Emotions

Ways To Avoid Conflict In A Relationship

When we think about our dream relationship, we mostly picture it as having a partner that understands us, encourage us to do what we want to do and a place that gives us serenity and calmness. However, no matter how much we dream, it is impossible to avoid conflict. And not all conflict is bad.

Conflict is defined as a prolonged period of argument or disagreement between two people. But what is the reason for it?
Even though there can be many reasons for conflict, it mostly comes from differences in personalities and temperament. The key point in reducing conflict is to know how are you wired and how do you see the world. Each one has a unique view of the world and the lens through which he or she gives and receives information. The key to avoiding conflict is right there.

In order to have a relationship with a minimal amount of conflict, you need to first understand yourself, and then understand your partner. According to the DISC model of behavior, people are either people or task-oriented while at the same time either outgoing or reserved. The people-oriented side of the DISC graph takes about 65 per cent of the world’s population, while the other 35 per cent is task-oriented. At the same time, that means that 35 per cent of people embrace conflict, while the others just want everyone to get along and avoid conflict.

If you know where you are in that equation and where your partner is, you will be able to adapt your behavior and help your partner express themselves more easily. This does not mean you will completely avoid conflict, and that is not a bad thing. When we avoid conflict, we miss out on the conversations that must take place for major or life-changing moments.

The best way to have important conversations and avoid conflict as much as it is possible is to meet in the middle. When you understand yourself, you will be able to mellow down the way you express your thoughts and feelings if you are outgoing (D and C style) or speak up if you are more reserved (I and S style). What you want to achieve with this is to provide a safe space for your partner so that they can feel comfortable in sharing their thoughts, fears or hopes. This is something that is imperative in important conversations, no matter how uncomfortable they are. One example of those kinds of conversations is the one about money. If you are changing your job and if you decided to take that financial risk, you will want your partner to be able to tell you if that makes them feel scared. Remember: if we don’t understand ourselves and others, we will never be able to adapt the way we communicate with one another and that would significantly reduce conflict.

If you still don’t know what is your style or better said: unique style blend, head on to DISC Assessment and find the one for you and your partner. Also, keep watching this space for a free webinar that will teach you how to improve your communication that’s coming your way in August.

By Alex Swire-Clark

How To Anticipate Your Response To Conflict?

I recently found myself in a fast-food drive-through and witnessed a perfect example of a person being triggered by an everyday situation where each personality style would have a completely different reaction.

What happened is: I was in a line to get my ordered food when a driver of a minivan started to go around me outside of all the lanes and tried to pull ahead of me. As a High S personality style, I bumped the horn ever so lightly, trying to figure out what was going on and what is the lady behind the wheel trying to do before she hits my car. What I got as a response was the “finger”!

How to respond to the “bird flip”?

A large number of insults followed the bird flip. This time, it was coming from the passenger on the side seat.

I decided to let them go ahead of me, but another bird flip from a driver followed that! And they didn’t even look at me once. Obviously, the person was triggered by something, and the question is: what would YOU do in this situation?

How your personality style determins your reaction

Suppose you have a high D personality style. What would make you a direct person who speaks what’s on your mind. Your reaction would probably be shouting and not allowing the person to push in front of me. High D’s might be aggressive and not have a lot of filters when in a conflict situation.

A High I who is outgoing and people-oriented might see how close they can get to the other car without damaging it and make the whole situation a bit playful. They would not do anything manipulative and try to get a positive outcome.

High S personality style as a caring person and all about supporting others would, at the moment the person started to push in front of them, let them try to help them get whatever it is they need faster. Even after the bird flip, a High S would still be welcoming and warm because they are very empathetic and understanding, so they will respond calmly.

And lastly, a high C will wonder why the driver chose to get in front of all the people and think about how the driver’s behavior is inefficient. They will probably let them in at the end but will have so many questions in their head at the same time.

You can only control yourself

We all have a unique way of responding to situations when things stress us out. It’s crucial to have self-awareness about how we will react to prevent ourselves from being triggered in those moments. Otherwise, we let everyone else influence our own emotions and our attitudes. Remember: the only thing we can control is our attitude and actions in this world. If we let someone steal that from us, then the question is where we are as a society. And we become very reactionary instead of proactive in terms of how we approach the world.

