Here's the Secret to Changing Someone...
- Adam Christie
- Mar 5, 2016
- 3 min read
To this day, I make the same mistakes people have made with me. I guess that would be a form of generational sin. As we grow older, departing from our youth, we must grow up to interact with and within the adult world. Our misplaced giggles, jokes, work ethic, and attitudes must change and adapt. Any one of those demonstrated poorly have the potential to take away any respect and trust older generations have for millennials. Society lives in an impossible paradox. It says, “Do not change who you are for anyone” and at the same time everyone else is supposed to change to accommodate you. Often, the mistake that is made is to achieve change through punishment. Rather than experience the natural cause and effect process, we manipulate the effect side with a punishment, pushing or forcing change. However, some of the deepest changes I have ever had to make in my life happened because someone sat down with me and we had a conversation. They helped me to see where I was at in my life, where I could be, and how much they cared about me. My guess is that the biggest changes in your life also happened over a conversation.
I believe that when someone mistreats me, I have the responsibility to never treat someone else the same way. Can you imagine the type of leaders and people there would be in the world if everyone refused to mistreat others the way that they had been mistreated? The next time someone deeply hurts you, say, "I will never treat someone that way." And when someone displays an act of love towards you, always thank them and cherish that, for in our many, yet numbered moments, those are few. Andy Stanley, Pastor of Northpoint Community Church, has a saying, "Whatever is rewarded is repeated." That applies to both positive behavior and negative behavior. The way to change another (only of course if you are entirely confident in the changes you've already made in your own life) is to catch them doing something right and reward that. (Caution: This is a made up statistic.) 90% of the time when we want to change others, it is because we don't want to change ourselves. This is unfair to the people around you and if they are the ones who always have to change when they are around you, they will limit their time with you and distance will accumulate. Another quote by Andy Stanley is, "Acceptance equals influence." How unbelievably true is that? Those that have the most influence in your life are those that accept who you are. So? As a leader, when you sense change is needed in another person, change yourself first. A leaders number one adjective should be accepting. If you accept who others are, you will have a tremendous amount of influence in their life. Then, simply praise or reward what behaviors you want repeated. This all must happen within a relationship with someone. If there is no relationship, there will be no lasting change in either person, simply a filter to survive the time with each other. Relationship + Acceptance = Change and the order of this is all of the difference.
1. What is the biggest change you've ever asked someone to make?
2. What is the biggest change that you've been asked to make?
3. Describe a time when you were punished for the sake of change and it did not work.
4. Describe some pivotal conversations you've had that made you change for the better.
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