Confrontation is very uncomfortable most of the time. People are constantly trying to avoid confrontation at every turn in their lives. This can lead to some pretty bad outcomes to say the least. When you avoid confronting people about your true emotions, you tend to bottle things up and then explode later on. This can be a huge issue. What I’ve seen a lot is people doing what they are told to do or what they think they “have to do”, mindlessly. They complain about their situations and do nothing about it because they are scared of the confrontation they might have to have. This happens so often to so many people every day. It’s time to do what’s uncomfortable and have the confrontation you’ve been dreading. Let’s go through some common examples.
The job example
Picture this, you are a college graduate and you have now entered the professional world. You majored in business so you naturally apply for jobs in corporate America, and land a job considered to be good and well-paying for newly graduated college students. You sit in your cubicle for months, Monday through Friday, 9 AM to 5 PM. You start to wonder if this is the American Dream. This is what you have been told at a young age what success is, and this is what life should be like yet something inside you tells you this is wrong. You’re unhappy and you don’t know what to do. “Work is supposed to suck and once you put in your 40 years, you can finally rest and enjoy life.”, everyone tells you. Everything you have ever been told about life and work seems like a sick joke to you now. There are two options from this point and most people will choose option 1.
Option 1
You decide that these thoughts in your head are just first couple of month jitters and they will go away. Your mind is just playing games with you. “Isn’t this what everyone has to do in life”, you think to yourself. You want to go to your family and tell them how you feel, but you hesitate. “What are they going to think about me if I quit this good job? They’ll never understand and they’ll be so disappointed. I don’t want to be a failure and I have no other options besides this job.” This self-dialogue just talked you out of having a difficult confrontation with your family about how you feel and what you plan on doing potentially. You fear the outcome of the uncomfortable conversation may be worse than the present situation. You decide to suck it up and live the next 30-40 years of your life at a miserable job you hate more and more every day.
Option 2
These thoughts in your head have you thinking of things you’ve never thought of before. “This can’t be what I have went to school all my life to do! I have to do something; I can’t stay here! I have to talk to my family and tell them how I feel. If they don’t understand then they’ll have to accept my decision. I want control over my life and I will do whatever it takes to never have a job like this ever again.” You are not afraid of the difficult conversation with family and friends. You understand they may not understand or accept your decision, but taking control of your own life is the most important thing for you, not pleasing other people. More than likely, you will walk into your boss’s office and quit shocking both your boss and your peers. “You’re crazy to leave this job!”, your boss says but you don’t care. You will do what it takes to make it and discover what you really want out of life.
Outcomes
Obviously, the second option sounds much better than the first. Avoiding uncomfortable confrontation ensured the person who followed option 1 would work a job he hated for the remainder of his adult life up until 65. Option number 2 offered the person freedom to create their own destiny. Not many people may accept his initial choice, but more than likely he will prove them wrong and truly find himself and his passions. Which person do you want to be? Confrontation should not be the barrier for you to waste away your entire life. Instead of fearing confrontation and its outcomes in this scenario, people need to step back and fear more what the outcome might be if they don’t choose to not have this confrontation.
The College Decision
You are just graduating high school. Every is asking you the all-important question, “So where are you going to college?” You have no idea what you want to do with your life and are in the middle of finding yourself. However, under the immense pressure of everyone else going to college, you feel the push to attend a school and just take liberal arts classes. This is not what you want, but everyone around you is pushing you in that direction. You fear confrontation about this with your parents because you think they will see you as a failure and think less of you. You don’t want to disappoint them, but at the same time you don’t want to waste your time in college taking BS classes just to say you go to college. Much like the first example, there are two options here.
Option 1:
You decide that confrontation is too stressful, and your parents wouldn’t understand your decision to not go to college. Not going to college would make you a “loser” in the eyes of most of your friends and family. “I can’t confront them; I’ll just go to college and see what happens.”
Option 2:
College isn’t for you and you make this decision clear. You tell your parents how you feel and accept that they may not like your decision. You decide to differentiate from the crowd and try different things rather than go to college. You learn about investing and entrepreneurialism, and become poised to prove all the people who doubted you wrong. You’re very glad you’ve decided to have the college confrontation with your parents and are happy with what you are doing.
Conclusion
Both scenarios are very similar. The people in option 1 feared the outcome of the confrontation more than the outcome of taking no action at all in both scenarios. In this option, you wasted a whole bunch of time and potentially most of your life just going through the motions like everyone else. You will regret not having that one life changing confrontation. In option 2 of both examples, you got to take control of your life despite what the doubters may have said about you. Having difficult confrontations changed your life for the better and you wouldn’t have it any other way. Which person do you want to be?