one or two ways for each of us. The first: we are focused on our own power and importance, and we behave in a dominant manner so that others know we are "important". We may achieve this by speaking, taking up positions and behaving to ensure that others see our importance and feel our dominance (sometimes in the most subtle of ways).  In this way we ensure that we hold the balance of power. The second: we are focused on our own insecurities (a perceived loss of power and importance) and so constantly feel threatened by anyone that is confident or self assured, thus to compensate we either; act powerful to circumvent this cycle OR act threatened, taking away our own power and ripping ourselves off of the respect that we deserve.

The problem with BOTH of these approaches is that, as a mentality, they assume that power and dominance directly correlate to importance.  As a human race we all long to be important, any many people/companies/conglomerates achieve this through power.  Using power to establish importance is a successful strategy.  But it’s not a win-win.  In the thousands (it's a guess, but a pretty educated one) of clients I've worked with, I have seen this power/threat cycle mindset rearing its ugly head in 99.99% of relational issues. There is a different mindset that we can take, and its approach always gains better, more sustainable outcomes. It's called focusing on respect. Respect doesn't discriminate by power and perceived importance. Respect recognises that you can't compare apples and oranges, and that each can be equally appreciated for its own unique traits and properties.

In my quest to understand the human character, I have learned that our desire for power is real, but that desire for respect is much healthier and sustainable. The power struggle will always result in winners and losers, but respect is something that can be shared around much more equally. I have learned to tame my inner power monger! and trained myself to focus much more on respecting people equally, for the different traits and assets they possess. That means I can have equally respectful relationships with people of all different shapes and sizes, without this nagging issue of the power/threat cycle that continually plagues the human race and causes us to act in ways contradictory to even our own interests.  If you can consciously shift your focus from perceiving importance linked with power to perceiving importance linked with respect, you will journey a long way in self respect, happy relationships and your ability to lead and influence the people around you. 

If you are interested in a respect mentality, you may be interested in the vlog below in which I detail some specific strategies you can implement to improve your life and social relationships.  Being able to manage social relationships starts with you – understanding yourself and your own motivations – and permeates out to managing/responding to all of your interpersonal interactions.  Social skills is the 5th pillar of Emotional Intelligence. 

Kristy is the founder of Wellbalance. She is inspired to motivate leaders and workplaces toward proactive, effective and productive communication with their people, to achieve positive outcomes for all. Kristy enjoys long walks on the beach and holding hands at sunset (just joking - actually not really!) Kristy thrives on seeing relationships reach their full potential, and celebrates when people come to understand their true value - to love their flaws, accept their perceived failings and grow beyond these. She believes that the entire human race are healthier and happier when they CONNECT - with their people, GROW - in their self awareness and ability to engage with others, and LIVE - life to their full potential.

Human connection, is it the basis of much of our happiness? I think yes! In the study, research and anecdotal evidence I have collected over the years, I have formed a very strong belief in the value and importance of human connection - hence most of my messaging is centred around it!

I'm not alone either. Psychological scientists Mehl, Holleran, Shelby-Clarke and Vazire from the University's of Arizona and Washington also agree (refer to Mr Google for oodles of references). They have conducted much research focused on wellbeing and health outcomes for humanity, and have concluded that limited, deep social connectedness, can have the same negative health and life expectancy impacts as smoking 15 cigarettes a day! Wow, that is some serious risk factor to avoid. The clear conclusion: We need to maximise our deep social connectedness.

Deep social connectedness is forming and fostering those long term relationships we have with our trusted "inner sanctum", but it's also showing up authentically, in all those other conversations we have with acquaintances and colleagues.  I'm not saying you need to bare your soul to your acquaintances and colleagues, but you can be authentic and genuine, sharing the relevant part of yourself in those interactions. Forming many of these genuine relationships - some deeper than others - has a huge positive outcome for you and the people you interact with.

On an organisational level, I believe that genuine relationships like these have a synergy effect in the workplace.  The outcome of the whole is greater than the sum of the two individual parts, because of the positive influence two proactive people, and a proactive interaction has on the culture of a workplace.  When people are modelling proactive, positive and authentic communication, not only do those specific people feel content and treated fairly, but the others around them feel the benefits flowing from this. These benefits are two fold: Direct - through witnessing or talking specifically about the proactive interaction, and; Indirect - the extended workplace being positively impacted through the behaviour and attitude that emanates from each of the parties.  
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One of the ways we can build genuine connection with others is to develop our ability to empathise. Having empathy for others goes a long way in helping them feel understood, cared for and valued - all with huge positive outcomes in our personal and professional relationships! Empathy is one of the key pillars of emotional intelligence, and in the short video below I expound on some specific ways you can practice and build empathy into the way you “show up” every day. 

Kristy is the founder of Wellbalance. She is inspired to motivate leaders and workplaces toward proactive, effective and productive communication with their people, to achieve positive outcomes for all. Kristy enjoys long walks on the beach and holding hands at sunset (just joking - actually not really!) Kristy thrives on seeing relationships reach their full potential, and celebrates when people come to understand their true value - to love their flaws, accept their perceived failings and grow beyond these. She believes that the entire human race are healthier and happier when they CONNECT - with their people, GROW - in their self awareness and ability to engage with others, and LIVE - life to their full potential.