Staying Focused

When discussing things that are a concern, we often start bringing up old arguments, situations, and experiences that may or may not have anything to do with what is happening currently. It’s important to try to stay away from this as much as possible and I’ll explain why.

When you bring up several situations – whether they are similar or not – it can muddle the discussion and confuse the other person. They tend to lose thread or reason of the discussion (the concern). This often results in the concern not being addressed. If your goal is to solve the problem, stop yourself from overwhelming the other person.

Furthermore, if you and your partner are trying to change your communication patterns, bringing up old arguments that weren’t part of that new attempt will not help keep both of you on track. Old arguments often have no grounds when changing your communication styles because in those arguments, no one was using positive attempts at problem solving. 

If you are the person who is engaged in a discussion and the other person starts pulling example after example out of past experiences, ask them politely to stop. Let me know that you hear their concern but you would appreciate if they would stick to the current situation so that you can work together to solve the problem for the future.

When it comes down to it, if you are concerned about making sure it doesn’t repeat, “venting” or repeating several incidences of the other person’s ‘mistakes’ isn’t solving anything. It’s just complaining.