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Beginner’s Guide to Difficult Conversations
When another person won’t open up, it’s often because they don’t feel safe to do so. Maybe you’ve had this conversation before, and it didn’t end well. Maybe you’ve made your views painfully clear, and your views felt a little painful! Maybe the person fears how you’ll respond. There are a number of ways to handle this.
When we avoid hard conversations, problems go unaddressed, and tensions rise. These three principles help me to approach difficult conversations with humility and grace.
As we’re listening to someone, we often try to fit things into stories we’ve heard before. Sometimes, we turn to stories that accurately reflect reality and they help us to quickly assess the situation. Other times, we turn to stories that hijack the conversation and prevent us from finding a healthy resolution. Consider some of the stories that most commonly sabotage the talks that we have.
When we find ourselves in conversations about issues that are important to us, it’s easy to lose out to our worst tendencies. Our words can degrade into sarcasm and discussions can end with door slamming. Consider some of the things that can make conversations go sideways and what to do instead.
When a conversation feels awkward, my instinct is to clam up and withdraw. Other people push forward and say things they regret. These principles help both types have more productive conversations about the things that matter.
