Workout: Stop Fighting

Brendon, why am I always fighting with the people I love? You know, I get this question all the time. Like I keep fighting with my spouse, I keep fighting with my girlfriend or my boyfriend, I fight with my friends. I keep getting enrolled in these conflicts and I can't get myself out. And their lives, sometimes when that is happening, I get it because all of a sudden you're like in this drama circle that is always going. There's always a fight, always a blow up, always a challenge. And then it's like, fight, repair, fight, repair, fight, repair. And it's like literally exhausting when you're in that conflict circle that never ends. So if you have ongoing stress and fatigue and overwhelm in your life, do not be surprised when that shows up in your relationships as an argument. What a lot of people don't realize is like, the things that wouldn't usually bother you, they really bother you when you're tired. They really bother you when you have so much on your plate, they really bother you when you're so weight down with obligations and responsibilities. It's one of the reasons I'm always telling people and begging them, please read my book, High Performance Habits so you can learn to get a little bit more harmony in your life. Because when your physiology is off, when you carry around stress for weeks, months and years, of course you're more likely to pop, right? It's like the steam entering the pipe and there's no outlet. One day, just like a simple tap on that pipe and it bursts. You have to say, okay, what am I doing to stress myself out consistently? What am I doing to cause mental fatigue? What am I doing to not take care of my body? Because the more that you have balance or harmony or health in your life, you're way more, way more likely to deal with the conflicts in a stronger way, right? In a better way, in a more productive way, in a more positive way. Because when you feel like crap, you treat people like crap. Isn't that true? So dial in your balance in your life. You have to know the things that hook you, right? The triggers, the mental and emotional triggers that other people hit that cause you to want to engage in a fight, right? Somebody can say something so simple and so innocent that outside observers would think, what's the big deal? But it throws you into a rage because that for you is a hot button issue. You need to know all of those, right? A good practice for you to do is sit down with your spouse, your significant other, your partner, sit them down and go, you know, What? These are the things that tend to make me freak out, to make me get pissed, to make me get mad, to set me off. And it's not their responsibility to avoid all those all the time, but if they're aware of them, they can bring them up in a better way. If they're aware of them, they can avoid them when you're not feeling good. If they're aware of them, they can learn to work with you through that. But if you're unaware of your triggers and they're unaware of their triggers, then guess what? You can be having a great conversation. You're taking a Sunday stroll, you go to the art museum, you have a nice coffee, you're having a great day, and all of a sudden something tiny happens and bam, it's this huge fight. Have you ever done that where you're like, why are we fighting about this? Have you ever had like an hour long fight and thought that was stupid? Why did we do that? You did it because both of you were unclear about each other's emotional triggers. You know, people carry triggers a lot from their childhood, right? They were ignored when they were a kid, there was five kids in the house and they were ignored. And now when someone ignores them in a conversation, oh, they freak out. Or they grew up in a family where interruption was allowed, and now they're in conversation with somebody where interruptions aren't allowed. And that's a trigger for that other person who's never had it before. And you're used to it. That for them is a trigger. Interruption is a trigger, Disrespect is a trigger. A certain tone can be a trigger, a certain topic can be a trigger. And you need to know what these are for you. And when you let other people have their own ideas, you let other people have their own voice, you have let other people have different needs than yours, you let other people do conflict differently than you do. And you breathe and you hold and you make your case when it's time to make your case. And you engage with them in a generous way, in a way that values the relationship more than any person being completely right. They're never going to be completely right, and you're never going to be completely right. And once you accept that and anticipate that you're generous with trying to meet in the middle and caring for and respecting each other, learn to breathe and hold and be generous and improve your relationships. Because at the end of our lives, the quality of our life is so much reflected upon how we felt the quality of our relationships were. So if we can handle this one part a little better, moving forward, I think you'll feel much more like you really lived, you really loved, and you really made a difference.