Difficult people…we all have to deal with them, right? Wrong. I am certain there is no such thing. Our approach to dealing with others is usually a direct reflection of our perspective, one that, for many, is based on a misunderstanding, or an incomplete awareness, of human behavior: People do not create problems because they have nothing better to do; they direct their lives according to their needs, wants, and desires—their internal drives—which are dictated by their value system.

We only perceive people as being difficult when they challenge our values. When they give us what we want, they’re smart, good peeps, going places. Some say it’s best to “remove toxic people from your life,” but I’ve got to tell you, everybody is toxic when they aren’t giving us what we want. Our minds do that: respond to unfulfilled desires by making out the denier to be public enemy number one—a human obstacle, a force to be resisted, maybe even conquered. And while there is no doubt that different degrees of toxicity reside within the human perceptual spectrum, usually the more somebody challenges our values, the more toxic they become. But this is a severe misunderstanding of human nature. People are not out to make our lives difficult. In fact, most people aren’t even thinking about our lives at all—they are simply thinking about what they want.

Everybody has things they are trying to achieve or accomplish, the things they desire; and these correlate with each individual’s unique value system, a person’s intrinsic drivers. Understanding this first principle of human behavior is crucial to having good interactions with others: Everyone wants what will move them closer to fulfilling their values. Being aware of this can help you build a strategy of interaction that, hopefully, serves everybody involved.

The first step in interacting with a challenging person, then, is to stop thinking of them as difficult; they want something, simple as that. Your task is to find out what that something is—what does that person value? Now, sometimes, you can tell just by looking at a person—first appearances are known to shape our overall impressions—but, very often, you have to do a bit of homework to get a feel for what that person really wants.

But the easiest approach is to just ask what the person is looking for, or what they wish to accomplish. I assure you that asking is a lot more practical than guessing and then dealing with potential consequences later. Ignoring the other person’s drives altogether or, worse, just focusing on what you want, is the quickest way to failure, misunderstanding, or maybe even the cause of some bad blood between you.

Now, if you can find out what another person wants, you’ve increased your chances of having a successful interaction exponentially; and in personal or business relationships, this is crucial. Just remember that all people operate off their drives, and whether that something is concrete, like a business transaction, or more ethereal, like recognition, praise or a sense of value, it’s people’s drives that move them to interact with you or anybody else.

This is also true for you. You want things, have desires, and are trying to fulfill your highest values, as well; and these, of course, come into play anytime you interact with others. So the next step is to find a way to frame what you want in terms of what the other person wants. A true win-win situation: How to get what you value by helping someone else get what they value. Poetry in motion.

But what some people want is not always congruent with what you want, and compromising your values is not a wise option. Doing so will most certainly lead to resentment, which can be an insidious obstacle to your peace of mind, or to future relations. If you determine that what you and the other person wants is incompatible, then nothing says you need to continue the interaction or the relationship. The sooner you are able to recognize this, the better it will be for the both of you.

I really believe there are no difficult people, just people wanting to fulfill their values. Consciously and subconsciously, people move toward fulfilling what they want in life. So you can let go of toxic people all you want to—you’ll merely meet others that don’t want exactly what you want. Isn’t it worthwhile to find out what the other person wants and then try to make it work for the both of you? Think about how this applies to business, diplomacy and your day-to-day family dynamics. We get what we want easier when we help others get what they want—something we should all remember when dealing with people.

Do you have free will? How often do you exercise it throughout your day? If you really stop and think about it, you may realize that much of what you do is habitual—that is, a large portion of your time is spent doing routine activities. Habits are things we do regularly and often, to the point that we no longer need to think about them; they have their foundations in neurology, and specifically, within our memory.

Procedural memory is the neurological process involved in doing things. Different from declarative memory, which is knowing things—facts, figures, and trivia, for example—procedural memory works at the level of the unconscious mind. In other words, we don’t have to think too much about the processes being carried out—they become part of our neurological wiring.

