Five Simple Ways to Improve Your Conflict Management Skills

In this episode, Simon Goode shares five practical and accessible strategies for improving conflict management skills, including regulating your breathing, using statements instead of questions, finding ways to relax, writing to process conflict, and embracing a mindset of curiosity and openness. He explains each tip with relatable examples from both personal life and professional mediation, highlighting their immediate benefits and long-term impact on relationships. The episode encourages listeners to experiment with these techniques and reflect on what works best for them in challenging situations.

Timestamps:

00:00 "Calming Conflict Through Breathing"

06:42 Navigating Conflict Through Respect

08:05 Coaching Questions vs. Listening Statements

14:07 Mediation Concerns and Communication Strategies

16:10 Effective Mediator Safety Assessments

20:22 "Reset After Conflict"

24:30 Processing Emotions Through Movement

27:15 "Clarity Through Conflict Reflection"

30:03 "Navigating Communication Patterns"

32:30 "Writing to Resolve Conflict"

38:16 Conflict: Complexity Over Simplification

41:42 Navigating Uncertainty and Fog

43:16 Podcast Feedback & Suggestions Welcome

Transcript

0:00

Welcome back to the Conflict Skills Podcast. I'm your host, professional mediator Simon Goode. I set up this podcast to provide free resources and tools for dealing with conflict. So if that sounds like the kind of thing that's useful for you, please consider pressing subscribe in the episode Today, I'm going to be talking about five relatively easy ways to improve your ability for managing conflict. Now, these are often actually factors that I include when I'm doing training workshops in managing difficult conversations or de escalation skills or just dealing with conflict in general. These are some of the tools that we can use that don't require any previous training. They're relatively simple to understand, and once we apply them, we often see reasonably immediate benefits, which is why I like them so much. So a few of them that I'm going to go through are practical things like these are actually protocols to outline a series of steps that you can take, for example, and a couple of them are more like mindset shifts or things that you can remind yourself to elevate your perspective when you're dealing with conflict. So my hope is that these are useful for you whether you're dealing with conflict yourself, or maybe you're in the role of supporting other people to deal with conflict. And these might be some of the suggestions that you could offer. So the first way that almost everybody can improve their ability for managing conflict is learning to regulate your breathing. Breathing is this funny thing that often happens unconsciously. Our body just breathes without us needing to decide whether or not to breathe and how to breathe, so to speak. But it's also one of the factors of our physiology that we can adjust immediately, deliberately. You can decide to hold your breath or take a deep breath or whatever else you want to. Now, all of these different ways of breathing, whether it's fast and shallow or slow and deep, whether you're breathing through your nose or through your mouth, whether you're pausing before the inhale, after you've done an exhale. All of these are elements that often correlate with different states of our nervous system. So when we're very relaxed, psychologists sometimes call this the rest and digest state, the parasympathetic nervous system. We often engage in relatively deep, slow breaths. And by contrast, as we move into the fight or flight mode, the sympathetic nervous system, this is the way that our body gets us ready to respond to threats. Obviously, the breathing changes and it becomes fast and shallow. So this rapid way of breathing, I suppose, because that's what we need in the next moment, if our brain interprets the current situation as being relatively threatening. It's good that we get ready to fight or flee, get ready to escape if there's danger. But that's not ideal when we're dealing with relationship conflict, like when your partner's just made an insensitive comment, or you, your kids are driving you crazy, or maybe you're dealing with an absolute nightmare of a micromanager boss at your work and you're just needing to do whatever you possibly can to stay calm. Breathing is one of the go to options that we've got. So in short, what we want to do is to breathe like we were relaxed, which is going to be a much slower rhythm in your breaths. And each breath that you take might be deeper in terms of the breath in as well as longer and more thorough or more air escaping in the breath out. And if your goal is to calm yourself down or to manage your emotions during a pretty intense conversation, the focus should be on the breath out, the exhale. The longer that we can make that breath out, the more quickly that it helps us to relax our heart. Our heart rate slows down. It slows down the release of adrenaline. And this is in part because that's what our brain has learned, that when we're breathing in that way, that this is often a safe, contained, in control kind of conversation. So really focus on that breath out. And for me, I find it helpful to count. And the number that I count to is 6. The minimum amount of time, if you're a very detail oriented kind of person, is technically, I believe, five and a half seconds. We need to breathe out for at least 5 1/2 seconds to slow our heart rate down as quickly as possible. So that's why I count to six breathing out, take a brief pause and then count to six briefly breathing in. Some people use other methods of regulating their