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August: Can't Get It Out of My Head

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Feeling Helpless?

It’s always an issue when you’re more invested in somebody else’s change than that person is in his own change.

You want your wife to quit smoking. Your wife would like to quit… but not yet.
You want your husband to be better organized. He’s okay with his mess, just wants you to stop nagging him.
Your want your teen to stop eating junk food; she thinks that what you want her to eat is totally gross.
You want your elderly parent to be more social; he has no interest in mingling with people his own age.

Though wanting others to change may be for their own good, your effort often gets you nowhere. No matter how much you explain your reasons, no matter how upset you become, others may still not show any serious desire to change their patterns of behavior.

Clearly, they apply a different template to these situations. Smoking is not the problem. Organization is not the problem. Eating healthy is not the problem. Socializing is not the problem. The problem, in their eyes, is you. You are the problem because you’re making these things a problem.

So, if a specific behavior is frustrating to you, what do you do? How do you deal with the spouse you have, not the one you wish you had? How do you deal with the kid you have, not the kid you thought you would have? How do you deal with the parent you have now, not the parent you used to have?

First of all, lay to rest the misguided notion in our ‘can-do’ society that we can achieve anything we put our mind to. This is simply not true. Never was, never will be.

Now the opposite of that notion – we are ‘victims’ of our genetics, conditioning, peer pressure, or whatever and therefore cannot change – is also not true. The truth is that people can and do change (though not always right away) when they see the need for it and when they become motivated and committed to make the change.

Look back on your own life. Maybe ten years ago you were not ready to change something you have recently changed. Surely, you recognize that at a specific point in time, a need for one thing (social acceptance) might trump a need for something else (studying hard). For a teen, which need do you think typically wins out – the need to fit in with their peers or the need to eat healthy foods? For many an adult, which need do you think typically wins out – the need for creature comforts or the need to make oneself a ‘better person’?

So, what can you do when you’re more heavily invested in somebody else’s change than she is in her own change?

Say what you think. Say what you believe. But stop saying it when you sound like a broken record.
Do not contribute to the problem with your own behavior, such as buying junk food for the house then being upset when your kid goes on a binge.
Be insistent on ground rules for behavior that directly affects you, such as no smoking in the house.
Do not be an enabler by protecting a person from the negative consequences of his own behavior, such as becoming a full time companion to your lonely elderly parent.

The “tipping point” for change often occurs after one hears the same message from 3 different sources. This is not the same as one person saying it 30 times or even 300 times. Once one hears similar feedback from other people (not your cohorts who are doing your bidding), a message begins to sink in.

At that point, you can actually be quite helpful in suggesting resources and offering encouragement. But until then, as frustrating as it might be, what you need to do most of all is develop trust (it will happen one day) and patience.

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