Not every procedural memory process is habit, as many are simply needed for normal functioning like walking, washing or cleaning oneself, or finding and preparing food. In the modern world, it would also include things like operating machinery—cell phones, computers, cars, or for some, even flying airplanes. We learn them, and then they become a natural part of our everyday lives.

What are Habits?

Habits, however, are a subset of procedural processes, such that whatever we do often enough (not necessarily a function or common to all people) becomes lodged into our procedural memory. Consider what it was like when you first started wearing a wrist watch or a wedding ring—probably unusual at first, but then it just became habit.

And, of course, there are the obvious ‘bad’ habits, like smoking or nail biting, ones which we work so hard to break; but what we often don’t realize is that some of the ways in which we spend our time can also act as bad habits. These distractors, or ‘time killers’, actually prevent us from starting or carrying out what we would really love in life. So, if not careful, we may find ourselves living in habitual low priorities instead of within our inspired purpose.

How much of your day is spent taking part in low priority habits?

Television watching, social media, marathon texting—while each one of these may be entertaining, and maybe even serve a useful function for some, for most people, they are just distractors.

Okay, so we have all succumbed to low priority actions at one time or another—we don’t have to beat ourselves up about it. But as I asked earlier, do you think you have free will? In the sense that you have the capacity to consciously change any pattern in your life, then yes you do. Compulsive overeating, drug abuse, giving in to victim mentality—all of these are habits—and you have a choice to create different ones in your life (especially your thinking).

Creating New Habits

Creating new habits—ones aligned with your greater purpose—starts with knowing your values. If you fail to identify, and align with, your highest values, you will never connect to your life’s purpose. Without knowing what you would love in life, it’s pretty hard to establish which habits are best to serve you; so I encourage you to get in-touch with what you love the most—and don’t stress about it, because you know; just listen to your heart.

When you get in-touch with your values, you can determine which habits will serve you the best, whether that’s reading a new book every week, saving 10% of your income regularly, doing your daily yoga practice, or waking up at 5 am every morning. And it will require repetition: Anything that you do over and over again becomes lodged into your procedural memory and becomes habit over time.

I find that the best way to break old habits is by starting new ones. Listen, I’ve kicked cigarettes, and I’ve kicked drugs, so I know how to break habits; and at least one essential factor is to establish new patterns. But beware—if the new habit is not aligned with your highest values, then you won’t do it for very long, that I can assure you.

So you’ve got to start by knowing yourself. What are your highest values, and what inspires you? Being in-tune with these will make breaking old habits and starting new ones easier than you think.

We do have free will. And, although we don’t actually exercise it throughout much of our day, the ability to make decisions about how we want our lives to go is a power we all possess. Identify your highest values, and set your habits accordingly, and then watch your inspired life unfold. This is the true marvel of the human mind.

The biggest conflict lies in the desire to not have conflict. More than a part of life, conflict is a way of life. Everything from cells to stars must endure it, as conflict is necessary for all growth. Trying to avoid conflict is futile. Instead, by understanding its benefits, you can use conflict to your great advantage, by stepping beyond your comfort zones, and growing in wisdom and influence.

Conflict is important to biological systems as the driver of evolution. But it works much the same in our daily lives, helping us step into the next stage of experience and understanding. As conflict moves through its arc of tension and resolution, it ultimately opens us up to a new perspective. This leap in consciousness happens repeatedly throughout our lifetime, demonstrating a continued spiritual expansion, which often appears independent of the mind, but in reality, can be controlled by the way we use our mind, and much more than by merely thinking alone.

Internal Conflict

It’s easy to forget sometimes that conflict isn’t just between people and the outside world, it happens most often internally. Conflict is a part of our everyday decision making process, so something as simple as what to have for dinner can render some people batty. This is the mind at work. Most of us can’t stop the process—it’s a necessary component of the psyche meant to keep us authentic.

