7 Signs You Are Internally Conflicted

Life is full of options, and decisions. Whether in your work, relationships or personal life, you are often torn between choices to make and paths to follow. You may not be aware to what extent you are in a dilemma. The following are 7 signs that there is a great conflict playing within you:

1. There is a difference between what you say and what you do.

You often make statements such as: this week, I imperatively and absolutely need to do x, y and z, only to find out at the end of the week that you have not done any of these items. You often cancel engagements and previously scheduled meetings, especially those related to areas you are conflicted about.

2. For you, the rule is the exception and the exception is the rule.

You have just been told that programming knowledge is key to a possible promotion at work, and your employer has provided free classes twice a week, on Tuesday and Thursday. You sign up and make a commitment to attend every class, unless of course there is a major emergency. After 3 months, you have only been 5 times, and missed 19 classes, due to work deadlines, emergency at home, illness, travel, etc.

3. Everything is complicated.

You are overloaded and have a major deadline. Someone suggests a simple shortcut that will greatly help you deliver on time. You immediately find all kinds of risks in taking that shortcut and rule it out. In general, you avoid simple solutions. For you, complication is a sign of quality.

4. Your communication is often incomplete.

You just arrived from travel. Your girlfriend texts you to welcome you back and suggest to drop by your apartment during the week to spend some time. You text her back and thank her profusely for her wishes, but don’t mention when you will be free to receive her during the week. Likewise, you rarely provide updates if someone is waiting for you.

5. You have great vision and poor planning.

You are extremely gifted in evaluating situations, noticing trends and predicting what will work and what will not. However, whether at work or in your personal life, you don’t like to make any plans and you generally avoid combining timelines with decisions.

6. You often invest major effort into small tasks.

You may have a huge workload at work and many commitments in your personal life, but you are often totally immersed in a relatively unimportant task that could be done by a subordinate. In fact, you spend more time on this specific task than reasonable, attaining perfection where perfection has no major impact. It is probably a guilt-free way for you to escape pressure without blame.

7. You feel guilty when you enjoy yourself and have a need to show pain.

You feel that you need to pay a high price for any enjoyment or success you achieve. You don’t feel you deserve something unless you have invested pain into it, and the greater the joy, the greater the pain. This is one of the reasons you dislike shortcuts.

If all or a good majority of the above signs apply to any part of your life, you are definitely the victim of a conflict within you. You need to probe yourself and identify the conflict or conflicts.

Beyond that, you definitely need to take charge and resolve it. If you are letting it linger, you are probably hoping that it will resolve itself with time, through some of the options you currently have disappearing. You may be telling yourself, “let destiny take its course, what’s bound to happen will happen.”

But the trouble with letting conflicts resolve themselves on their own is that you may be hurting your credibility and losing all your options rather than just one option. Decisions you make are always better than ones made on your behalf. And you will definitely be able to achieve much more with less conflict and pain. That’s what you owe yourself and those around you.