Handling conflict and challenge at work can be difficult. In order to succeed in your career, you will not only have to be good at what you do, but will have to learn to deal with many different types of people with various personalities. Successful thinking isn’t about envisioning success and somehow magically attaining it. Successful thinking is about pulling together all the factors that will help you gain success in whatever you endeavor, and consciously living in such a way that you respect these factors in your every day living. You can’t fake thinking for success, you have to live it.
Dealing With Conflict In the Office or At Work
A major part of thinking about success is understanding how to deal with conflict in the workplace. If you surround yourself with conflict, regardless of who is right or wrong, you will have difficulty succeeding. Regardless of what level you are at in your career, you may face challenging situations and conflicts, here are some tips to help keep you focused and deal with conflict so that it doesn’t impact your work.
4 Tips To Be More Successful When Dealing With Challenge and Handling Conflict in Your Career
1. Before You React, Think.
It sounds simple, but you would be surprised by how many people undermine themselves by reacting too emotionally to things.
You have to remember that once you are focused on a goal, you will inevitably come to many barriers. Some of these barriers will be frustrating, some of these barriers may present as people, standing in your way.
The more frustrating the barrier you reach, the more of a chance you stand to get distracted from your goal. Especially if that barrier is a person who in turn is being emotional.
Take a Step Back From Conflict.
Remember that you know the direction you are heading in and part of getting to where you need to be is actually in dealing with these barriers.
- Remove the personal aspect from the challenge and think about it calmly.
- Seek answers in the details.
- Investigate and you will likely find a way to proceed with success through the challenge.
We all have different thresholds of how many barriers or challenges we can face in a day, or an hour.
When you feel you are hitting your threshold, it is okay to put everything on hold and return to issues when you are in a place that you can evaluate calmly, listen and then act.
Remember, reacting before you think can often undermine authority, undermine your goals and vision, and ultimately crush your plans. If you want to be successful, always keep a level head and you will have the respect of the people around you and maintain professional behavior.
2. Be Proactive In Your Planning
Try and take a long-term approach to anything you do. In that long-term approach, factor in the challenges you foresee but also factor in a number of unexpected situations or delays.
People often get stressed out and face challenges when things don’t go their way. You have to maintain the ability to relax, take some time away and handle your challenges. Factor in time to allow you to not only reach your goals but have extra time to reflect and work at a reasonable pace.
Understand that you can not control everything and that the way to push through and meet your objectives is to be at peace with this idea.
Expect the unexpected and hold steady to your goal.
If your goal is something solid, you will be able to succeed through anything. If you made a goal that is unrealistic, or you go into something not being fully aware that you will see challenges, then the hits you will take along the way may stop you.
Do not be discouraged, do not be swayed – nothing of value comes easily.
Be willing to pay the costs, and you will push through to the finish line.
3. Do Not Allow Yourself To Be Distracted
Regardless of whether your goals are personal or for business, there are always distractions. New projects, new ideas, or direct conflict will lead your thoughts in a different direction.
It is extremely important to be focused on the big picture, and in any situation that takes you off the path, you must decide how this affects or fits in with what you are working towards.
- Does it provide an opportunity to enhance or better what you are working on?
- Is it complementary to your goals to integrate new things into your plans?
If so, work them in!
If the answer is no, you need to make decisions as to where to spend your time and energy. Some things are urgent, but some things can wait. Ask yourself, how do these things all fit together?
4. Avoid Unnecessary Conflict
If you are lucky enough to work in a positive work environment with a strong team culture, then you probably won’t hit too much unnecessary conflict with your team members.
However, it may happen that you come across people who seem to live, even thrive on conflict. Everything is a calamity to them. Don’t get trapped in this mindset.
When unsure of how much energy to spend on any given conflict in your environment, ask yourself, “Is this any of my business?”
Conflict is often created by those who are stepping into areas, or get distracted by things that are “none of their business”.
Often those with only very small pieces of the puzzle will try and make an issue of things, however, they do not hold the required knowledge to intervene usefully.
Understanding the Big Picture In Order to Understand Conflict
Look at these as opportunities to understand the big picture better, or ask for additional information, so you can better serve the greater goal. Sometimes a simple clarification can not only shed light on new issues that may need to be addressed but can also work to bring people together in supporting a goal.
A calm discussion often resolves issues before they turn into conflict, people need to feel their contributions are an important part of a plan in order to get cooperation, and success.
If the conflict is irrelevant to your vision or tasks, then remove yourself from the situation. Focus on your business. Conserve your energy for the real work at hand.
Everything Is About Energy.
We all have limited energy. Some of us are able to work around the clock fuelled by inspiration or passion, some of us aren’t – but we all have our limits. Our energy is precious and if we truly want to be successful, then the best advice is to watch our energy and truly place it where it will provide the greatest results.
It is okay to walk away from things that clearly have no true long-term value. Assign appropriate amounts of energy to tasks and understand that you have a lot of work to do.
Always keep moving forward and you will see your goals realized. It is about mindset, effort, and self-control. Your first step to being successful is adapting a successful mindset.
If you do this, then that vision you have will be a reality, and you will stack one success after another – much faster than you can imagine.
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