breathing. Some people use an approach called box breathing. They might even get a pen and a paper and draw a box. And so they basically go around the four sides of the box. 4 seconds breathing in, 4 seconds holding, 4 seconds breathing out, 4 seconds holding, and then repeat, repeat, repeat. I don't find that's particularly helpful when I'm dealing with conflict because often the other person will think that you're a bit of a weirdo if you ask them to pause while you can just draw some squares on your page for a few minutes. And even if you're doing it while you're talking to them, you still probably, you might still at least to some extent seem a bit weird. So I like the counting to six option because it's something that we can easily manage in our head without it being too distracting and hopefully without the other person being aware of it. But it's usually just a few of these deep breaths, including a long exhale, where you would begin to notice your heart rate slows down. If you're wearing a Garmin or an Apple watch or something similar, what you'll often notice is that literally your heart rate drops within a few breaths, and you'll often begin to feel a bit more calm and composed as a result. Now, this isn't a truly binary thing, it's oversimplifying it. But the more that we can establish that sense of being composed, in control, I'm not flustered, I'm not flapped, I can get through this. The more capacity our executive function sections of our brain will have to operate, which is often what exactly we need, to be frank, when we're dealing with conflict. So as your heart rate begins to slow, that prefrontal cortex might come online, so to speak, so you'll have more ability to choose your words carefully, to look at a complex problem and develop a series of options and evaluate them, etc. To develop a mental map of what's going on in the other person's head. These are all really important things for managing conflict. So if we can take a few deep breaths, we increase that executive function section of our brain to do all of the above. As well as self regulation, we have a much better capacity to control our words, to not respond when the other person's pushing our buttons, to resist that urge to jump in and interrupt them right in the middle of something that they were saying. And that is often incredibly helpful for dealing with conflict. I actually think the how of how the conflict plays out is often much more important than the what the what the conflict is actually about. Because if you have the sense that the other person has been completely disrespectful, or shutting you down, or walking over the top of you, regardless of whether or not they're right, you're not going to want to believe that they're right. You're still going to want to resist it. Whereas if you've had the experience of being listened to and respected and validated and acknowledged to some extent, ironically, it might mean that you're more open to consider the other ideas that they were putting forward. Whereas the other way around, if someone's just jamming it down your throats, so to speak, a lot of people just inherently want to resist the Second of these low hanging fruit options that I often find when we're dealing with conflict is learning to use statements instead of questions when you're listening. Now, this sounds a little bit counterintuitive because a lot of the way that we're taught to listen is about the questions that we should ask, and particularly when we think about coaching. For example, the grow model of coaching, which is my favorite model, it's all about the questions. These are the four types of questions you can ask in grow, the goal questions, the reality questions, the options questions, and the way forward or what will you do kind of questions. And that's kind of that, like that's the focus of the whole model when it comes to coaching. But when it comes to active listening, I've been surprised to discover just how effective statements can be in a number of different ways. When you're broaching a topic that's a little bit sensitive for whatever reason, statements can be really nice ways of just beginning to open the door a crack. And let's see what comes out of this topic, if you know what I mean. So my son, when he comes home from school, if I ask him something like, how was school? What did you do today? He never wants to tell me immediately when he hops in the car or when he immediately gets off the bus, his brain is probably spinning. He's been controlling his behavior in front of his friends and in front of his teachers all day. He's probably been experiencing a complete lack of control because everybody tells you what to do and where to be when this bell rings or this is what we're doing as a class now. So for me to ask him tell me about all of that, it's probably at least in the way that he's interpreting it, this recent suffering that he's had to do, and now I want him to re experience it by telling me all about it. And as well as that, he's probably wondering about what he should keep private and what he should make public. Like maybe he was a little bit naughty at school with one of his friends and got in trouble. So he doesn't want me to know that. So he might feel like me asking him, how is your day? Is a bit like an interrogation. And he's risking admitting to wrongdoing, so to speak. Or it might be that he's not clear on what actually happened today. So me asking him a question like, what happened today? What did you do? It's using that executive section of his brain, that prefrontal cortex, and that's the same bit of his brain that his bloody teacher has been draining all day by asking him difficult questions. So it makes sense why