When you take a position and advocate for it (try to persuade another person to adopt it or agree with it), there’s a point where your attempts to change the other person’s mind will backfire, and create more resistance to your message. It’s not unreasonable to make an effort to convince another person, but the problem is that often those lengthy efforts also send the message that your goals is not to understand the other person, but to manipulate or change the other person.
Nobody likes to feel someone is trying to change them without understanding them. When attempts to persuade (absent the effort to understand) go on to long, the recipient feels browbeaten and objectified and tends to go into fight mode or conflict mode.
It’s worth noting that often the best efforts to persuade or advocate actually involve understanding the other person, rather than firing reasons, information or creating pressure for them. If you find yourself prone to lengthy attempts to persuade, it may be time to learn to shift gears to dialogue rather than straight out persuasion.
