Learn to not shy away from confrontation

who’s a bit on the high-strung side was complaining to me about his work and made an aggressive gesture. I wasn’t in any danger, and he was standing across the room. Even though it wasn’t a “threat,” it was aggressive. I called him on it. “Don’t make threatening gestures towards me.” and he said “Oh, I see, you’re in a bad mood.” (Classic). I took up for myself again, calmly and assertively: “No, I’m not in a bad mood, I just don’t like when people make threatening gestures. Please don’t do it again.” I should have said the please the first time around, I think an extra dose of politeness when you’re being assertive is helpful.

an awful lot sometimes. But I think I’m fair. In fact, all indications point to this still not happening enough.

not to do so much of the talking, but to ask more questions, get more answers from the other person and “let silence do the heavy lifting” as Susan Scott says in her book, Fierce Conversations.

to another level this week. Stiil so far to go, but I was proud of myself and my willingness to speak up on something that had really affected me.

I never confront people. I hate making people upset, and if I have to confront and make them upset, I do everything I have to so I won’t have to confront them. If that makes any sense.

im trying

I’m not as afraid of confrontation as before. But even so, I try to think before acting if it’s worth it.

So, I think I got this one covered. I’m pretty much an expert at speaking my mind and picking the occasional, rational skirmish. I don’t know where all of the boldness and self-assurance has come from in the last couple of months, but there’s no denying it. For example; I used to be terrified to state my opinion to my band leader at practices every week. Tonight I think I pissed him off because (when asked) I said I didn’t care for a particular song he’d picked to cover.

Note to self: Don’t piss off the bandleader.
PS – Use newfound boldness for good, not spite or selfishness.

...a bit sheepish thursday night after an executive meeting for a music society i’m in because i chickened out at the last minute and missed the opportunity to nominate myself for the two positions i really did want. It was because I had to get up in front of everyone and bascially take 30sec to say why i wanted it, and why i would be good for the job; these guys are all my friends and people i work with yet i freaked out… mostly because it would have meant talking to the group in front of the guy i’m ‘confused’ over at the moment.

Because after my chickening out i was feeling a bit embarassed, I left without saying bye to him and instantly regretted it; knowing that it would have been the last chance we’d get to speak / arrange to meet up over the summer before uni starts again next march.
Confrontation is just one of those things for me which is always difficult. Sometimes i can get past it, but often it depends on the day and on my mood. This particular time I let my feelings for one situation get in the way of my actions for another, but i managed to talk myself through it and silence all of the negative voices in my head telling me i was an idiot for not having the courage in the first place.

Normally i would have let it pass, and cursed him for not being the one to come up to talk to me. But instead i tried to learn something form the regret i had experienced over my sppech-making and decided i needed to do something, since i really want to know where things are going with us (very unlike me!). I hunted him down and sent him an email telling him how i meant to catch him to say bye but we missed each other. He invited me to come to a ball he has with his department on friday night and although i had to turn him down because i’m sick with the flu and laryngitis after my shows on the week-end, 5 emails later we’ve planned to meet up with each other after my exams are over in 2 weeks.
Yay! It wasn’t so scary after all.

i’ve improved a lot this year – being put itno a lot of new and challenging situations i spose, it’s probably just getting older as well.
my mantra this year has become “fake it till you make it” – it’s so simple and yet true, somehow after a while it all starts feeling more and more familiar…