he might not want to talk about school. This is something that his brain might interpret as a threat because he's being put on the spot. He's potentially being scrutinized, he's potentially being criticized, he's, he's being asked to talk about complex interactions and choose the words, etc. And he's only a kid. This all takes a lot of resources, so to speak. So he's resistant. Whereas I find that when I ask him, when I use a statement instead of a question, he's often much more willing to talk like. So when he hops in the car, I'll say, g', day mate, how you going? How's your day? Just a closed ended question at the beginning because it's not going to be too mentally taxing. Usually says fine or I don't know or good or something like that. And then I just pause and allow some silence. And then almost always the next thing that I say is a statement. I might say something like, oh, it was so hot, or oh, it was raining so much at home, or gee, Shelly did this. Our dog did this crazy thing today, it was really funny. Or gee, I was thinking, I'm glad that you had your hat today because of how sunny it was. Or I was wondering how you got along with the lunch order that you put in at recess. But I don't ask the follow up question of how was it? Did that work out okay? I just make the statement, I was thinking of you today actually because of this reason. And it kind of gives him the option of whether or not to respond, what to talk about and what level of detail to talk about it using. So he might say something like, yeah, our teacher didn't let us use the air conditioner or something. And again, I'll often use a statement in response, oh, that doesn't sound very fair. I bet you were sweating like there's no question in there. I'm not putting him on the spot. I'm not giving him that sense of any potential scrutiny. I'm not criticizing what he's saying. I'm kind of joining with him, if you know what I mean. Comedians often use this way of talking about how to bounce off each other as yes and yes and I know what you mean. This other thing happened as well. I've had the same experience, I dealt with it in this kind of way, or I've had the same experience. I was struggling with this. It's a lovely nice way of saying yes, and I get where you're coming from. We're on the same page. And it really has this organic effect of inviting more response. So I use it the same with my son when I'm asking him how his day was. And I know that's a situation that he doesn't often like sharing. And it's like prying open the door very slowly. But after he starts talking about a topic that's reasonably interesting to him, he's often on a roll and he'll share with me really lovely things about what happened to him in the day. But it's not because I begun with asking a question. It's often because I've begun with using the right statements. I also use statements a lot when I'm de escalating adults, grown ups. My first role when I first became a mediator was in family dispute resolution. I was what's called a family dispute resolution practitioner, which is basically a fancy way of saying a family mediator. So I was running mediations with parents about their children. How much time should the kids spend in each house? How are they going to manage new partners, school pickups and drop offs, birthday parties, Christmases, all of that kind of thing, as well as the property and finances. Like, were they going to keep the house or sell the house? How were they going to deal with the debt? What was going to happen to the cars, superannuation and retirement plans? Those elements as well. And you can imagine that when somebody first comes to meet me, the mediator, and we're going to be talking about relatively high stakes things like what happens with their kids or what's going to happen with their money and their financial future. They were incredibly on edge. I wouldn't necessarily say that people arrived anxious, but to say that they were defensive is an incredible understatement. They were often shaking a little bit, nervous at times, but really defensive, really trying to paint themselves in the best way possible, which at times meant that it was really difficult to get the information that I needed. Like, I just wanted to establish, is it safe to put you two in the same room together? Are you likely to, you know, be violent to one another or be violent to me, or are there any other mental health issues that we need to consider or concerns about child protection and this kind of thing? But while I'm wanting to know this information, I can't ask it just directly. You know, it's not always easy to say, what concerns have you got about how the other person might Abuse you in the mediation room? I suppose sometimes I actually did ask that question very directly. I would just say, do you have any concerns about the mediation coming up? But I often found that I got more useful information, again by using statements. So I would often say something like, okay, well look, it sounds like a lot of volatility happening between the two of you in the past. I know some couples struggle when it comes to mediation. Even being in the same room as their ex partner, that can be really difficult. So a few statements first, and I'm kind of giving them the opportunity to respond. I found when they did jump in and respond, in those kind of moments, the information that I got was often incredibly useful. Like they might say something like, actually we have been struggling on changeovers. It often ends up in a big shouting match or something similar. And so then I can ask the follow up questions like, okay, that sounds tricky. What do you think would be helpful for managing that? When we do get to the mediation