To keep control of our attitudes and reactions, it is important to get to know ourselves as much as possible. Finding out your personality style is so helpful in that so I invite you to check out the Store and find out for yourself.

By Dina Bralic

Why Does My Partner Ignore Me?

Large number of people feel the need for a great amount of attention from their partners when they are in love. And it’s not that difficult to feel as if you are being ignored. But things are not always (or almost never) the way they seem to be.

The whole population of humans belongs to one of the four personality types: D, I, S or C. And each human being is a unique mix of the four. That also means that we all communicate differently and to understand why you are “being ignored” you need to understand how different personality styles look at life, work, relationships, and everything that comes in between.

While you might be an outgoing person who loves company, your partner might be on a completely opposite side of the DISC graph and naturally, be quieter and enjoy concentrating on his or her work assignments. If your boyfriend comes to mind right away, regardless of where he stands on a DISC graph, it is important to remember boyfriends don’t intentionally ignore you (most of the time).

A person that belongs to a D personality style is hyper focused on getting things done and is mostly about execution. This means that if a D has a big project at work, nothing will exist outside of it. They are not trying to ignore you, but they are focused on getting whatever it is done. Unfortunately for you, if you are in a relationship with a High D, they will have a list of tasks that need to be done that’s 32 miles long and they won’t be able to sleep until they are done with it. So, remember: they are not ignoring you because they don’t love you; they are just in the zone.

A partner that is an I personality style is not trying to ignore you, but he has an incredibly short attention span. I am an I and I can confirm that we get into situations where we are all over the place. One of the examples is that we’ll pick up a phone after it buzzes, end up on social media and completely forget why we even picked it up in the first place. The reason behind this is that we suffer from shiny object syndrome and we can get involved in an activity in a blink of an eye. Forgive us, we don’t mean to be the way we are, and we certainly do love you.

If your partner is a S personality style, then he has a big problem with prioritization. He is not ignoring you because he wants to, but because he easily becomes overwhelmed. People who are high S get analysis paralysis and get worried that they might make someone angry if they don’t do something, so they don’t know who or what to prioritize.

A partner that is a C personality style is a very structured and very process-driven individual. This type of person will build in time in their day to check their phone. If you miss that window, there are high chances you will feel ignored. They see a phone as a tool and nothing else. Similar to D’s, C personality types have an extremely long list of tasks they need to finish, but they need to do it in a specific order. So once the phone or talk time comes up in a schedule, they will talk to you. They are not trying to ignore you, but it is just not the right time.

The most important thing we all need to understand is that everything starts with self-awareness. Each of us is a unique blend of four personality styles, so we all have our expectations. What happens when you understand what your personality style is and where does your partner fit in, it will literally change your whole life. The way you act as a couple will change from its core, and you will also see a tremendous change in your behavior at work or around your friends.

DISC Assessment will transform the way you communicate and give you understanding of yourself and others. This also means that it will make you understand how to adapt your behavior around other people. That alone will open doors you never even knew existed when it comes to communicating and networking with other people.

You can find out more about each personality style by checking posts in the sidebar on the right and take that first step toward change by going to the Store and taking the DISC Assessment.

By Alex Swire-Clark

Why Is Communication Regarded as Difficult and Complex

Each person on this planet gives and receives information in completely unique way. The reason for it is that we all have a specific lens that we look through and that lens determines how we see life. Harsh truth is this: until you learn how to expand that lens, you won’t be able to communicate with people as effectively as you could, and your relationships are going to suffer as a result.

The key to good communication is to understand what drives people to do what they do and say what they say, and why do people communicate verbally in a way they do?

Communication style of every person depends on their personality style.

High D personality style will communicate very directly, and they are going to say things in a very few words. These people like to move fast and talk fast so you can expect them to give you a short answer to a question and answer exactly what you asked and nothing more or less Also, a high D personality type is going to interrupt you if you start to tell a tale and talk a lot. Remember: they are not trying to be mean, but their brain is just full of questions and news ideas and they must say what is on their mind as soon as it comes there.

If a person from your environment likes to talk with their hands, they are probably a high I personality style. These people are very emotional and excited about everything. They have high energy and want to express themselves any way they can. That means you can expect a lot of emojis in their text messages and emails. Also, they suffer from shiny object syndrome, so they get distracted very easily and extremely fast. Remember that they are not trying to annoy you, they are just wired that way and they need you to snap them out of excitement and pull their focus back about the conversation.