Although inner struggle can at times be painful, some have learned to become Zen with it; some have even come to like it. A good fight every now and again is good for the soul, and why not? Conflict has its advantages: It leads to resolution, self-awareness, discovery of new boundaries, and the removal of fear. At the very least, it takes us to the next stage of development, whether personal or professional—we need conflict to create and expand.

In the end, you can’t get away from it even if you tried—and why would you want to? It would be impossible to survive, let alone thrive without the internal function of conflict to guide you. By knowing and understanding your highest values—the drivers of your decision making process—you can turn those moments of inner conflict into a guiding mechanism to move you toward your higher purpose.

Many people do not tune-in to their values on a conscious level, so they often find making decisions difficult, and then they are prone to living their lives according to the values of others. By being in-tune with your values, you’ll make decisions easier and overcome conflict because you’ll be driven by your purpose. Just follow one simple rule: Stay true to your values and base your decisions on what brings you closest to fulfilling them.

External Conflict

So what about conflicts we have with people? Well we need those, too. Every aspect of life is governed by conflict—it’s called having “problems.” We are problem-solvers, in essence. Show me a life with no problems, and I’ll show you a cadaver. Without problems, we would have nothing to work out and life would have no meaning. Think about how families, organizations and cities operate—governments and political systems as well—isn’t conflict what takes center stage every four years in America? Conflict builds civilizations, and the Wall Street Occupiers are simply one incarnation of this evolutionary principle in action.

Just as with internal conflict, growth would be virtually impossible without external problems for us to solve. These can prove tricky, however, because dealing with others can turn things into a game of wills, which can slow progress and increase stress. But as clichéd as it may sound, the best approach to external conflict is to look for win-win situations. This can only be accomplished by understanding both your and your adversary’s highest values, and then attempting to reach a center point. This is the most effective path to resolution, when both parties feel comfortable that their values are being met. At the very least, if a resolution is not reached, you can both walk away knowing why you failed to compromise—you are being true to your individual values, and you simply haven’t found a way to make them intersect—for now.

Remember that conflict is inevitable—whatever problem you don’t solve today you’ll get to readdress later in the same form or a different one entirely, internally or externally. Either way, it’s best to understand the true nature and purpose of conflict than to try to avoid it. Nature will not allow that anyway. So experiencing conflict may be unavoidable, but you can ease the discomfort by tuning-into your highest values, and then using them to guide you down your evolutionary path.

Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

A few years ago I was interviewed for a documentary project on life and its winding road of intricacies, when a question came around to choosing one’s life path. The interviewer asked if I had always known my chosen path. My answer came quickly and emphatically: No! My life’s path has been one of evolution; in fact, I am certain that I had no way to define it, or even to label it, as I do not believe it has ever been experienced before. Let me explain:

Some people are just born knowing their life’s mission. Have you ever heard someone say, “I just knew I would be a doctor—it’s what I’ve wanted my whole life.”? Or maybe you have seen the video footage of a two-year-old Tiger Woods on the Mike Douglas show hitting a golf ball (check YouTube)? Without a doubt, some people feel the fire burning inside them from day one, while still others simply figure it out quicker than most. But the majority of us have to search for our life’s calling, like a treasure to be found in a quest of the soul; the search as much a part of the path as the calling itself.

And then some of us must create a path where once there was none, innovators of the most magnificent kind, because that which has been paved before doesn’t really lead to where we wish to go. So it may be several years before you fully comprehend your direction, as I was well into my thirties before I saw the big picture. It is thus important to not get discouraged during those hazy days, when you can’t quite see beyond the fog of youth, but instead simply follow your heart, because this is where the light of your soul shines, to guide you down your inspired path even when your conscious mind is still in the dark.

For those of us pioneering our own pathway, then, it might pay to consider a few things along the way. First, as I’ve already said, your heart is the beacon of your soul—it knows exactly where you are going, so just focus on the things that you love the most. Yes, we all have activities and obligations that we do not necessarily care to do, but must do anyway. However, I am talking about what you wish to prioritize, whether that be music, or sports, or dancing, or watching birds…do it every chance you get. If you find yourself developing an interest in another area, then investigate it—that is your heart speaking to you. In my own life, I find that my interests have progressed every few years, such that the work I do today is an integrated synthesis of all my life’s loves, and I never cease to be amazed at the order of it all.