day then, and you're in the same room with me, but sometimes I'll just ask another statement or use another statement following that, okay, so that sounds like that was a real spike in the conflict between the two of you. Full stop, pause and allow them to respond. And again, they would often respond with very useful information, quote, unquote. So they might say, actually there's been this other thing, or recently he's been threatening me with this, or she's accused me of this, but that's not true for this reason. And they would go that level deeper of disclosing some of the underlying concerns. And obviously that's the information that I need as a family mediator. Whereas if I just ask them a question like, do you have any safety concerns? Have the police ever been involved? Are there any intervention or protection orders between the two of you? They would often give me a direct answer to the question, no, yes, only this, nothing like that. But I wouldn't have in my mind done a thorough enough assessment as to the safety concerns. Ultimately, as a mediator, it's still a subjective thing, like you still need to make a decision using your professional discretion as to whether or not it's safe to put these people in the same room together. But at least for me, I certainly was able to sleep better, feeling like I'd done my ethical obligations or whatever else you might consider that to be, to assess it as best I could. Whereas when I sat in with other mediators who just asked questions and their first appointments with their clients just felt like an interview and it was it was just question, answer, question, answer, question, answer. And then when they got to the mediation session and they put the same people in the room, well, surprise, surprise. Once the difficult emotions begin to surface, a lot of the time the mediator didn't know what to expect, so they would often jump in and shut the conversation down in my mind prematurely, just because there was uncomfortable emotions being expressed. Whereas, at least in my mind, the assessments that I'd done had helped to prepare me for that process. I had established that it was likely that they would escalate, and I talked to them about what they need to do in that case to manage those emotions, like asking for a break. Or I might have talked about options for putting them in separate rooms. I might have a notepad in front of both of them to take notes and all of that kind of thing. I've done my best to prepare. So just those two. Learn to regulate your breathing and learn to use statements instead of questions when listening. I actually think that would make a dramatic difference to a lot of the conflicts that I hear about or end up being involved in myself as a mediator. And when I'm talking about a dramatic difference, it's a bit like where we are right now is a dot on the page. And the direction that we're going might be that the relationship is declining. Every day, it's getting worse. Every interaction that we have, there's more tension. And then the other option would be, let's choose a slightly different direction, and instead of declining as rapidly, maybe the relationship stays neutral. So that line would be going across the page instead of downwards. So you can see immediately that a small difference today because of the way that these things often compound in relationships can mean that in a week or a month or a year, the same relationship is in an incredibly different place just because of some of these fine adjustments that you've made in terms of those reciprocal patterns, because you're not going to get the same response from the other person doing something different as you would have if you continued to do the same old way that you often react when they're having a go at you or pushing your buttons or whatever that reciprocal pattern is that's going on between the two of you. The third tool that works for a lot of people is figuring out how you can relax, how you can de Stress, how you can reset after a difficult interaction. And I think this is helpful for two different reasons. First, when we can begin to relax, first, when we can begin to relax, it activates that parasympathetic nervous System slows down, our heart rate slows down, our breathing changes, our digestion changes, the level of adrenaline changes, the level of cortisol in our blood, and it moves us into that rest and digest kind of state. So that's going to be more helpful long term for your physical body. You'll sleep better after you've been in that state all day. Your immune system would be stronger, your digestion would be working better. Whereas when you're in constantly the sympathetic nervous system, the fight or flight mode, our digestion is affected. So you might find yourself craving sugar for that injection of dopamine. And weight gain is something that occurs as a result. Or your immune system becomes compromised because you've been redlining the system day after day, just putting out fires and putting out fires and putting out fires. And often those fires that we're putting out involve conflict. So one of the ways that we can become more relaxed is focusing on doing it deliberately. So I often talk about self regulation during a difficult conversation, like taking a few deep breaths. Or there's a particular mindfulness technique that I often talk about when I'm running a training workshop on conflict. But the other area is after that interaction, after that person has left your office and you just had an argument with them when you're driving home. And it's been a really difficult day on the job site because this person and you have been butting heads all day. What we need to do is to find what works for