The Art of Picking Your Battles

Have you ever been in a heated discussion with someone where you know for sure that your viewpoint on a topic is 100% irrefutably true, yet the other person wants to argue their point endlessly even though they are WRONG?

How do you just drop the conversation and move on without feeling super annoyed and aggravated?

It’s easy: it’s all about the art of picking your battles.

The Battle Begins

Sometimes this disagreement can be with a family member.  I recently had a ‘pick your battles’ argument with my son - he is twelve years old.  Sometimes as a burgeoning tween (...I hear that full-blown teens are the same way), he feels that he knows much more on a topic than his wise mother…even when it is a topic of expertise being part of the knowledge acquired through my full time job as a nurse.

Each of us argue our points and I can see very quickly that nobody is going to ‘win’ this argument (although my son surely believes he is winning).

Just Hear Me Out

During disagreements I have often found it helpful to seek to understand the other person’s perspective (I have the author Stephen Covey to thank for that tidbit of wisdom - The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People).  I find once I say something along the lines of “I’d like to hear what you have to say so I can understand your point of view”.

Sometimes I hear about a point of view that I hadn’t considered because I do not have the insight of a 12 year-old; I end up learning something new or thinking about a situation in a different way.  Other times it’s just a bunch of ‘gobble-dee-goop’ that is not grounded in any type of reason or sensibilities which leaves me feeling like throwing my hands up in the air.

<Enter the skill of picking your battles>

Ask yourself: what is the advantage of winning this argument?

If there really is no added benefit and no harm done by engraining your perspective and knowledge upon the young man who is still learning, then this is your opportunity to just ‘let that sh!t go’. 

Let it go.

It will simmer in the young mind and you may find that something magical happens: he will end up agreeing with you in the end after he has had some time to cool off and the discussion has had some time to air out.

He may not come to you with a warm hug and an apologetic ‘I’m sorry.  You were right, Mom’ look in his eyes, but as the Mom, you will just know that he is reluctantly and begrudgingly accepting your point of view.

Let’s be clear - this will NOT happen all the time.  But maybe just a few key arguments that you have can set the tone for having open conversations about disagreements on a variety of topics over the years.  

Maybe by picking your battle you can avoid a yelling match where nobody leaves the argument feeling fulfilled.

Maybe by picking your battle you can see that you don’t have to ‘win’ an argument.  

Sometimes choosing to discontinue arguing is the best thing that can be done for all participants.

It’s okay to walk away.

End note

Sometimes we can have arguments with people and we need to put some strong and realistic boundaries in place to protect ourselves.  The aforementioned scenario is not one of these situations requiring said boundaries.