Avoiding: you step around it

What this means

Your answers are low on pressing your case and on making room for the other side. You rarely say plainly what you want, and you rarely dig into what the other person wants either. Disagreements tend to drift until a deadline or someone else settles them, and a choice you cared about can go ahead without you.

In the classic five-style picture of conflict handling, that is avoiding: low concern shown for your own outcome and for theirs, at least in what you do. The concern may well be there inside. It just does not make it into the disagreement.

If you simply had very few disagreements in the past month, this result may say more about a quiet month than about you. Take it again after a busier one.

Where avoiding works

Stepping around a disagreement is sensible when the issue is trivial, when emotions are too high to talk well, or when someone else is better placed to decide. Choosing not to fight a battle is a skill, and some people never learn it.

Where it costs

As a default, it lets other people and deadlines decide for you. Issues do not disappear when they are avoided. They come back later and bigger, often at a worse moment. People around you may read your silence as agreement, then feel let down when you turn out to have minded.

Avoiding disagreements over decisions is related to, but not the same as, avoiding emotional conflict with a partner. The conflict style test scores that kind of avoidance, along with escalation and repair.

What to do next

Name the disagreement, even if you do not resolve it. "I see this differently, can we talk about it tomorrow?" keeps your view in the room and buys time.

Set your own deadline. When you notice a decision drifting, give it a date and stick to it, before it is made for you.

Start with low-stakes disagreements, such as where to eat or which film to see, and practice saying what you want. Confidence in small disagreements carries over to big ones.

Notice what you expect to happen if you disagree. If the honest answer is that someone will be angry or hurt, test it on something small. The reaction is often milder than the one you have been bracing for.

Lovon is there when you want to work out what you actually think before you raise it.