us to reset. So I often follow a reasonably consistent set of steps for myself. I do something like closing my eyes briefly and I just check in. I notice what's going on in my physical body. Like maybe there's a part of my body that's sore or tense, or it's tired and feeling really drained or shaking. I often find after conflict that I have a bit of pain in my neck and I might have some tension in my shoulders. I might be finding it difficult to sit still. Like I might be tapping the pen on my desk or feeling like I'm almost leaping out of my chair to go and constantly get another glass of water or something similar. So it's this want to move, want to be busy, want to be reactive, flitting between activities. I just notice all of those different elements first. So that I think helps to connect us to the present and stops our mind from spinning about the past and the problems, which is often the thing that causes this continual escalation as we go. You know, we get worse and worse and more ramped up and More worked up as time goes on. So noticing is where it begins. And then I ask myself a question like, what am I feeling? And how come? I think about this as emotional granularization. Like I want to break the feelings and the emotions that I'm experiencing apart into their component modules. And that inherently then helps us to differentiate from them. Almost as if we're not. The anger. The anger isn't all that's consuming us. I'm so upset that they did this. I can't believe it. It's ridiculous. They shouldn't have done this. That's not right. It's not my fault. Why have I been left with the consequences of this? Like all of those things are potentially true and valid and correct. It's probably not wrong that I'm upset that the other person's done this. There's probably some basis for the way that I'm feeling to some extent. So I say to myself, what am I feeling and how come? And then the next question I ask myself is, what else am I feeling? Now, that sounds a little bit counterintuitive, but my goodness, it can have a dramatic effect on. On your mindset. What else am I feeling? Well, I'm grateful that at least it wasn't worse. At least this other thing that could have happened didn't happen. Or I'm grateful that at least I'm not going through this alone. There's a number of colleagues that I've got that are dealing with similar challenges. And so that gives me a little bit of optimism that we might be able to figure out something to push back against this or some way to respond. Maybe I'm grateful that I don't live with the people that I work with. So I go home and hang out with my family and my friends who I really enjoy spending time with. Or maybe I'm grateful for my physical health and the fact that I can go home and eat and have a good meal. Whereas my boss, who's been micromanaging me and Naaki with me all day, I know that he's separated and he goes home and he doesn't have other people that he can spend time with. It's just pausing and observing, but breaking those emotions and those feelings apart into their component modules. I think it inherently then changes the way that they affect us. And instead of that feeling and that emotion being as consuming like it's there, it's not like it goes away immediately, but it feels like it's not our whole world. It feels like today wasn't a complete disaster because of this, that was one thing that happened. And now let's see what happens next. So I pause and take a few deep breaths, ask myself what I'm feeling and how come. And then I like to do something physical, like I'll shake my arms out or stamp my feet on the ground or wet a towel and throw it at the ground a few times and swear really loudly. Or I might do a few stretches, or I might tighten and tense up those muscles in my neck and my shoulders and tighten them up as much as I can and then very, very slowly relax. And I'll often notice that my shoulders end up lower than they were before just by doing that, tensing the muscles and then relaxing them a few times. There's often no other magical step that's needed. It's that take a few deep breaths, figuring out what you're feeling and then doing something to relax physically. I'm often feeling in a completely different state, state of mind next. Like I don't feel as tired, I don't feel as all consumed. I don't feel as hopeless and helpless. And so that is often the mindset that I want to take in to the next conversation that I'm going into or the next task that I need to focus on. That ability to relax, though, it also inherently helps us to slow down. It pries open a little bit of daylight before they finish speaking and you can jump in and interrupt them and respond. It lets us speak slower. It helps us to lower the tone, to lower the volume, the more that we can physically relax. So I think there's also tangible ways that the more relaxed that we can be, the higher our capacity for dealing with conflict will become. So we've gone through some options for regulating your breathing, learning to use statements instead of questions, some of those options to relax and reset. The fourth of these low hanging fruit options that a lot of us have for improving our ability to deal with conflict is writing. I think getting a pen and paper out instead of using a phone or instead of using a computer is definitely better. And there's a few ways that I use writing when it comes to conflict. First, I think writing can be incredibly helpful for helping you to reflect, like almost deal with a conflict that's just happened and to create a little bit of distance. When we're in the middle of conflict, it's like we're in the middle of a forest with trees all around us and then we can only see a meter or two in front