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.
I'll see you then.
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.
If you are operating that way, and the other person is operating in the same way, then that's why you have some challenges when building relationships.
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.
If you're here and you're ready to add in and have a look at what you're going to do when you work with others, bringing that relationship of our own into the equation, then let me show you the key things that I found to get in the way.
Roadblocks are those things that get in the way when you're on a journey, and building a relationship is a journey. It's one that's got its ups and downs, blind corners, and things that get in the way.
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, saying, "Well, I can't get on with people because of this." And that's certainly something that I did a lot of.
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.
Many things can get in the way, and I want to give you 3.
Then what I'll do before we finish today's episode is I'll give you three antidotes or three ways of getting rid of those roadblocks.
I'm not a big believer in pulling off the bandaid and then not giving you something to fix it with.
Then, as you go forward, you'll go deeper on those and work on those individual competencies throughout the rest of this month.
Let's get started.
Roadblock #1: Confusion
Whenever there's confusion in a relationship, conversation, or in anything where people are working together, it tends to unravel.
I want to go beyond your normal thinking about what the confusion is.
It's not about confusion when something is said in communication alone.
It's confusion about things like “What's this relationship for?”
It's the confusion individuals have around their worth, whether or not they're bringing enough into the relationship. It's the confusion that's created by those three universal fears:
The fear of not belonging.
The fear of not being enough.
The fear of not being loved.
On top of that, there is the confusion that comes when there's a misinterpretation of what people think, say, and do.
The first things you want to look for are:
Where are you confused?
Where are the misunderstandings?
Roadblock# 2: Control
As a human being, you want to be in control.
You want to ensure that everything goes how you want it to go.
If you unpack this first, look at the control element in terms of motive.
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.
Suppose, in the journey of putting a relationship together and maintaining it, there is a power struggle around keeping control of certain things in that relationship. In that case, it's going to be a problem. Therefore, it will hinder you from getting where you want it to go.
Roadblock #3: Conflict
Conflict can be a major roadblock to interpersonal effectiveness.
I say "can be" because conflict, as we've discussed before, can be healthy because all of us have ideas and opinions.
Conflict, in a healthy way, can bring out misunderstandings and can remove confusion.
The conflict I'm talking about here is unhealthy conflict. It's where you first had that internal conflict going on by what we make it mean that the other person is saying or doing about you.
Then there's also the conflict that comes in conversation, in disagreements.
So, conflict can be a major roadblock to building an effective relationship with others.
The good thing about roadblocks is that they are temporary.
There are things you have put down that you can then remove.
You can hook up the tow, tow it off the road, and keep moving forward.
Sometimes you'll be on a journey, and you'll see a detour because there's a roadblock in the way that cannot be shifted straight away.
In relationships, you can do the same thing. You can go around differently to shift some thinking and behaviour to get that result that we want, to get that relationship back on track.
Let's look at the three roadblock removers that take away those roadblocks we've just discussed.
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.
Clarity is such a great thing to have.
When I'm working with people and situations come up, they ask:
"How do you deal with these?"
Nine times out of ten, it's because there's something they put together (a scenario in their head) as to what's happening and what the other person is saying and meaning, et cetera.
First, I say, "Well, how do we take that unknown and make it known?"
"Well, you ask and get into a conversation to seek that clarity. We seek understanding by giving it to the other person, etcetera."
So, clarity is a key element of having great interpersonal relationships.
2. Collaboration.
I talked to you about the roadblock of control.
If your mindset when we 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 not a power struggle; you are not here to feel better about yourself by how you make the other person feel or all those underlying things you sometimes do subconsciously in your behaviour.
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.
Collaboration is a word that gets used a lot. However, it starts with the mindset and then looking at things you agree on.
Looking at what is it that you both want out of this.
Make sure that everybody involved in the relationship has a say and an opinion. Be okay with that opinion, even if it's different from yours.
So, collaboration is a major element in building effective interpersonal relationships.
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. This is particularly so when it's done in a text format rather than being face to face with a person, looking at them in the eye, seeing their facial expressions and being able to reflect and say, "Hey, I'm feeling [insert emotion] at the moment."
Those things can be the major issues that cause conflict.
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.
It allows everyone to have an opinion.
That's the sort of communication that you want to work on. It's something that I'm still working on every single day.
I had an instance last week where, because the communication was done online in a chat, rather than speaking to each other on the phone, the relationship in our business got a little bit uneasy.
So, I'm not immune to this.
I'm not standing here saying, "Hey, I've got all the answers", because, as I've said so many times, and I want you to get this about you as well:
"Perfection's never the goal."
Out of your imperfection comes the ability to grow.
So, they are the key roadblocks I see in having great relationships.
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.
