So , you come across situations where in you avoid a conversation in a fear.
It may be telling truth to your loved ones, or giving an honest feedback or expressing your emotions towards an act of somebody which has been there on your mind for long.
The major reasons for calling such conversations uncomfortable is because of the feelings and emotions associated with them and the fears that we have in our minds. The following could be the fears that we have:-
1) The response of the person may not be a positive one or rather a reactive response.
2) You just want to avoid a confrontation
3) You don't want to hurt the other person's feelings.
4) It might damage the relationship or the rapport or the degree of comfort you have with the person
Given these set of fears, it is important to analyze the importance of having this conversation. If you avoid it, its just going to be suppressed and will accumulate over the period of time, but one day eventually be vented out in some other form.
The other is to deal with it right away and not keep any hard feelings/ honest opinions/feedback in your heart. This if dealt with carefully, not only deepen the relationship that you have with the person , but also make you more confident about dealing with the conversations and will leave you with a lighter heart.
We have come across a lot of situations wherein having a communication reveals, how we were completely wrong about perceiving something.
So how do we actually go about it.
There just three major steps to think through:-
1) Confronting your own emotions of discomfort. In a lot of cases, they are unfounded. I experienced this recently with a colleague, wherein both of us thought that the other person has some problem and hence we were avoiding each other. However, once we spoke, we found it was just out of misunderstandings that this entire chain was started and grew deeper during the next few months till we communicated.
2) Focus on the end result:- What is that I want from this conversation, with that person. So if I am giving somebody a honest feedback about something , whether its about something that they( friends, subordinates, family) have written or designed, or performed an official task, the intent is that I want a quality improvement in the work and eventually help then groom and grow. So focusing on the intent which is positive, makes your task easier.
3) Solution orientation:- As the end goal is to improve the relationship and restore a healthy footing, its important to offer a solution at the end of conversation. You may suggest alternative ways of bringing in improvements. In relationships, you could figure out different ways to improve upon by discussing the desired behaviors or whatsoever is the issue.
I have tried this personally at both professional and personal levels and have found that in most of the cases, the fears are unfounded and the other person has also been struggling with this fear of uncomfortable conversation!
You could try it too!