of us. This is an analogy that Robert Greene often talks about. When it comes to other challenges that we face in life as well. So in conflict, we're surrounded by trees. We can only see a meter or two. And then as time goes on, often after the conflict has happened, after that conversation ends, once we're seeing things a little bit more clearly, once we're a little bit more relaxed, once that parasympathetic nervous system has kicked in, it's like we go up this mountain behind the forest, and the higher that we get, the more of the forest that we can see, the more differentiated that we can become from the conflict, the more our perspective will increase about what's going on for the other person, the options that we've got, the way that this is actually affecting us, and realizing maybe that at the end of the day, it's not the end of the world. All of these things come about through our ability to differentiate from conflict. And writing can be one of the best ways that we can do this. So I often begin just by writing what happened, like, just the facts. What did they actually say? How did it start? What was I doing? What did I do next? What did they do next? What did they say? What did I say? I find it helpful to write those things down quite specifically because it helps shake my brain out of this black and white way that it's thinking about the conflict. If you can imagine, the more we go into fight or flight mode, the more that our brain is programmed for quick reactions. It doesn't really matter whether or not that is a poisonous species of snake or not. It's better that you immediately jump back because of the potential danger that's there. So as we get escalated, as we ramp up into this fight or flight mode, we look at situations much more black and white binary, overly simplified goodies and baddies, us versus them. I'm right and they're wrong. They're obviously missing this I'm getting everything right kind of thing. Whereas when we can pause and slow down and relax a little bit, it helps us to see the same situation with a lot more nuance. So as you're writing down specifically what happened, who did what, and who said what, you'll have these light bulb moments going off when you realize, I did say that. Those were the words that came out, but that's not what I meant. But now I can see that because of the way that they responded and what they said next, they'd misunderstood me. So I might realize, for example, that that was the moment when we had the crossed wires in the conversation. And from there, all that was really happening was the emotions that we were both experiencing was playing out. Neither of us really were thinking very clearly and we were both annoying the other people. So we were probably just experiencing a lot of frustration in that moment. And it then helps us to think about planning differently for next time around. How can we avoid that crossed wire that happened during that instance in the conversation? I think the other thing that happens though, once you write these things down is that you don't feel as emotional about it. The anger that you're feeling is just okay, this is the problem that we need to deal with now. And even the way that you interpret the other person's behavior and what's their motives and what's their intentions, instead of that just being isolated and they're selfish or they're this or they're that, we begin to see it in terms of the reciprocal pattern that's going on between us when they do this. That's probably a behavior that's rewarded in this reason. So it makes sense why they continue it when I do this, it's a behavior that they interpret as punishment. So it makes sense why they're avoiding it. Like all of these things are pattern that go on between us. And when it comes to conflict, all we can really change is what we say and what we do. You might be writing down and realizing that there's things that you wish were different about the other person. I wish they would want to do this. I wish they would understand this. But of course, all you can do is decide how to respond. So that next step of after you've written down what happened. I often like going into a little bit of a planning phase, then of just drawing some dot points or a flowchart or a mind map or whatever. It's just let me think of some options that I could consider. Now it doesn't really matter if I come up with a complete plan in that state. Maybe all I'm doing is thinking about what do I need right now to keep my head above water, given that I've got this next meeting that I'm going into and I don't want to be all discombobulated by this last stressful conversation that I've just had. So maybe my plan is just take a few deep breaths and wash my face in the bathroom and have something to eat before going in. But the longer term plan might come up as well. Like maybe there's options I can consider for dealing with this annoying person or for pushing back on my boss when they're micromanaging Me or something similar. But the goal here isn't necessarily to come up with the complete plan after I've written down what happened. I want to almost deliberately help my brain to change gears. We want to move into that option generation phase. So even if all that you can come up with is one or two options for now, and neither of them are particularly good, that's fine. If you've gone through the exercise of writing down what happened and then writing down a couple of options that you could consider. What will often happen next is that the subconscious sections of your brain almost begin to work on it. And so you might find then that you do have an answer that comes to mind later on, or you do realize after looking back on it that you've