Technology For Personal Change

HAVE YOU EVER heard a good piece of advice or come to a good realization only to forget about it a week later? Sure you have. I just found a great little online tool that helps me keep my insights in mind long enough for them to do some good. It's called Resnooze.

You type in whatever you want, and then tell it how often you want to get that in your email inbox, and click on the button "Resnooze myself" and that's it. Every day or every week or every month, your message will be delivered to you via email, for as long as you wish for free.

I use it all the time now. I think you might like it: Resnooze.

For more help with making changes permanent, check out articles here: How To Make Lasting Changes In Your Life.

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Dealing With Conflict In Relationships

JOHN GOTTMAN, A RESEARCHER at the University of Washington and the author of The Relationship Cure: A 5 Step Guide to Strengthening Your Marriage, Family, and Friendships, has studied married couples for over 25 years. He discovered that when two people argue, the content of their argument is pretty much irrelevant. The most important aspect of a conflict is the process the two people are using to communicate.

If you think about it, this is really the opposite of what we normally consider important during an argument. When you're in the middle of it, the content — the actual topic of your argument — seems to be the most important part of the discussion.

Let me be extra clear about this. When Richard and Kim argue about whether or not to use spanking as a punishment for their child, whether or not Richard is right or uses sound reasoning is not as important as how much he interrupts Kim.

The process, the way you argue will determine how well the issue is resolved. Focus more on the way you argue than on what you're arguing about. Specifically, if you conduct your argument in the way described below, a conflict can be resolved quickly and with minimal hurt feelings.

1. Listen without interrupting. During an argument it is natural to interrupt. But people need to be able to finish their sentences. People need to be heard and understood. When they're not, they tend to get frustrated. Resolutions then become more difficult to achieve.

2. Acknowledge the good. During a conflict, it is fairly common to ignore anything positive. But you do appreciate a great deal about the person you are talking with, and some of what you appreciate is relevant to the topic you're discussing. And the two of you do in fact have many points of agreement. It's helpful to acknowledge those during the argument. It helps keep emotions from escalating, and it keeps your own point of view from becoming too narrowly one-sided.

3. Turn criticisms into requests before they leave your mouth. Instead of mentioning what the other person has done wrong (inciting defensiveness), talk about what you would like the person to do in the future. You're basically saying the same thing but in a less painful, more constructive way. A nice clean request is something real to deal with, something out in the future that can be promised. Things in that past are already done. They are final. And talking about them usually only produces regret, shame, defensiveness, or depression. None of these are productive emotions. A sincere request often produces determination to fulfill it — a very productive emotion.

Follow these three guidelines and your argument can move (relatively) painlessly toward resolution, regardless of whether the content of your discussion is keeping the toothpaste cap on the tube or getting a divorce. Concentrate on good process and it will see you through.

We need rules to follow during conflict. In our courtrooms, in congress, even in business meetings, they have rules. Most organizations use Robert's Rules of Order. These are the parameters within which the discussion can take place, and it allows progress to be made. Otherwise, whenever conflict is taking place, which it does often in those contexts, things would quickly devolve into shouting matches. They have rules to prevent that. And that's what you need in your close relationships: Rules of order. It allows progress to be made.


conflicting points of view

In a study by researchers at Ohio State University, 90 newly-married couples were asked to discuss the most important subjects about which they disagreed. Later, the researchers watched videotapes of these discussions and rated their arguing style on measures of positive or negative behaviors. In the positive range, they looked for:

agreeing with spouse's point
accepting responsibility
suggesting a compromise

On the negative end, they looked for:

withdrawing
blaming
criticizing

Before and after the discussion, levels of immune function and blood pressure were measured. The immune function dropped in everyone some, but for those with the negative arguing style, it dropped considerably more. Blood pressure increased more for the negative fighters too.

This divides arguing behaviors into two kinds: positive and negative. The positive behaviors are productive, help the situation move toward resolution, and produce less anger and defensiveness. The negative behaviors are destructive, move the situation away from resolution, and produce more anger and defensiveness. To make things go better in an argument, simply resist the temptation to do the negative ones and try to do more of the positive ones.

