Affective versus Cognitive conflict

How do we remain(become) beautiful enemy and at the same time accept a person unconditionally?

Bad Practice:

Parents think that they need to give a child unconditional acceptance, therefore everything a child do is all right.

Good Practice:

Child need boundaries. When you must reprimand your child, do so in a loving manner. Don't ever try to degrade or humiliate him. His ego is a precious thing worth preserving. Try saying: "I love you very much but I will not have the kind behavior. Do you know why I won't tolerate that? Simply because you are too bright to behave that way."

Affective conflict - Me attacking you as a person.
Cognitive conflict - Having an argument about an idea.

Focus on a behaviour, not the person.Affective conflict focus on person and therefore we try to avoid such.Cognitive conflict is focusing on behavior therefore we seek for such.
When we focus on a person the person does not hear us anymore. He shuts down and become defensive. When we focus on the behavior than he is listening to what we have to say for the feedback. When we focus on a person we really cannot know that. Psychologist do even make this claims.When we focus on a behavior than its objective. We can see the problems in the real world.

Child brings bad report card.
Bad Practice (focus on person):
Oh, you're so stupid.
Good Practice (focus on behavior):
You're capable of more if you'll work harder.

Child brings good report card.
Bad practice (focus on person):
You are wonderful, terrific and great. (child imidiatly thinks: When I will not bring good report card that means that I'm not wonderful?)
Good practice (focus on behavior):
You put a lot of work in it you deserve it.

Unconditional acceptance

"I find that the more acceptance and liking I feel toward this individual, the more I will be creating a relationship which he can use. By acceptance I mean a warm regard for him as a person of unconditional self-worth--of value no matter what his condition, his behavior, or his feelings. It means a respect and liking for him as a separate person, a willingness for him to possess his own feelings in his own way. It means an acceptance of and regard for his attitudes of the moment, no matter how negative or positive, no matter how much they may contradict other attitudes he has held in the past. This acceptance of each fluctuating aspect of this other person makes it for him a relationship of warmth and safety, and the safety of being liked and prized as a person seems a highly important element in a helping relationship."

Concerns versus influence

Concerns versus influence concept is very simple. You should concern only about things that you can influent.

Lets think a little while about two circles where one contains the other one. We will think about the outer circle as a circle of concerns. This circle will contain all the things in the world that we have concerns about. We will then think about the inner circle as a circle of influence. This circle will contain all the things that we can directly or indirectly influent in any way.

Let us consider two people now where one of them being a proactive person and the other one being a reactive person. Let us explore what this people focus on.

As the proactive person is trying to change things around him he definitely focus on the inner circle that is the circle of influence. He puts the effort there and as he make success his inner circle eventually becomes bigger and bigger. On the other hand we often see the reactive people focus on the outer circle forgetting about stuff in the inner circle at all. Moreover we see that forgetting about the inner circle make the circle smaller and smaller.

As we want to become as proactive as possible we want to focus only on the inner circle with the hope that eventually both circles will become one.

Important versus urgent

Before we start I want you to imagine one thing with the following attribute. You know about the thing that if you will focus very hard on it than it will produce marvelous results in your family working or any other life. Please take a time and imagine one such activity.

The Important versus urgent concept is very simple. It should be a rule for you to put first things first, second things second ...

Each activity we do have two attributes that will interest us. We can think about how much important such activity is for us and we can also think about how urgent such activity is. Therefore let us ask two questions about each activity we do. Is the activity important? Is the activity urgent?

As we can see we can divide activities into 4 categories. Important and urgent category being the first in our mind with the non important not urgent category being the least interesting one.

Now the time has come to think about this two attributes and about the category where the activity from the exercise in the beginning belongs to. The activity that I thought about is very important for me as it will produce so much good. It is not very urgent however as there is no real need for the action. As we can notice most of the activities from the exercise are such.

On the other hand when we think about activities that we are doing all the day and how we pick the activities that we are about to do next we will found out that most activities we just do because they are urgent. Many of the activities that we do are not very important however.

It should be our rule to say no to the not important urgent activities as this activities just take away the spare time we have. We should focus on the not so urgent important activities finish them and benefit from the results instead.

Beautiful enemy

Beautiful enemy concept is very simple. Instead of surrounding yourself with Yes type of people you should surround yourself with people that know how to say no to you.

Its a common mistake of all of us to surround ourselves with people that confirm all the things we do. Its all the time more pleasant to hear appreciation about stuff we are doing. Just because we put so much effort into it. However we are not perfect even when we think that we are. Therefore we need to be told about our mistakes. But it is so difficult to listen to all the criticism...

Here is where the beautiful enemies should come on scene. Beautiful enemies are special kind of people that know how to present criticism. This type of people will not agree with all you say, but they present the disagreement with special treatment not to hurt you much. They take care about your feelings on one way but also want you to become better in the other.

Where are all the beautiful enemies? At the first look we will found out that the beautiful enemies species is very rare among us. As it certainly requires a lot of empathy intellect and kindness for a person to become a beautiful enemy. However the hope is not lost yet. As we will start understanding the concept of the beautiful enemy in depth we will found out that beautiful enemies can be made.

I believe that right now all of us know already how to make them. The first step is relatively easy. As it is not the beautiful enemies empathy intellect and kindness what is required. It is ours. As we can create the beautiful enemies in others when we understand the criticism they present toward us...

After the first step however there is one much more difficult step in the beautiful enemies creation process. As we need to become beautiful enemies to others. As we want all our friends spouses and families to grow in all the possible ways we need to become beautiful enemies toward them. This second step will definitely require much more effort but it is definitely worth all the energy that we put into it.