Your co-worker or a friend who doesn’t say much and does so softly when they do is probably a high S personality style. This behavior comes from their lack of willingness to rock the boat or to create conflict. These people are afraid that they will offend someone if they speak their mind and you can expect them to give up on their wishes to please others.

Being cautious in communication is also the biggest trait of a high C personality style. You can recognize them through their monotone tone of voice and lack of emotions. Their expression is never too low nor too high. But don’t get fooled; high C’s are buzzing in the background. Their mind is full of questions and that’s why they communicate the way they do because they need to process all the information carefully to say the right thing, at the right time, and to the right people.

Did you recognize yourself in any of these descriptions? Take notice that without self and social awareness, we can not communicate effectively.

The starting point is to understand yourself and your personality style. That will help you know how and why you communicate and how you can communicate with other personality styles.

You can find out more about different personality styles on my YouTube channel or on my Podcast, and if you want to take that first step towards better communication today: check the DISC assessment in the Store.

By Alex Swire-Clark

What is a DISC Personality Test?

The DISC personality ASSESSMENT is the only test where there are no right or wrong answers. It is actually an assessment of your observable, predictable, fully measurable behavior.

You see, some of us move fast, and some of us move a little bit slower, some of us like to organize things and some of us love having fun with others. Regardless, it’s all about being self-aware. The key point is to remember is: EVERYONE IS A UNIQUE BLEND OF ALL 4 OF QUALITIES THAT DISC ASSESSMENT SHOWS.

If we want to look at where it all started, we can go way back to 400 BC and Hippocrates. But to keep things more modern, let’s jump ahead to 1921. Carl Jung wrote the book, Psychological Types. He suggested a human behavior model that has four types of personalities in terms of who we are and how we do what we do.

Move ahead then to 1928 and William Moulton Marston. He published a book, Emotions of Normal People. He described the 4 personality style theory, he sharpened the concept that these 4 personality styles define who we are, and that they are measurable, predictable patterns in terms of how people do what they do on a normal daily basis. This is the model we use today.

DISC personality assessments became even more popular during WW2. The US Army used this as a tool to hire and to put the highest performing people in officer positions and others where they would be the best fit in the organization. From there, the Government leaked that information in the business world and businesses have used that info in HR since that time.

How does this transform our everyday life? Let me share an example from my personal life that gave me decades of happy marriage and blessed my life with five crazy kids:

Back in 1997, I was a teacher, working at a summer camp. One day I came home and found my wife crying at the edge of the bed. The reason? She said: “Alex, I just don’t understand you.” It struck me as odd, but I asked her to give me an example. She said, “Why I can’t get all the groceries from the grocery list that she gives me. There are only 10 items.” It was a fair point. I then was curious why she couldn’t be a bit more flexible and spontaneous? We had this exchange back and forth asking more and more questions over the next few minutes. We got to the point where we were only two years into our marriage and realized we didn’t know each other as well as we thought we did.

In the midst of it all, that summer in the camp I met Dr. Robert Rohm. He handed me a personality assessment and said it would change my life. I didn’t really think it would, but I still filled it out. I found out that I am a people-oriented person who likes to have fun with tons of different people. I care about others’ wants and needs more than my own, and I really enjoy life. But that wasn’t the point. What really struck home with me was: that’s me but that’s not my wife! So I took the assessment home and gave it to my wife. We found out she is a task-oriented, very driven individual. A polar opposite of me and my personality style!

Having that knowledge allowed us to adapt our behavior and meet in the middle; not to have a conflict there but to mesh, get along better and understand our roles better. In short: it made us tremendous marriage partners. We are perfect complements of one another!

Would you like to stay married for 25 years with your spouse? Understand your children better? Do you want to help your aging parents in difficult times even if they think of money and security differently than you do?

If those things sound good to you, you need to take a DISC assessment.

It’s an assessment that is above 90 percent accurate in terms of predicting behavior. To get that above 90 percent accuracy you need to get a quality assessment. A link to my assessment store page is HERE.

If you would like to research a bit more, find all the information on my Podcast or YouTube channel.

Emotions

How to respond to the “bird flip”?

How your personality style determins your reaction

You can only control yourself

Concise Adult Version