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"Sometimes, letting your teammates win an argument or choose a plan isn't about conceding defeat. It's about fostering trust and empowering them to lead when it matters most." - Jocko Willink
“Pick your battles” is a widely known maxim most people agree with. Nobody has the time, nor the energy to engage in every potential conflict they encounter. When it comes to your relationships, it’s vital to avoid categorizing conflicts or disagreements as “battles” because if you genuinely care about someone, you should not wish to go to battle against them, right?
The Art of Letting Them “Win”
With that said, another valuable principle to familiarize yourself with to enhance your relationships is the concept of letting them “win.” You might think it doesn't sound too "strong" or “manly” to let someone defeat you. However, I did not say you should let someone defeat you. I said you should let someone win.
This distinction is crucial; it’s about allowing them to feel as if they've won.
After all, “The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.” -Sun Tzu, The Art of War.
Avoiding Escalation: A Strategic Move
While conflict is both healthy and inevitable, it also opens the door for escalation. Ever make a comment to your girlfriend about something as minor or mundane as who left the dirty dishes in the sink, only to see that comment escalate into a full blown screaming match? The next thing you know, nasty things are being said to each other, and you’re both questioning each other’s commitment to the relationship. If you pull out the big guns, you better be ready to shoot. When it comes to a conflict with someone you love, it may be best to de-escalate and handle the situation in a different, more strategic way.
Building a Collaborative Environment
In addition to the risk of escalation, you also run the risk of beating someone down to a level where they either start questioning their own value, or seeing you as a potential threat.
Think about it from their perspective: if you are an athlete, and you played against the same team ten times and lost every game, what would it do to your mindset? Your confidence would probably be broken, and you’d get sick and tired of losing to what seems like a superior, ruthless team. This is the point where you either double down and get more aggressive in your strategy to defeat this opponent, or you walk away. Neither of those will work if you want to maintain a relationship with someone you care about.
If you continue to dominate every argument, you will either beat down that person to a point where their joy has been sucked from them, or they will walk away.
On the flip side, if they feel like they’re being heard and they don’t run the risk of being trampled every time they communicate their position, you will instead move into a more collaborative environment where you’re working to find common ground instead of working to defeat each other. This is where its imperative to point out that the best relationships are not about compromise, but rather consideration.
If you care about someone, you are considerate of their wants, needs and feelings. Knowing this will allow you to lower your weapon and strategically give them what they want (sometimes). This is not to say you should roll over and concede in every disagreement; it’s better for you to pick your spots so you both remain on an even keel.
Personal Insights: A Lesson from My Younger Bro
Funny enough, I received this exact advice from my younger brother about six years ago. My wife and I were going through a pretty traumatic time as we dealt with a series of tragedies. This created a tense, stressful environment in which we sometimes took out our frustrations on each other, and for an eighteen month period we fought often. When you’re constantly at each other’s throats, everything can feel like an attack, so you naturally become defensive. It also creates a tendency to take things personally, which then exacerbates the arguments. This escalation can make you say things you don’t mean, simply because you want your partner to feel the same pain you’re feeling.
I’ve never been known to be meek or passive, so at the time I made it my mission to dominate and win every argument we had. That may have given my ego some short term validation, but in the long term it was destroying my relationship with the person I loved most in the world. After receiving this sage advice from my younger brother, I put it into action and saw nearly instant results.
The Results: A Better Marriage
First, this mindset forced me to deeply consider which battles I actually wanted to fight. I started to blow trivial things off, instead making funny comments in place of the vicious quips I’d gotten used to. Next, when things did actually result in a disagreement, I held back on the attacks and instead focused on listening, which achieved two goals. One, it gave me more time to fully understand my wife’s position, which I became more sympathetic with (most of the time), and two, it allowed me time to decide if winning this battle actually mattered in the grand scheme of things.
Clearly, every man has some hot button issues they are fully committed to. These are the hills they will die on because they are core to their identity and mission. But, is EVERY issue that important? No, of course not. So, by having the presence of mind to decide if this was a battle I actually cared about winning, it allowed me to give her some wins in the process.
This achieved the third goal, which was boosting her confidence and making her feel more comfortable opening up to me. She slowly stopped seeing me as an opponent and instead viewed our conflicts as opportunities to work together on a solution.
This, my friends, is the entire point of a relationship.
A Final Thought
So, brothers, before you decide to fire back an explosive jab at your girlfriend, take a second to consider if the argument is serving your ego, or a crucial end goal. If it’s the former, maybe let her take the W. If it’s the latter, patiently listen and understand her position, then decide how you want to proceed. Your relationship will undoubtedly benefit from this approach.
-Your Big Bro
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