Thursday, July 1, 2010

Awareness--Preparedness--Confidence

I've talked a lot about confidence. There is a balance between a lack of confidence and an abundance of confidence that is the point at which a person feels capable of handling a crisis, a conflict, or a situation. A lack of confidence undermines an individual's ability to address the crisis, conflict, or situation in a manner that will be beneficial or productive. Indeed, a lack of confidence almost ensures failure and reinforces the lack of confidence; you can bet the person isn't going to try that again soon. An abundance of confidence can be just as detrimental to successful resolution, for the person who has too much confidence will probably have already decided how the crisis is to be resolved, will dismiss the ideas and concerns of other people involved in the crisis because he already knows what needs to be done, and will expedite the resolution regardless.

A person has to have confidence that he can resolve the conflict, find a solution to the problem or crisis, while at the same time the person has to recognize and honor the concerns of other people involved in the conflict or crisis. Such confidence does not come naturally. Confidence has to be developed or nurtured. Through an understanding of the need to develop or nurture confidence, the individual understands that there is a process that moves him closer to true confidence. This process moves from awareness through preparedness to end in confidence.

Awareness is the key to all understanding. All learning, all understanding begins with awareness. We become aware that we are hungry, that we have a need to eat, and we move to satisfy that hunger. Consequently, the satisfying of the hunger preserves our being. When we become more aware of the relationship between satisfying our hunger and the preservation of our being, we realize that it is not simply eating that is important but what we eat. In other words, eating a large bag of chocolate covered peanuts and raisins may satisfy our hunger, but we would not be receiving the right nutrients for a healthy body; therefore, we may become overweight and lethargic. Our health might suffer in spite of our having plenty of food to eat. Becoming increasingly aware moves us to a better understanding of life, of our relationship with all that fills our world, and allows us to make better choices.

Once we have increased our awareness, we move to prepare ourselves better to meet the circumstances and situations of which we have become more aware. In the case of conflict and crisis, becoming more aware of the characteristics of conflict and crisis helps us to prepare to meet those qualities. For instance, when we understand that people become emotional when engaged in a crisis or conflict, we become aware that we need to allow people to express these emotions, we need to listen to what they are saying, and once we have identified their genuine concerns, we need to restate those concerns to them so that they will realize that we have heard their concerns and listened to them. This is a first step in conflict resolution and seems simple. However, if we are not aware that emotion is a natural part of conflict, then we may not take the time to allow people to express their emotion, we might not actually listen to them, and we tend to force our solution without taking into consideration the concerns of others. It all begins with awareness.

Once the individual has become more aware and moved to prepare himself to better meet the circumstances of the conflict or crisis, he becomes appropriately confident in his abilities. The confidence will not abandon him. He can face any conflict, no matter how angry another person might be, and rely on what he knows to move toward resolution.

It all begins with awareness that moves the individual to prepare, which gives rise to true confidence.