Next, do not get discouraged because you haven’t figured it out yet. Pressures of these sorts tend to lead people to seek guidance outside themselves, to follow paths not truly of their own hearts, and to give up when the going gets tough, because nobody sticks it out for something they are not really driven by.

Finally, don’t be afraid to innovate. Who says that a love of computers and salsa dancing don’t go together? You never know what you might create. Consider all the great innovations throughout history, and understand how it takes a different kind of thinking to change the world. It certainly wasn’t lost on Hooters to figure out the value of amalgamating interests.

The interviewer wrapped things up by asking what advice I would give kids who are uncertain about what they would love to do in their lives. My answer was simple: Just do what you love. Nurture every one of your interests—give them time, and do them well—believe me, it’ll all come together before you know it. Trust in the process, because the heart never lies. We are all born with an inner inspiration and calling, our life’s path just waiting to express itself uniquely through its carrier. Let your heart shine and it will show you the way. Uncovering your path is a process of evolution for the most part, so enjoy every step along the way. It is your path after all, and nobody is going to love it unless you do.

 What’s your life’s purpose? Have you ever really thought about it? Have you defined it? One very distinct advantage people have when they actually define their life’s purpose is that they become remarkably adaptable to change. Stress is the failure of an organism to adequately respond to changes; and in the case of humans, it could hamper the health and the quality of one’s life.

Being in touch with your life’s purpose gives you a foundation with which to base your decisions, and it allows you to keep things in perspective when the inevitable happens…like when life changes. Changes in work, changes in income, and changes in lifestyle can all cause enormous stress if you are not prepared for them. But by knowing a few principles, you can turn those stressful moments into transition points that simply lead you into the next phase of your divine life.

Some people mistakenly believe that only purposes of a grand nature are valuable. If it isn’t feeding the homeless, or adopting babies from war-torn countries, or advocating world peace, then somehow it mustn’t be good enough to focus on. It’s as if one’s life purpose needs to be lofty, with the more mundane missions left unspoken or under wraps.

But any purpose is valid. Whether talking of providing a service to the world, or being the loving matriarch of stable and nurturing family, no person’s inspired mission lacks value or deserves to be discounted.

By writing your purpose down, you can invest the time and energy into thinking about it, and periodically refining it, until you shape it to fit your unique life. And for people who think they don’t know their life’s purpose, just understand that you are living it every day. Everything that drives you, that interests you, and which you love are all a part of your life’s purpose. By writing these things down, you will attune more closely to the mission that you are meant to fulfill.

The secret, then, is to connect all your decisions and any of your life’s changes to your purpose. If your purpose is to teach others, then see how your new job, or new residence, or new life’s circumstance allows you to do so. If your purpose is to be a loving, nurturing parent, then see how the current changes in your life will allow you to be, and do, just that? Do this no matter what your life’s mission might be. Don’t get caught in the trap of comparisons, where you weigh your previous circumstances against the current or new ones to be—this is a game in futility; it will get you nowhere and can quickly lead to depression.

Instead focus on your purpose. For example, “My work transition will allow me provide food and shelter for my children, which permits me to continue fulfilling my purpose as a provider, and nurturer, for my family.” By focusing on the things that you actually have, the things which allow you to fulfill your purpose, opens the doors for even more blessing to come, as our ability to attract is directly related to our state of gratitude.

Changes in life are inevitable. How we adapt to those changes determines the amount of stress we experience, and the degree to which it affects our health. So you can make any life transition a smooth one by connecting all you do, and all your decisions, to your life’s purpose. Defining your purpose means looking within, as you are living it every day. And by writing it down, and refining it periodically, you will surely have a guide that helps you adapt to any and all life transitions. Success and fulfillment come from living on purpose. Knowing what that is, and directing your life by it, is more than half the battle.

