Remove the Roadblocks in Relationships
SUMMARY
Do you find that things are always getting in the way of your relationships?
Today I want to continue our conversation on that competency of Interpersonal Effectiveness by helping you to remove the roadblocks in your relationships.
Last week, we started a conversation around this interpersonal relationship competency, and we agreed that every relationship starts with the one you have with yourself.
Getting along with people is something you will need to continue to do forever. You and all other people are imperfect and human, these things will come up.
It's never going to be a perfect situation, but working on these things makes everyone get along better and have more fun.
In this episode, I'll give you three antidotes or three ways of getting rid of the roadblocks you are facing in building a great relationship.
1. Clarity
2. Collaboration
3. Communication
As we go further next week, I want to start chunking down a little bit into those resources that we can add and work on so that we not only remove the roadblocks but also strengthen our interpersonal effectiveness.
TRANSCRIPT
Do you find that things are always getting in the way of your relationships?
I certainly know that throughout my military and corporate career, I had a lot of technical ability, but my inability to build relationships held me back.
If you can relate to that, stick with me because, in this week's episode, I will show you what I learned to do and what you could do.
Today I want to continue our conversation on that competency of Interpersonal Effectiveness by helping you to remove the roadblocks in your relationships.
Last week, we started a conversation around this interpersonal relationship competency, and we agreed that every relationship starts with the one you have with yourself.
If you lack confidence in who you are, and your identity is not where it could be, you take that with you into a relationship-building situation. Those uncertainties and the negative feelings you have about yourself will come out in your behaviour.
Getting along with people is something you will need to continue to do forever. You and all other people are imperfect and human, these things will come up. It's never going to be a perfect situation, but working on these things makes everyone get along better and have more fun.
Therefore, you need to work on these skills constantly by tweaking and adjusting as you go.
I want to help you identify where you may have put up some of these roadblocks.
To do this, I want you to look inwardly rather than just looking at the roadblocks that other people put up and blaming others. What you want to do is, instead of being an effect, you want to go to the cause and take responsibility because the only person that you can change is yourself.
That change will influence others, and everybody will get on way better.
Let me give you 3 roadblocks and then 3 antidotes.
Roadblock #1: Confusion
Whenever there's confusion in a relationship, conversation, or in anything where people are working together, it tends to unravel. It's confusion about things like "What's this relationship for?" It's the confusion that comes from the three universal fears: The fear of not belonging, the fear of not being enough, and the fear of not being loved.
Roadblock #2: Control
As a human being, you want to be in control. If a relationship is being sought and the motive is to "get" rather than "give" or to be at least mutually beneficial, then that element of control will be a roadblock.
Roadblock #3: Conflict
Conflict can be a major roadblock to interpersonal effectiveness. The conflict I'm talking about here is unhealthy conflict — where you make it mean something negative about you personally when the other person says or does something.
The good thing about roadblocks is that they are temporary. There are things you have put down that you can then remove.
Now let's look at the three roadblock removers.
1. Clarity.
The best way to remove confusion is to get clarity — clarity around who you are, who the other person is, and what you are working on together. When I'm working with people and situations come up, nine times out of ten it's because there's something they've put together in their head as to what's happening and what the other person is saying and meaning. Seek clarity by getting into a conversation.
2. Collaboration.
If your mindset when you go into any interpersonal situation is to collaborate, it will have a different result. To do that, you need to view the other person as an equal. It's going in with a motive of how you can work with the other person to help them and therefore help yourself get what you want.
3. Communication.
Conflict can be navigated effectively with great communication. Most times, conflict comes when people don't understand or make up their minds about what the other person is saying. Learning how to communicate in a way that allows you to understand the other person allows conflict to happen and be talked through and negotiated.
As we go further next week, I want to start chunking down a little bit into those resources that we can add and work on so that we not only remove the roadblocks but also strengthen our interpersonal effectiveness.
I'll see you then.
