Conflicts exist because of a refusal of one or both parties to the conflict to give up the need to be right. A friend named Kelly recently told me a story of how she quickly resolved a life long conflict with her stepfather by doing just that. Many long term conflicts can be resolved quickly if we’ll just do what Kelly did. 

Kelly, who is now an adult, had been fighting with her stepfather from the time she was 10 years old. As Kelly explains, “We would argue about anything and everything. We both needed to be right. I just decided to give up the need to be right. I didn’t tell him I thought he was right, but I didn’t tell him I thought he was wrong.”

Kelly’s decision almost instantly changed her relationship with her stepfather from one that was adversarial to one that was positive and loving (I say “almost instantly” because it took a few days for her step father to believe she was no longer going to argue).  “I have used a similar approach in other relationships and it works,” she concludes.

Kelly’s statement that she didn’t say her stepfather was right, she simply stopped making him wrong, nicely captures the essence of “giving up the need to be right.”

If we are to have harmonious, peaceful relationships, we have to do what Kelly did. We have to stop making others wrong. When we are arguing about whether the cup is half empty or half full, the “correct” answer is “Yes,” depending on our point of view.

What sometimes happens instead is that we decide that the glass is half full, demand that everyone agree it's half full and say that those who don't see the glass as half full are clearly stupid, crazy and/or dumb.

We have sentenced ourselves to relationships full of argument and discord when we live as though our point of view is “right.” It isn’t. Neither is it “wrong.” It is simply, by definition, the vantage point from which we view the world. Conflicts (from mild disagreement to murderous rage) exist when we misidentify our point of view as “the truth.”

Everyone will win in a conflict once we give up our need to be right and focus solely on getting our needs met, regardless of who is “right.”

QUESTIONS? COMMENTS? LJBARKAN@THEPIVOTALFACTOR.COM

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Reprinted by permission of the author, Larry Barkan: http://www.conflictresolutiontraining.net