Conflict can challenge you to grow

Who says conflict is a bad thing?  Often, we try to avoid conflict as it’s seen as something undesirable,  or unwanted.  We are meant to seek harmony at all costs.  But truly there are many benefits to conflict and one of them is that conflict can challenge you to grow.

Here are 3 ways conflict can help you grow personally and professionally:

1. Rethink your priorities

Conflict can make you rethink your priorities and examine what you are trying to achieve.  When you’re in disagreement with someone, take a step back. Go over your interests and what is it that you really want to achieve. Is it really worth it? If so – why? If not, why are you continuing it? Sometimes you have to learn which battles you might want to pursue.  In the beginnings of the sign of a conflict arising, you might want to simply let things go.

2. Brings patterns of behaviour to the fore

Conflict brings patterns of behaviours to you, making them a sharp focus of attention.  When you’re in disagreement and you’re going through the usual tit-for-tat, my-idea-is-better-than-yours-because. You get used to fighting. You can’t change the other person but you can examine and change yourself. When you take a moment to reflect on your interactions, you’ll likely notice some patterns of behaviour. Something may be triggering you to enter battle mode. You may be doing something to provoke certain reactions in others.

By paying attention to how you’re interacting with others, you’re creating opportunities for you to develop skills. You’re able to alter your behaviours.  You’re more aware of how you’re communicating and can intentionally change your style.

3. Identifies weak points

Conflicts identify weak points: Often people enter conflicts because they feel threatened or vulnerable. A natural defensive reaction is to cast the attention away from the weakness. Instead, when you identify it, try very hard to work at the weakness. Learn new skills. Expand your understanding. Meet new people. It’s not easy but the results are worth it.

When you give yourself time to reflect, conflict can indicate areas in which you can develop and strengthen. Whenever you expand your skill set and understanding of a situation, there is a greater likelihood for mastery and innovation.https://peopledevelopmentmagazine.com/contributor-guidelines/

Pick one of the three suggestions and see how it works for you. Experiment with the other two options. Compare how you feel with each option.

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Renée helps business get unstuck. Through business relationship mapping, conflict resolution and leadership development, Renée helps entrepreneurs and businesses understand their ecosystems, identify underutilised resources and opportunities to engage.

Renée works at both ends of the spectrum: from the fun stuff of building excellent teams to dealing with low morale. She helps managers take workplace bullies by the horns, address long standing conflicts, all of the frustrating stuff to harnessing the energy in a conflict to collaborate, innovate, and build better businesses.

Renée is a speaker, trainer, coach and consultant.

www.vitaedynamics.com