No one likes conflict. And yet, we engage in it, all the time.

At it’s heart, conflict just means that your needs, wants and desires are not matching someone else’s. Sometimes, it’s not even someone. It can be YOU having competing desires due to a situation. Let’s call that situational conflict.

For example, on a walk yesterday morning, my dog, Reine, desired to chase a skunk. The skunk desired to live, hence, conflict existed. Yes, the inevitable dog – skunk dynamic played out and situational conflict happened to me.

This was shortly followed by my desire NOT to give my dog a bath in the lake at 7:20 a.m. conflicting with my desire not to have my dog smell to high heaven for weeks.

And, while this example is amusing and fairly trivial, it occurs to me that life is always handing us things that stink.

How Do We Deal With Circumstantial Conflict?

In his book The Success Principles, Jack Canfield introduced me to the formula: E + R = O.

Events plus Response equals Outcome.

The event, if it stinks, is probably out of our control, so let it go. Reine smelled, it happened, can’t go back in time and walk a different way, so I had to just move on.

We usually know the outcome we want, so focus on that. I wanted a dog that didn’t smell.

The ONLY point in the equation that is within our control is our response. So here are some tips on responding when life stinks:

• Adjust your attitude. For me, that’s finding the funny. In this case, Reine was skunked only 10 days previously and I thought that since German Shepherds are very intelligent, she wouldn’t get skunked again. Who knew prey drive was stronger than bath-loathing?
• Be prepared. Since this HAD happened to ALL my dogs at one point or another, I had deodorizing dog shampoo and skunk enzymatic cleaner on hand.
• Take action. Even if you’re not sure it’s the right action, ANY action will get you working with your thinking brain and not your emotional brain. With Reine, I walked back to the house, grabbed the shampoo, a big cup and two towels and left for the beach within 30 seconds. No time to think about the air temperature and the water temperature. .
• Think about prevention. This goes back to bullet two. What can you do now to either prevent the circumstance from happening again (yes, I could walk her in the woods on a leash)? Or, what can I do to deal with this circumstance better in the future? Obviously, you know I went this route!

Think about what’s going on in your life. What circumstance needs a little attitude adjustment, preparedness, action and prevention?

A whole person. What does that even mean?

Do you show up as the real you in all roles of your life?

Sometimes I think it is easier for us to compartmentalize our life.

This is the me at work and this is the me at home.

Why do we do that?

Are we afraid if we have fun at work, we will be labelled “not serious about the job”?

If we plan a family vacation, will our family call us anal retentive?

And there are a million other ways we justify being different under different circumstances.

“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Facts are easy to find out. Want to know more about me, here’s a link!

What Truly Drives Behavior

There is a general belief that circumstances drive our behavior, but that’s not quite right.

Circumstances drive thoughts and emotions, and it’s thoughts and emotions that drive behaviors.

Where did I learn that having fun in the workplace was unprofessional? Or that planning a vacation “took all the fun out of it”?

The bottom line is: I like to have fun. At work, at home, on vacation. A whole person, that’s what I try to be.

I also like to plan. I plan projects for work, I plan projects at home and I plan vacations.

The degree to which I practice these things may vary, but there is no sense in denying that I am a whole person who likes to have fun and plan.

Those traits are the same whether I’m leading a project at work or whether I am baking chocolate chip cookies at home.

I am a whole person. If all of me isn’t showing up at work, then I’m wasting precious energy on deciding if that is an appropriate part of me to show.

If my many facets aren’t on display at home, how can relationships be genuine? After all, if people don’t know the real me, I have to keep track of which parts of me they do know to maintain the relationship.

I’ve decided that it’s too exhausting to go through all that.

So I leave you with this: your QOW (Question of the Week):

Where do you need to show more of the real you?

On January 2, 2020, I started a brand new small business in the state of Michigan.

Being the terribly creative type, I called in Coryne Forest, LLC.