Summary – Conflict management

Previously I asked your opinion on how a simple imagination of seeing yourself from a third person view can help solve marital problem. And today I will try to explain that claim.

But first, can I ask? Do you able to picture looking at yourself from another point of view? I mean visually. Seeing yourself smiling while reading on the net, or humming your favorite song, It is a very enlightening feeling.

So what does this have to do with solving problem? Especially marital ones?

This is actually the basis of “Conflict Management” practised all around the world, seriously. I actually learn this during my years of studying. Not that they specifically teached you to start closing your eyes when a conflict arises and imagine. That one is all me :).

By conflict, I am referring to an argument between two person about a matter. One thing about argument or conflict is that everyone wants to be a winner and will not accept anything less. For example, arguing about how to do a job assigned. You may have your way and you think that would be the best way to approach it. Your colleaue however disagree. He think his method is by far better and you should agree with him.

Can you guess what will happen if the both of you are equally stubborn? Yes, the argument will last eternity.

This is how conflict management solve the problem.

1) Stop arguing
Literally, you must stop arguing to solve the problem. Both of you. It’s very hard to review the problem when all we do is defending our own view. Just sit down,

2) Attack the problem, not anything else.
Believe it or not, this is where all conflict starts. Yes, people can be so unproffesional sometimes.

It may first start like addressing the problem first, Let me give you an example. There is a machine in my mill (true example) that has been having problem. The bearing kept on breaking and this cost a lot of money, about $5000. And the manager obviously asked what happened.

The supervisor immediately blame the maintenance team, by saying that they did not do proper work when installing. The maintenance team however claim that the supervisor is tempering with the machine and spoil it.

What the supervisor and the foreman should do is to stop pointing fingers and look at how to solve the problem. If only they can see themselves from another point of view, they will see how silly the argument since that personal attack argument cannot have practical solution.

A practical solution would be that from now on, anytime the maintenance team work on the installation, an engineer and the supervisor will be present to help. Also measures will be taken to stop any tempering of the machine, like locks etc.

That goes the same with marital argument. Husband and wife arguing. Both are equally egoistic and will argue to the death just to defend that ego. Maybe the wife want a maid to help her with the housework. However the husband feels that the wife is just trying to order him around by making him do this and that, so instead of agreeing to find her a maid, he just ignore the request entirely.

The actual problem is not the husband’s ego. It is actually the fact that the housework is steadily increasing in number and the wife doesn’t have the time to work on those. In the end, the wife find herself a maid just to show the husband she’s right. And the husband obviously don’t like it. So the argument will continue on, despite the problem has already been solved.

Conclusion – Most of the time, when we argue, there is always a high possibility that the argument will turn to personal attack. This should never happen. A problem is a problem. It will never be solved by attacking other people.

The textbook method of conflict management is actually to take a step backward and view the problem as a wall located in between the two people arguing. The objective should always be to break the wall instead of hurting the two people.

———— Personal Note ————
I know, it is harder to do than to talk about it. People especially during argument will do their best to win. Still, I have to consistently guide my supervisor and foreman to work together as a team instead of trying to kill each other. 🙂

It’s 2 am and I just got home from the hospital. As you probably know, the mrs is now in her 8 month of pregnancy. Yesterday (That’s “just now” for me when I wrote this), the unborn baby had made very few movement, and according to the doctors, I should bring her immediately to the hospital if the total number of movement is less than 10 in 12 hours.

So I brought her to the hospital, and after a lengthy checkup, the little one started kicking again.. I can now smile again 🙂 Only God knows how worried I was.

Anyway, forgive me for not able to write up a post for the day. Very tired, and can’t think that straight anyway. Good night everyone. I’ll see you tomorrow

p.s. I still owe you an explanation of the assignment given. No worry 🙂

I have an assignment for you. It is really up to you whether you want to try it or not. But I really hope that you do. You can even do it in your free time. And you don’t need to write a feedback for me in the comment section. Even though I really appreciate those who do 🙂

The assignment is for you to use your imagination. Imagine you are now standing a few metres away from where you are now. And you are looking at yourself reading this article. It can actually be anything you are doing, not specifically reading the article.

For example, maybe you are jogging. Imagine you are looking at a person jogging and that person is you. Look at every step he (you) took, the facial expression, the bad hair, everything..

What will be the first thing in your mind?

This is one of the skill in life that very few of us possess. And believe me that this skill alone can solve almost any problem you have. In some cases, it may even save marriages

However, please forgive me but I will only explain in details about the skill tomorrow. I now open the floor for everyone to figure out, how imagining seeing yourself from a third point of view will possibly help save marriages.

There is no right or wrong answer. Your interpretation of the assignment may open up more ideas from others. So comment away…

I’m looking forward to hear your ideas

It’s been a while since I last answer questions from readers . A new friend of mine, Evan was discussing with me on an interesting topic, which is on how to stay motivated.

Basically Evan knows what he want and he wants to take control of his life, trying to get back in shape, get better grades and be more organized. However, the problem is after a while of working on that, he will lose motivation and everything’s back to square one. To start back the whole routine is very tiring. Where did he go wrong?

I’m not going to list down motivational tools. Instead I’m planning to go into an area not popularly approached but nevertheless equally important, which are the rules of staying motivated. Yes, there are rules.

How many of us actually read motivational books and blogs, or go to seminar and feeling all fired up to start gaining control of our life, when suddenly after a few weeks, we return back to our original condition, unmotivated and lazy.

I know I have.

This is what I think happened. There are two hidden rules in all motivation. Allow me to explain.

Rule 1 : You must want to feel motivated

All motivation require us to actually want to change. But what happen when we don’t actually like the feeling of motivated itself. Everything is already a failure even before we start.

You must first want to feel motivated. Not to change but to be motivated. Believe me, everything will change once you have that desire to feel motivated.

My personal suggestion is for you to have a mantra set in your mind. “I want to feel motivated” or “I love being motivated” should do the trick.

Rule 2 : Never Use Motivational Tools When You Are Not Complying Rule 1.

This is quite complex. But let me give you an example. Has any doctors ever told you that when you were prescribed with antibiotics, you should finish all of the medicine even though you are cured. Why? Because, by not finishing your antibiotics, the virus/germ will only be weaken and not completely killed. If they survived, they will become more immuned to the medicine. And that’s why sometimes you will need a stronger dosage of medicine.

The same goes to motivation. This is our medicine. However, if you really don’t want to feel motivated yet you still read those motivation stories for example, you will definitely not be motivated afterward since you just don’t want it.

In the end, slowly you will feel that these stories no longer work to motivate you. And you will start looking for other means to motivate you.

My personal suggestion is to only read motivational stories when you really want to be inspired. Don’t read them and then just procrastinate things. Do this : Whenever you read any motivational stories, get up immediately and do something about it. Don’t be immunized by not taking action immediately.

Hopefully this will weaken the virus inside 🙂

– I wonder –
What are your personal tips to stay motivated

——— Personal Note ———-
I always like to use the sand in a cup of water approach. Sand will always settle down at the bottom of the cup. We have no choice but to regularly stir the water to get the sand occupying the water volume evenly. The same goes to motivation and other things in life. It’s one of those thing that we must keep doing. The sand doesn’t stay float forever.

Oh ya, to everyone reading, feel free to contact me should you have any questions. I’m not claiming I will have the answers, but I will definitely offer my best insight on them 🙂