When it comes to workplace conflict, personality clashes are the most painful – and the most persistent. These conflicts fester, and grow. A snide remark in the boardroom. A dismissive glance during your presentation. That feeling of being cut out, overlooked, or subtly undermined.
These moments don’t just spark irritation – they trigger something deeper. You lie awake replaying what was said, what wasn’t, what you should’ve done.
The tension doesn’t fade – it escalates. And if you’re not careful, your thoughts and emotions soon run riot – out of control. And in their path: your confidence, your composure, your capability – shaken. Then shattered.
The only way to avoid this is to master your inner game. That way, your imagination doesn’t get the chance to run riot – derailing your progress and disturbing your sanity. And now, it’s time to explore exactly how to do that.
It’s Not Just What Happened – It’s What You Made It Mean
Most people think the problem is the other person. Sometimes it is. But more often, the bigger problem lives in your own mind – in your imagination. That’s where the real damage is done.
What tips the scale from disagreement to personality clash is the meaning you assign to it. The story you create. ‘They’re trying to undermine me.’ ‘They’ve always had it in for me.’ ‘Everyone else must have noticed.’
And it grows. With each new example, your imagination builds the story to epic proportions. And that story shapes everything – your thoughts, your focus, and most of all, your emotions.
Sophie, a head of marketing I once coached, felt it first-hand. Her colleague Max presented their joint strategy to a global client – without even mentioning her name. She was angry. Her belief? ‘He’s stealing my spotlight.’ Why? Because that’s what always happens. In her last job, a colleague did exactly the same. And it ended badly.
Later, we unpicked it. The truth was very different. He was driving too hard, and forgot. Not malicious at all. She calmed. The anger drained away. And in its place, she set firmer roles for next time. The client praised their clarity. Her influence deepened.
The lesson? Don’t let your emotions run the day. Pause, think, and verify what’s really going on.
What Fuels the Riot?
Luckily, Sophie got a chance to check and correct her assumptions – just in time. She stopped the spiral before it developed into a personality clash.
But let’s be honest – most people aren’t.
Left unchecked, the brain fans the flames. It fuels the riot. Not deliberately. Not rationally. Just automatically, in the background, doing what it’s been wired to do for thousands of years: detect danger, interpret threat, and take defensive action.
It doesn’t wait for proof.
Once a story begins to form, the brain starts seeking confirmation. That email delay? They’re ghosting you. That sharp tone in the meeting? A public power play. That missed invitation? Deliberate exclusion. Your unconscious processes leap to connect dots – not always correctly, but convincingly. Each minor slight, each ambiguous word, each memory of a past hurt adds to the blaze.
And the most alarming part? You don’t even realise it’s happening. Your brain is on autopilot, trying to protect you – but fuelling the fire instead.
Because it doesn’t feel like imagination – it feels like certainty. You’re not guessing they’re out to get you. You know. You feel it. And the emotion makes it real. Heart pounding. Stomach twisting. Focus narrowing. Your brain creates a virtual reality – then traps you inside it.
From there, you react as if the worst is true. You brace. You lash out. You withdraw. And now the other person is responding to your shift – and the clash begins to take on a life of its own.
Before you know it, what began as a misunderstanding has escalated into a full-blown personality clash. Now it becomes personal. A conflict where you feel judged, sidelined, attacked – and where every move you make only seems to dig you deeper.
Now, the riot takes on a life of its own – out of control, shaping your actions and driving the relationship into the ground.
And the lesson here is, be alert, very alert, for this emotionally escalation. It’s not your fault. But it is your responsibility.
You’re Only Making Things Worse
Once your emotions take over – and you still have to engage professionally with that odious character – one thing is almost guaranteed: You’re going to make things worse.
You’ll try to sound calm while seething inside. You’ll keep it ‘professional’ – but your face will say otherwise. And in the moments that matter, your ability to influence will vanish. Why? Because the emotion is leaking through. And the story in your head has already taken control of your behaviour.
Now, let’s get something clear. They might well be a bully. Or a narcissist. But so what? You still fare better if you manage your inner game, refine your reactions, and become resourceful. Because that’s what gives you leverage.
That’s what gives you leverage – not to excuse their behaviour, but because it allows you to see what is really happening behind every personality clash: something ordinary. A disagreement about direction, decision, or delivery. Buried under a landslide of emotion. You’re not solving a problem anymore. You’re defending your identity.
You might still argue, sure. But inside, you’re raging – and utterly convinced they are wrong. And your behaviour starts to show it. Not overtly. But through micro-signals. A slight glare. A cutting tone. A cold pause. And guess what?
They notice. And unless they’ve done the inner work, their defences rise – they kick back, go on the offensive. Now you’ve got two people locked in escalating emotion – each blaming the other. And the original disagreement? Still unresolved.
If Sophie hadn’t caught herself, that’s exactly what could have happened. Her anger would have built. A snide comment slipping out. Or worse, accusing Max of stealing credit. In response, he may easily have bristled, grown defensive, or retaliated. All avoidable.
There’s a simpler way.
Bring your emotions down. Then get curious. You don’t have to be right – you don’t even have to admit you’re wrong. You just need to open your mind, get curious, and start exploring why they think they are right. That’s when you become resourceful. That’s when you take back control.
And when you do that, collaboration becomes possible again. Even with difficult people. Especially with difficult people.
Before we explore how to take control with ease, there are two more important aspects of the inner game to consider. These are easily missed – but if you overlook them, they could derail even your best efforts.