been making a mountain out of a molehill. Those things come with time. So after you've started the process of writing down a few options, all you really need to do there is to allow the space for your brain and your body, I think as well, to metabolize the conflict and then to begin to generate more options that will start to form the foundation for a plan. Now, the thing about writing down to process conflict is that it almost never feels like it will work in the moment. After you've just had an argument with someone, the last thing you feel like doing is sitting down and writing with a pen and paper. So you should probably expect to feel not very optimistic about this. But that doesn't mean it's not still important to do. I think a lot of self care. The challenge is doing it consistently in the moments when we actually need it, because they are the moments when it becomes more difficult. Like your energy levels are particularly low or you've got so many other things that are on your plate right now. But they might be the situations where ironically, you really do need to spend a few minutes reflecting because you've got a difficult task that you're about to do next and you want to increase your capacity as much as possible before you begin. So you're not writing it down because you think that it will feel good. You're writing it down because there's evidence that this is a strategy that works. I think the final easy way that a lot of people have when it comes to their ability for dealing with conflict is a mindset shift. And the mindset shift that often people need is to remind yourself that you don't know, you don't have all of the facts, you don't necessarily need to have all of the answers right now. Like we often make these stories about what happened. This is what they did. And this is why I responded. I was being reasonable, they weren't. And so we invent these very black and white summaries of what happened in the past because our brain wants to have a coherent narrative about what happened. We have an ego and we want to protect ourselves as being reasonable and logical and intelligent and capable and all the rest of it. So we then tend to paint the story in ways that favor ourselves. This is just an inherent bias that all of us have. So when something happens, it's stored in our memory as a little bit of a story. And as we remember events that happened or retell ourselves something re experience a conversation that's happened in the past, that story just gets reinforced and reinforced and reinforced. And what happens a lot when it comes to conflict is something of a self fulfilling prophecy. We expect the other person to be unreasonable. So we are on guard from the beginning. But of course they don't know that. They just see us being defensive and shut down and hostile. So they think, what's Simon's problem? So they respond in kind. And then down and down we go. This might also sound a little bit counterintuitive, but in my experience, one of the things that has been very helpful at improving people's capacity for dealing with conflict and is simply reminding yourself that you don't know, that you don't have all of the answers, that that simple explanation that you've come up with for why they did the thing that they did might not be correct, or at least there's more factors involved. The situation that they're dealing with is more complex than you're aware of. You don't know necessarily how the other people involved have been treating them. You don't notice necessarily what has happened in terms of the history of this conflict. As we get upset, as we become escalated and those emotions like anger, etc. Begin to take control, we look for very black and white explanations. We develop a story that's coherent. This happened and then this and then this. They should have done this and they didn't for this reason. So they're wrong because of this. And so one of the things that can be very helpful when it comes to dealing with conflict. If we want to feel less emotional, if we want to take the conflict less personally, if we want to be able to think about the issue in a very logical, rational, pragmatic kind of way, then we need to remind ourselves that we actually don't know. It might not be true how it seems on the surface. There might be other information that contradicts the facts that I've already got. And at the very least the reason why the other person's doing what they're doing is, isn't as simple and obvious as it seems. It's not that I'm wrong, but I need to remind myself that I don't have the full set of information here. I don't actually think this is very difficult because we don't perceive the world around us in an accurate kind of way, so to speak. Like the way that our brain works is that it almost plays the role of interpreting the signals that are coming in through our different senses. And so we only have access to a tiny little portion of even just the visual data that's coming in, for example, let alone the way that our memory works. And all of these different elements. Like we don't really understand our own emotions, we don't really understand our own intentions and motives. So how could we possibly understand other people's complex aspects of their behavior and personality? It's absurd. But when it comes to conflict, the more upset that we get, the more we do just look for very simplistic rational is the way that we often self justify it explanations as to what's going on. And that locks our brain into the mode of combat. I think then we begin this adversarial way of interacting with the other people that we're dealing with. Whereas if we can remind ourselves that we don't know, we don't have the full set of information, this