I’ve recently been asked about whether it’s best to be driven and act on one’s desires, or to just “go with the flow.” In my contemplations of this outstanding thought-question I have come to some realizations, both from investigating my own life, as well as being a student of other peoples’ lives through my work as a dream designer, and as an avid reader of biographies.

I love learning about peoples’ lives, and above all about human behavior. I especially love seeing the unique challenges every individual faces as they make their way through their destiny, and particularly how they overcome their perceived obstacles. One observation I have had is that we all go through repeating cycles of comfort-discomfort in any and all endeavors. These cycles then lead us to enter adjacent and interconnected push-relax cycles, necessary to expand us into the next level of our growth.

When we take on any new endeavor, whether we are simply at the starting point of conceptualization, or in full swing of acting on it, we must by necessity have a definition and goal of what we are attempting to achieve. Take, for instance, a new business: before anything is launched, a blueprint or map must be created, ‘the how’ to ‘the what’ of the entity…in other words, the means to the end.

But even before this stage, a purpose must be established—‘the why’ of the entire undertaking. Without a reason for existing—a void to be filled, a need to be attended to, or a problem to be solved—no business will get off the ground, let alone survive. Aristotle called these two aspects the final cause—the purpose for which a thing exists or is done, and the blueprint, or master plan, to doing it. Without these important factors, it is unlikely that any endeavor will successfully manifest.

So in every one of our endeavors—whether that be creating a business or starting a family—a final cause or purpose, and a planning stage, is necessary. Although this period is usually filled with some knowns—like what we wish to create, and why; as well as some of the how’s—it is also filled with many unknowns, like how everything will play out. The details, in other words, remain a mystery.

During this stage, it is wholly appropriate to work hard, push, affect, influence, gather information, study, research, and so on. We would call this the ‘pushing’ phase, and it is clearly essential to get things moving. No action = no creation—it’s as simple as that. We have some control here, and it is wise to exert it. Very important is the need to plan, document, blue print and refine the plans, until even the most minute detail is accounted for. Anybody who has ever created anything can attest to the fact that planning, in detail, can save you from a heck of a lot of chaos in the future. Further, anybody who has ever failed to plan can attest to the disorder they soon find themselves in by skipping this important step. So my advice is to take control of this stage—the planning—and then push to get it off the ground.

Once your plan is in place, then letting go and letting it all unfold is the wisest thing to do. We can’t control every single detail, and why would we want to? Could you imagine how boring life would be if we could have command over how everything plays out in its entirety? No, this is a period of unknowing and discomfort, where details just unfold as they will. This is where we encounter the spice of life, the things that makes life interesting; the little curve balls that we don’t expect, and which lead us into areas of our greatest growth. I personally love it—most of my greatest adventures have come as a result of being open to these moments in the great unknown.

During this stage, you will probably find yourself in fight-or-flight, wondering what the heck you’ve gotten yourself into. You’ll question your abilities and what you thought you knew, but hang in there, because it’s usually where miracles happen. It’s highly imperative to be flexible in this phase—in other words, to just go with the flow—because trying to control too much here can make the challenge even worse; and really, you’ll only be holding yourself back, blocking your own success, and maybe even having a hard time learning the associated lessons (don’t worry, you’ll learn eventually anyway) if you push too hard. Further, even if it does all work out for you, the stress you cause by trying to control the uncontrollable will age you unnecessarily.

So, yes, going with the flow is important…but so is pushing. The reality is that an equal balance of the two will provide you with the greatest growth. So be diligent and plan ahead; work on your final cause before undertaking any endeavor. You will take care of all the things you can control that way, and anticipate a few of problems you will encounter along the way. But when it comes time for stepping back and getting flexible—then sway with the wind. You will keep your sanity that way, while very likely discovering some cool things you just hadn’t expected; and you’ll grow in character, too. Not a bad way to approach life in general: Planning…and then going with the flow.