It is Alright for Everyone to Have an Opinion

SUMMARY

Do you find the things that people are saying around you are constantly getting under your skin and rubbing you the wrong way?

In this week's episode, I will show you why and how you can remove that roadblock.

You’re going to be working with people all your life, whether it's on social media or it's working with people face to face, people have different ideas from you, and that's okay. So just like everything else, it's not a perfection game; it's not about getting it right; it's about incrementally increasing your ability to get on well with others.

You see, it's not the idea that's the problem; it's what you make it mean when someone has an opinion different from you.

Join me this week as I continue our conversation around this month's topic of Interpersonal Effectiveness by helping you understand that it's all right for everyone to have an opinion.

TRANSCRIPT

Do you find the things that people are saying around you are constantly getting under your skin and rubbing you the wrong way?

Well, stick with me because, in this week's episode, I will show you why and how you can remove that roadblock.

I want to continue our conversation around this month's topic of Interpersonal Effectiveness by helping you understand that it's all right for everyone to have an opinion.

Last week, I talked to you about the big roadblocks to having Personal Effectiveness - being able to get along with others and play well. These roadblocks were confusion, conflict and control.

I talked to you about the fact that you can overcome those roadblocks by having the following:

1. Clarity: Finding out who you really are and getting rid of all that misunderstanding.

2. Collaboration: Working together instead of working against each other.

3. Having great communication.

What I want to do this week is to broach a topic (which I'm seeing so much more around the world right now) that is a major barrier to having great relationships with others.

That topic is about having an opinion that you state as facts.

You've all seen it:

Whether it's on social media or it's working with people face to face, people have different ideas from you, and that's okay.

You see, it's not the idea that's the problem; it's what you make it mean when someone has an opinion different from you.

For many years, that was a big issue for me. Therefore, I want to unpack some of the reasons why this happens to all of us.

The first thing is that when you feel uncertain about who you are, and someone disagrees or has an opinion that's different to yours, there's a tendency for you to think that it's about you and not about the situation.

This happens when you are deeply involved in the emotion of something. Rather than getting up in the prefrontal cortex and looking at it from a logical perspective, this can happen automatically.

The problem comes in whenever someone's got an opinion that's different to yours, and you make that mean that they don't agree with you and with what you are saying.

So, you first need to look inwardly and ask yourself: “Why does this bother me?” “Why is it that that person having a different opinion than me is giving me a feeling of overwhelming distress?”

When you seek that clarity, go inward and look at the “why”, and then chunk that down to get the real reason “why”, you will come up with one of those three universal fears.

You fear that you don't belong, you're not good enough, and you're not liked or loved.

When those fears are triggered, your behaviour changes. This is because you try to eliminate those fears. What invariably happens, though, is your behaviour pushes people away. It instead brings to bay the things that you fear the most.

By looking inward and going, “Why does this bother me?” rationally and logically looking at the fact that there's no truth in that, you can move forward to step two.

The second part of this is looking outwardly.

To do this, you need to have a belief that everyone's allowed to have an opinion, and it doesn't have to be the same as everyone else.

So, after looking inwardly, you now look at others and go, “Hey, it's okay for them to have an opinion.”

When you form that baseline belief, and when opinions come up that aren’t the same, it doesn't rub against the grain.

When someone has an opinion different from yours, it doesn't mean they disagree with you. It simply means that they are looking at it from a different lens. That's their current understanding.

In the previous episodes, I've mentioned that other people's opinions don't make you wrong.

When you are okay with that when you reconcile that and truly believe that, then someone else having an opinion doesn't create that challenge. It doesn't create that spiralling down of emotion and behaviour change.

So, you've looked inwardly, and you've looked outwardly at others, you've exercised empathy, which says, "I really do want to understand and see it the way you're seeing it." then you can collaborate; you can look for commonality in the things that you do believe, and you can move forward on that.

There are several ways you can reach the same destination. When you find a destination that you both want to get to, then the relationship can work and all that conflict can be removed.

Last week I mentioned that healthy conflict is good for building relationships because it allows for misunderstandings to be explained - it allows for more conversation.

So, when you can let others have an opinion, actively and reflectively listen to what they're saying. When you look through their lens, not your own, when conflicts come up, you can discuss them, pull them apart, and seek to understand why the other person is seeing things the way that they see them.

Interpersonal relationships are vitally important.

You’re going to be working with people all your life. So just like everything else, it's not a perfection game; it's not about getting it right; it's about incrementally increasing your ability to get on well with others.

So, this particular area is one that you’re seeing so much of around the world right now. The reason for that is there is a lot of confusion. There are a lot of uncertainties going on in our world right now. People are seeking answers. They want to know; they want to get that certainty again. That is why people will sometime agree with you and sometimes won't. Either way, it's okay because it’s about leaving space for everybody to have their own opinion and to be in a position where you and them can state your opinions as opinions, not as facts.

Well, that's it for me for another week. Join me again next week as we continue this conversation around interpersonal effectiveness by looking at the attributes of interpersonal relationships.

I'll see you then.