There are three common ways of arguing and resolving conflict with someone:
- Both people play the victim taking no blame.
- Both people try to take full blame, victimizing the other person.
- Both people divvy up the blame so that one has 50% and the other 50%, or one has 70% and the other 30%, etc.
Obviously nothing gets accomplished with the first two. The problem with the third is most often both people feel victimized to a certain extent. Many times there is a sense that one person is more wrong, and they get a point in the “bad” column. That’s how resentments form.
A New Way
In any situation there is 200% responsibility to be taken.100% per person. When we take full responsibility for creating things in our life we can solve any problem and overcome any argument.
When I’m in a “fight” with Adee, I start out by being caught up thinking about how she’s wrong. Then I slowly start to focus on my part. What did I do to create this? There is literally not a single instance that I didn’t have a part in it.
When something goes wrong at work. I start out a lot of times thinking about who didn’t do their job correctly and why. Then I slowly start to focus on my part. I always find that I haven’t explained the objective properly, forgot some essential piece of information, didn’t train the person the right way in the first place, etc.
It’s amazing how much faster we can reach a resolution when we take 100% responsibility for what we create.