Conflict is an inevitable part of our everyday lives. 

There can be a duality to conflict with both positive and negative aspects.

A positive aspect to conflict is that it brings change and progress to our lives and can help us develop our interpersonal relationships. It can be a constructive way to help 'clear the air', release emotion and stress, resolve tension and can be used as a way forward to resolve a difficult situation. Exercise is a great way to positively influence conflict.

A life without conflict would be like running a race and crossing the finish line without really even trying, without any twists and turns, no hurdles to jump - would it still feel like you won?

A negative aspect to conflict is that it may create a discrepancy between our needs and our desires or even between our goals and our fears. What if it is an internal conflict between your goal to complete your study and a fear of what comes next? What if you could eliminate that fear, complete your study sooner and achieve that goal you have always wanted to achieve! 

Many people have this internal conflict to exercise, as they simply “hate” exercise, as it develops a personality that exercise does not like them, and they don’t like exercise.

Once you identify this conflict you can make a decision on how to deal with it.

Here are a few steps about how to handle conflict:

Step one:
Do not deny the conflict exists. If you do not identify the conflict you cannot make a decision about how to handle it.

Step two:
Decide whether or not you need to do anything about the conflict. Will the storm pass - is the conflict likely to resolve itself and therefore the best course of action is to ignore it.  Consider who may assist you dealing with this conflict such as a fitness professional.

Step three:
If you determine that action is required, be brave about it. Decide what needs to be done, draw up a plan of action with the support of health and fitness professionals and deal with the conflict.

We need to make sure we do not get caught up in conflict and either perpetuate it by not dealing with it properly or by dealing with it emotionally as this is not productive.

The three steps above will help you to decide what is true for you.

In summary what we can learn from this article is:

• Conflict can have both a positive and negative effect on our lives - so long as we can identify it we will know how to deal with it

• Conflict needs to be dealt with properly – by developing an action plan you can feel empowered and well on your way to being happy

• If you feel you need some help dealing with conflict you may have towards exercise, please consider the professional services of a personal trainer.