An Unequal Match
The first is this: most personality clashes are not symmetrical. One person may be seething, while the other barely notices. You might be obsessing, unravelling – while they’re just slightly irritated. That imbalance doesn’t just feel unfair. It adds fuel to the fire.
Just imagine: Sophie is getting angry. And the response she gets? A shrug of the shoulders as Max moves on to the next meeting. Unlikely to improve things for her.
Max is clearly in a different place, with an alternative perspective, and doesn’t feel any need to get concerned about it. If Sophie turns anger into fury, that’s not going to help one bit.
By recognising the potential for unequal perspectives and emotional states, you can make a more informed decision about how best to approach the problem. You can also challenge yourself further: ‘Well, if they’re not worried about it – why am I?’ That may lead to a more balanced appreciation of what’s really going on. And that’s all to the good.
On the other hand, you also need to become more aware of how you may be affecting others. Could it be that someone around you is having a personality clash with you – and you haven’t even noticed?
We’ll let that thought hang – for you to reflect on at your leisure. Now, let’s turn to the final factor that helps your imagination run riot.
Why Riots Keep Breaking Out
The final aspect of your inner game you need to grasp is this: we are creatures of habit.
If you’ve been stuck in a personality clash for some time – or if this is just the latest in a series – it may be because your mind has become habituated to conflict. You’re not consciously choosing it. But the pathways are there. The patterns are familiar. And when something feels familiar, it becomes automatic.
Habits run most of your life. Thoughts, actions, emotional reactions – all triggered like clockwork, often before you even notice.
If you want to break out, you have to break free. That means breaking the emotional and mental patterns that belong to the past. The logical reset I’ll share in a moment will help you do exactly that. And if you use it regularly, it will create momentum – fast.
But let’s not pretend it will be easy.
Because there’s another force at work here: your physiology. If you’ve spent weeks or months in a heightened state of stress or frustration, your body starts to adapt. It begins to consider that state – emotional, reactive, tense – as normal. And the moment your system starts to calm down, it fights back.
Your body doesn’t want peace. It wants what it’s used to.
So it reaches for it – by kicking your mind into gear, feeding it just the right thoughts to reignite the tension. It wants to recreate the chemical state of stress. And it will do whatever it takes to get there.
That’s how the riot restarts. Not because of what they did. But because your system baited you into saying something that opened a new chapter in the drama. And suddenly, you’re back to square one – or worse.
You must get wise to this. And you must learn to master it.
Like any addiction, this will require discipline. But more than that, it will require vision – a clear sense of how much better things could be when you master your inner game and quiet the riot for good. Only you can define what that future looks like. Take a moment to imagine it now.
And when you’re ready to begin, here’s the process that brings everything together.
The Logical Reset for Your Inner Game
The purpose here is simple: to quell the riot and master your inner game.
Because a personality clash is only a personality clash when you’re suffering emotionally. Without that emotional charge, it’s just a problem to be fixed.
This reset is designed to help you recover your inner poise and get your head back into gear – so you can start solving the real issue with clarity and control.
When emotion hijacks your thinking, logic shuts down. You say the wrong thing. You escalate the conflict. You make choices that undermine your influence. That’s when you need to stop – and reset.
The process below is how you do that.
These questions are structured to bring you back to clarity. They help interrupt the loop. You don’t need to get it perfect. You just need to get moving. Quietly. Deliberately. In the right direction.
Use this reset as often as you need. Keep it somewhere visible. And when you feel the spiral starting again – use it.
The Logical Reset
- What emotions are you feeling right now? Name them. No judgement. Just observe.
- Why are you feeling this way? What triggered it? What meaning did you assign?
- What’s the bigger picture around the cause? Zoom out. Consider the wider context.
- What are the facts of the situation? Strip away story. Focus on what’s verifiably true.
- (Optional) What might be the positive intent behind their behaviour? Even if their execution is poor – what were they trying to achieve?
- How does this really affect your purpose, priorities, or agenda? Reconnect with what matters most.
- Does it really matter as much as it feels like it does? Check for distortion. Rebalance perspective.
- What is the most appropriate next action to take – calmly, strategically, now? You don’t need a masterstroke. Just a steady move forward.
This is how you begin taking control. Not by overpowering them. Not by suppressing yourself. But by stepping back into your own mind – and resetting the terms of engagement.
This reset process was created in my coaching practice, and its effectiveness has been proven time and again – bringing order out of chaos and taming emotional escalation.
Peter had been having a horrible time – relationship problems left, right, and centre. Not a week passed without something setting his emotions on fire. They’d burn for days – sleepless nights, mounting stress, major tension at home.
To help him restore control, I shared this process. He wrote it out and stuck it on the wall. And started using it every time he noticed things beginning to spiral.
The first question was always the hardest. It forced him to stop mid-whirlwind and name what was going on. With effort, he made it to the second. That was easier. By the time he reached the third, he was already calming down. Logic was returning. Emotion was losing its grip.
And each time he came back to the process, it worked faster. Within five weeks, Peter felt like he was beginning to master his inner game – to the immense delight of his wife.
Honestly, the process is simple. And now that you understand the real reasons why personality clashes run riot, all you have to do is make a determined effort to use it – and keep using it.
Owning Your Inner Game
What Peter found was something more than relief. A new sense of empowerment. A growing confidence. Better performance – and a quiet certainty that he was making a difference, without all the old problems.
It was incredible to watch him grow from strength to strength, settling into his new-found reality.
This can be yours too, today. All you need to do is make a firm decision, act on the ideas here, and make it happen.
Go on. Do it. You’re worth it.