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Boost Your Relationships By Mastering the Art of Difficult Conversations
We all have to have them, but we’re usually pretty bad at it!
“Be brave enough to start a conversation that matters.”
— Margaret Wheatley
Knowing we need to have a hard conversation with someone and having it are two very different things.
Whether it’s handing in your notice at a job you’ve loved but decided to move on from, a break-up of the romantic or friendship kind, or letting the waiter know they got your order all kinds of wrong (I hope I’m not alone on that last one) — no one enjoys a hard conversation.
Ending a six-year relationship was probably one of the hardest conversations I’ve ever had to have, and it’s one I put off for far too long. How long? Well, over a year. It wasn’t that I was planning the conversation for a year, but in the back of my mind, I knew it wasn’t working and ending things would be the best for both of us. The longer I put it off, the more I began to resent the relationship.
Avoidance leads to bitterness, and bitterness is a heavy burden to carry for too long.
Thankfully a friend came to my rescue with the right words:
“It will be unpleasant, you will both be upset, and you will feel shitty. But…