Heated arguments with your spouse are not merely miserable; they are bad for your health. Researchers took a hundred married people with mild hypertension and over a period of three years they gave them questionnaires about their relationships. For those in good marriages, their blood pressure went down. For those in bad marriages, their blood pressure readings increased over the three years.

Swedish researchers took three hundred women who had been hospitalized for chest pains or heart attacks and did a follow up study on them five years after the hospitalization. Those who were having serious trouble in their marriages were three times more likely to have a second serious heart episode than people who didn't have much upset in their marriage.

A virologist, Ronald Glaser, PhD, an endocrinologist, William Malarkey, MD, and a psychologist, Janice Kiecolt-Glaser, PhD, screened thousands of newlyweds to find ninety couples with perfect records of mental and physical health, and then after a thirty-minute discussion with each couple as they tried to resolve problems related to money, in-laws, or leisure time, the researchers took blood samples. The more "negative fighting behavior" the couples had, the less active their immune system was, as measured by certain clear indicators like natural killer cells that fight tumors and viruses.

The negative fighting behavior the researchers noted included sarcasm, dismissal, disapproval, and general nastiness.

For more motivation to change the way you fight, a study at the University of Washington has shown that when parents attack each others' belief systems — when they are hostile toward each other, when they attack each others' character and feelings — children suffer. Kids whose parents fought that way showed more antisocial behavior. They are psychologically less healthy.

So remember, in an argument, focus on process, not the content of the argument. Focus on these three:

Listen without interrupting.
Acknowledge the good.
Turn criticisms into requests.

And when you are discussing something with someone who has a conflicting point of view, do more of these (positive arguing behaviors):

Suggesting a compromise
Accepting responsibility
Agreeing with a point

Negative arguing behaviors (do less of these):

Blaming
Criticizing
Withdrawing

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Feeling Confident With Others

WITH CONFIDENCE YOU’RE MORE attractive and likable, and you feel better than when you lack confidence. You’ve experienced the truth of that statement many times in your life. But isn’t confidence something you either have or don’t, something you’re either born with or not? Can you deliberately become confident?

I’m confident you can.

You see, if we just use a synonym for confident, the way becomes obvious. One of its synonyms is “certain.” And it is true that you feel confident wherever you have a lot of certainty. Think about it. For a teenage boy who wants to talk to a girl he likes, he may feel very awkward and not confident at all. But if he knew a lot about computers, and she was having a problem with a computer and asked his help, he could help her and feel confident doing so. Why? Because he would know what he was talking about. People feel confident when they are certain.

Therefore, wherever you would like to feel confident, develop more certainty about it. And I don’t mean an attitude of certainty, I mean to develop real honest-to-goodness, actual certainty.

If, for example, you have to get up and speak to a group next week and you don’t feel confident about it, start working to develop some degree of certainty: Talk to the people you need to talk to and find out who will be there and what they are expecting, and then prepare thoroughly. The more you prepare, rehearse, talk about what you will say to your friends, make notes, do research, the more certain you will be and the more confident you will feel.

As another example, a shy person might feel a lack of confidence meeting new people. When she’s introduced, she feels like running away. This is very common. Why? Because a new person is — by definition — unknown. Our shy person is not certain about anything except the person’s name (and if she is too distracted by her nervousness, she’ll quickly lose her certainty about that too).

But surprisingly, even with a person you’ve never met before, you can know with certainty quite a bit about him. And our shy person can increase her certainty and therefore her confidence when dealing with people by:

Learning more about the human nature we all have in common.

Learning more about manners (so you’re certain about what should be done when).

Learning strategies for getting to know someone.

You can learn human nature and manners and strategies so well you have a high degree of certainty about those things. This would add up to more confidence around people — even people you’ve never met before. A good book to start with is Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People.

But there are many ways to gain certainty about people, and each one increases your feeling of confidence a little more. Confidence is not on or off; there are many shades of gray from No Confidence to Absolute Confidence. Any actions you take to increase your level of certainty slides you over a little more toward Absolute Confidence.

Increase your certainty about how to act.

This is a chapter from the book, Self-Help Stuff That Works.

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