In my day-to-day life, I have come to see and appreciate that I am an agent of change. Regardless of what hat I wear, I am usually creating or monitoring a plan through which change will occur. It’s not really a surprise, then, that even when I’m not wearing either hat that people will simply talk with me about change.

Now, they may not realize that they’re talking with me about change. Usually, they approach me with some form of frustration about someone else’s behaviors. Maybe because of my professional and vocational work, I hear an underlying theme that screams, “How can I change someone else?”

The short and always unpopular answer is, “You can’t. Ever. You will never change anyone else’s behavior.” I know it’s a fact. I’ve never been able to change anybody’s behaviors. The bottom line is that people will only act in terms of their own perceived best interests. I’ve been successful at getting people to act in ways that are consistent with a behavioral program’s purpose because they recognize that the behaviors will improve their own lives in some way. Really, they made whatever behavioral changes they made out of their own desire to accomplish something different. I did nothing to bring about change. The person simply chose to change.

Therefore, when I’m confronted with the question, “How can I change someone else?” I no longer give the unpopular answer. Instead I offer three (3) things that the person asking can do:
1. Do nothing: This is usually what people end up doing. It seems that it’s easier for people to complain about someone else than…
2. Accept people’s behaviors: This is really hard. We are imperfect creatures with deep flaws that can sometimes be hard for other people to death with. But, what’s even harder is dealing with other people’s deep flaws. I think the key to accepting someone’s flaws is to see our own and value ourselves anyway. It’s a good place to start. Now, I realize that there are certain behaviors that cause so much pain that they are impossible to accept. For example, if the change you want from someone else is to stop using heroin, then I could see that it’s pretty hard to accept (though not impossible) that behavior. So then, if you can’t accept someone else’s behaviors, then…
3. Separate yourself from the relationship: This option can really be almost as impossible as accepting certain behaviors. Love is a strange bind and isn’t so easy to separate ourselves from people we love.

Again, it comes down to valuing ourselves and realizing that the separation will lead to better circumstances for our own life.

Really, those are the three options. Regardless of our own hopes and thoughts and dreams, we can’t do much to impact other people. Now, if that someone else WANTS to change, then there’s plenty we can do to be a resource for that change. But that’s a post for another time…in the meantime, here’s how to learn about the stages of change…