7 Steps To Having Any Hard Conversation

“We have to talk.” It's one of the scariest sentences to say or hear. Even though relationships are presumably what we value most, we constantly wuss out on keeping them open and honest. Most of us have a running list of things we wish we could say to the people we love. Maybe we're feeling hurt by an offhand remark, have concerns about a habit of theirs, or want to fess up to a past mistake — it could be anything. When emotions run high, we're likely to bury our head in the sand and avoid those four words at all costs.

We think to ourselves he just won’t understand, she will get mad, or it doesn’t matter, anyway. We have a whole confrontation in the safety of our own head instead of opening up. And, we think we know exactly how the conversation will play out. Newsflash: we don’t.

If you avoid conversations and hide your truth you aren’t being the real you. You're kind of like a puppet master putting on a show. Sure, it may be comforting to be in control in that way, but the cost of that safe feeling is not experiencing true intimacy, connection, or success in your relationships.

The good news is that having difficult conversations is a skill. Like doing yoga or dicing vegetables, it's something you'll get better at with practice. For starters, take a look at the seven tried-and-true steps that we teach at the Handel Group. Sure, you'll still get butterflies before any big-deal discussion — that's natural. But, follow our lead and you'll become the sensei of the serious chat.