Currently, I’ve been reading How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. I’m reading a chapter called How to Win People to Your Way of Thinking. What does this mean for you? Carnegie does a fantastic job of illustrating a universal skill which works to your advantage when you’re trying to influence others, and that is to avoid arguments.
There are many ways in which we can avoid arguments, but “avoiding” them does not mean we should never disagree. In fact, I believe disagreeing should be welcomed more! Arguing happens when we don’t listen to each other, when don’t consider each other, and after a while, it perpetually continues just for the sake of our pride and self-esteem. So here’s how we avoid arguments. Some of these tips are more a mental practice and others are more external.
Don’t argue, because you’re not going to win. Have you ever started out disagreeing, and then experience your disagreement escalade into a huge mess; an argument? I certainly have. But once your little disagreement turns into an argument, sometimes we argue not for the sake of proving ourselves right…we argue to defend our self-esteem. I have also felt similarly.
In fifth grade, I was in a class with another girl, who shall be known as XYZ. We weren’t the greatest of friends. I was merely acquainted to her through one of my best friends in that same homeroom. Yet XYZ and I had much in common: we both enjoyed drawing, math and music. One day, our teacher announced that some supplies in our classroom was missing. I knew XYZ was an artist and I had seen her, with my own eyes, put classroom supplies into her own pencil case by accident. I talked to her that very day and told her that I thought she should check her pencil case. She denied it of course. I asked her politely again. You know the answer. And finally, after much convincing, she took her pencil case out, and found some of the supplies. Embarrassed, she returned the crayons and markers. Then, during recess, somehow we got into this huge argument. She began to pick out every single awry or errant detail in my conduct. Annoyed, I kept telling her I was fine, that I wasn’t bad. And as predicted, this friendship didn’t turn out the strongest. I may have “won” the first argument about the supplies, which bought me a slight elevation in my self-esteem. But in the end, I learned I hadn’t won any self-esteem: I had just lost a friendship with someone who challenged it.
Try to view the disagreement from the other person’s perspective. This is pretty self-explanatory, but give a day, maybe sleep on it. When you take sometime just to distance yourself from the argument and the person you’re arguing with, you are more likely to see why they feel the way they do. Carnegie mentions in his book that average people are correct only about 55% of the time. Assuming this percentage is accurate, I don’t think any person in the present, future, or past has the right to completely disregard another person’s opinion, because chances are, they are also 55% of the times correct.
Admit you’re wrong…and do it sincerely. Again, I’m picking on the word “self-esteem.” When someone covets self-esteem and you admit you did something wrong quickly and genuinely, they will often times try to elevate their esteem by defending you! It’s weird, but often times it builds stronger friendships. And come on, who’s going to criticize and argue with you if you say “I’m sorry. It was wrong of me to do x, y and z etc.”? But on the argumental perspective, this is a powerful skill, to be able to admit you’re wrong, because often times it will symbolize to the other person that it is a safe environment. They are more likely to forgive you and admit they may have been wrong in areas as well, after all, we’re only 55% of the times correct!
In seventh grade, I remember working on a history project with my partner who was adamant and obdurate against memorizing the note cards for our presentation the following week. He swore he wouldn’t do it, saying he would add stuff onto what we said during the presentation and manipulate all the computer related things. I disagreed with that. I began to show anger towards my classmate. I was truly very irritated by his lack of motivation for getting a good grade. But that night, I felt guilty and vowed to apologize. I’ve shared this story before, but I must repeat, after I apologized, he admitted that he may have been wrong as well, and memorized the note cards. In fact, he probably wouldn’t have consented to memorize the cards if it hadn’t been for my genuine apology, and appreciation for a second chance to rectify my mistake of being critical, but also, just the fact that I opened up and admitted that I was wrong, showed this kid that it was safe for him to admit his mistakes as well.
Departing question: What tricks do you use to avoid arguments?
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