Wisdom-Trek / Creating a Legacy

Welcome to Day 190 of our Wisdom-Trek, and thank you for joining me.

This is Guthrie Chamberlain, Your Guide to Wisdom.

Overcoming Conflict

Thank you for joining us for our 7 days a week, 7 minutes of wisdom podcast. This is Day 190 of our Trek, and yesterday we explored why it is wise to always discuss issues and not argue. Today on our trail to success, we will learn how to overcome the obstacles of conflict that may be blocking your trail. If you miss any of our Wisdom-Trek episodes, please go to Wisdom-Trek.com to listen to them and read the daily journal.

We are recording our podcast from our studio at The Big House in Marietta, Ohio.  Saturday I spent over 9 hours taking down acoustical ceiling tiles, trim, and wallpaper.  It required a lot of going up and down on the ladder and removing hundreds of staples that were holding up the tiles using needle nose pliers. Fortunately, the wallpaper came off easily. To say that I was exhausted at the end of the day would be an understatement.  The Marietta grandkids came over for the evening and assisted with some final wallpaper removal, and Paula and her mom were a big help picking up most of the tiles and wallpaper.

 

On Sunday, I spoke at the morning service at Putnam Congregational Church.  The lesson was the 5 Principles of Planting and Harvesting, which compared farming to planting and harvesting in our own personal lives. If you would like to hear a similar lesson, listen to Day 15 of our Wisdom-Trek, which is the outline that I used for the lesson today.

After church, we finished packing up the car and headed to Home2 in Indian Trail, North Carolina. We will remain there until Christmas Eve when we will head back north again. We will be at Home2 for about 2 ½ weeks with much work and many activities already planned.

It is now time to head out on our Trek for today, and it has been reported that there are some major obstacles on our trail. The obstacles seem to be caused by conflicts that we are having with other people as well as conflicts that people are having with us. In both types of conflicts, we need to come up with a solution that will get us around or through these obstacles.

Overcome Conflicts Which Block Success

Anytime you are making ground and moving toward success, there will inevitably be the opportunity for conflict. That is just a fact of life. You put two people or more in a group, and there is potential for conflict. And conflict, improperly handled, can destroy your ability to continue on and achieve your goals.

This is true in many areas of life from home, to work, and even with school. It can happen in marriage, and it can happen to family members, friends, and business associates. And when conflict goes bad, success will be limited. The good news is that conflict, when handled properly, can be healthy and actually move you closer to success. Success is based on relationships and relationships offer the chance of conflict, so to get success, you must master conflict. With that in mind, here are some ideas for handling conflict.

When you are the one who is confronting the problem with someone else:

Don't assume. Don't assume the worst. Don't assume that they meant what you think they did. Don't assume they know any better. Don't assume they did it on purpose. The fact is that most of the time our assumptions are incorrect and all our assumptions do is cause us to get into a deeper hole.

Ask questions. Since you can't assume anything, you must begin your confrontation by finding out the facts as that person sees them. Some questions to ask include What was your intention in saying or doing that? (Maybe they had good but misguided intentions.), What were the thoughts behind those words or actions?