A Time For Peace, A Time For War

In running Aaron+Gould, and in a leadership role at my church, I have a fair few battles to deal with on a weekly basis – all around people. People are the most wonderful thing in life, yet they are also the most complex.

Whether it’s work, family, marriage or friends, there are always battles in your relationships. We all have critics, complainers, contenders and competitors. Battles aren’t wrong. Disagreement, fall outs, and then making amends is like breaking a bone – when it heals, it makes the relationship stronger.

What I’ve been pondering this weekend is: how do you decide what battles to fight, and which to leave?

I’ve always considered that you only go to war when the spoils are worth the endeavour. That means you need to assess the scale of the battle and the potential scale of the outcome.

Determining long term spoil from short term spoil requires you to play the ‘what if’ game. What if we carry on like this? What if I continue letting my critics go unchallenged? What if I stopped that bully at work always forcing their opinion?

Playing the what-if game requires you know yourself and your goals pretty well. You don’t need to be precise, but you can’t be vague.

How do you decide what to fight for?