is a hypothesis that we've got about what might be going on. And there's probably elements of that that are correct and true, and there's elements of that that are slightly wrong, or it's describing it in a different way, or we're not paying as much attention to a particular factor as the other person is, or whatever else it might be, like we really don't know what's going on. So in a very logical, rational way it's true. But we need to remind ourselves of this because the more upset that we get and the more personal that the conflict becomes, the more that we can get wrapped up in these very simplistic black and white explanations for what's going on. And that inherently then limits our options for responding. If we think this is a very simple matter, then we've probably got two options. This might work, and if not, this is plan B. But if we think about this in a very complex way that we don't have the full set of information, we begin to approach the Conflict, then, as in more of a curious mindset. Let me figure out what's going on here. Let me check with the other person. It seems like this is the way that it appears to me, have I got that right? Or do I need to adjust my perspective here? So when we begin with that curious, open mindset, it often feels different to the other person. They don't feel criticized and judged. In fact, we're inviting them to collaborate on. Let's just establish a bit of a common set of facts here. And then when it comes to actually responding to the conflict, it's like a very pragmatic exercise. This is the problem. This is the option that seems like it would work best. These are the set of steps that I'm going to follow to respond to it instead of just, they're a jerk. And so what are our options for dealing with jerks? Ignore them, shut them down, like, for like, kind of responses. Report them to their boss. Okay, so that very black and white simplistic perspective, like they're wrong and they're an idiot, has inherently limited the options that we've got for dealing with it. And if you're in conflict with your partner or your children or your parents or an important colleague at work that you're likely to work together for a long period of time, maybe those options of ignoring them or reporting them to their boss or like, for like kind of response are not going to be optimum. So you can engage a more effective way of dealing with conflict simply by reminding yourself of what you don't know. I love the phrase the fog of war to illustrate this. We don't realize when we're in the fog of war. I think it's why a lot of people beat themselves up and criticize themselves when it comes to the way that they've dealt with conflict. They look back on the mistakes that they've made and the stupid things that they've done and the opportunities that they've missed, and they can see the path that would have led to success. But instead of the path they took, which was, you know, childish behavior at times or having a bit of a tantrum or overreacting. But we don't realize that back then we were in the fog of war. It wasn't clear which direction these two paths were going to lead down. It's like when we look back, we can see the paths of what we did and what we should have done, but we can't see the fog. And even in this current moment, the more worked up that we tend to get the more convinced that we can be that we're seeing the situation accurately. So just realizing that you are in the fog of war, there is literally more going on than you can perceive at the moment. It helps us then to relax a little bit. And instead of needing to be right or needing to have the full set of information, maybe instead it's like this slight compromise of let's mutually figure out what might be going on here, because there's going to be more options than I'm aware of, and the plan that we develop at the end of the day isn't going to just be based on my understanding of the current situation. So reminding yourself what you don't know can be a way of inherently beginning that process of generating more options and stopping taking the conflict as personally, maybe even softening up some of the self criticisms that some of us are prone to. So how do they sit with you? Those options of regulating your breathing, using statements instead of questions, learning some options that work for you for relaxing, writing, for debriefing, using a pen and paper if possible, and then reminding yourself of what you don't know and becoming more aware of when you're in the fog of war and how that's affecting you. How does that sit with you? Have you tried some of those options that I've described there and they worked? Or maybe you've tried them and they didn't work? I'd love to hear from you if you've got feedback about this episode of the podcast, or you'd like to ask a question, or maybe you've got an idea for a future episode of the podcast, a case study that you would like me to talk about, or a topic that you think would be useful for other people. I'd love to hear from you. The best way to get in touch is by email. You can shoot me an email@podcastimongood.com and if you'd like additional resources for dealing with conflict, please consider pressing subscribe. Otherwise, thank you very much for listening. I very much appreciate it. If it's useful, I'd be grateful for a thumbs up or a positive review, that kind of thing. And if you would take a moment to remember, write a comment. Those kind of things make a massive difference for little podcasts like this. So thank you very much in advance if that's something that you're prepared to do. And thank you for listening. Hopefully see you again in a future episode of the Conflict Skills podcast. Bye for now. Sa.