If you hang around a therapist’s office long enough, or around anyone who’s seen a therapist, they’re going to tell you that you can’t change another person; you can only change yourself.
Basically, it’s true; but, like many adages, there’s more to it than that. It turns out, there’s a lot you can do to change a person. If there wasn’t, there would be no therapists. But, once you reach a certain point, there’s nothing more you can do, and the other person has to take over.
Cultivating change is a lot like cultivating a garden. With a garden, you prepare the soil, plant the seed, water, weed, and fertilize the plants; but the growing is up to nature. There’s a lot you can do to help nature do its thing. If you ignore the needs of nature, fail to prepare the soil, never plant the seed, and forget all about watering, weeding, and fertilizing, then you can’t blame nature for your bad crop of carrots.
Preparing the seedbed
If there’s something you want to change about another person, look for the part that you play in the problem and take steps to change yourself. Doing this changes you, of course; but it also changes your partner and opens up your relationship. It’s analogous to plowing the garden and preparing the seedbed. If you’re feeling like the victim, it might seem that looking at the part you played turns everything upside down. Taking some blame may feel like a harrowing experience; but it gets your relationship ready for when you plant the seed.
Planting the seed
Planting the seed is an apt metaphor for when you inform your partner of the problem, ask for an apology, and demand change. If you never plant your carrot seed, you’re never going to get carrots; except maybe some volunteer carrots. If you never ask for what you want, the only way you’ll ever get it is by accident.
Gardeners know that to seed a garden effectively, you’ve got to do it at the right time of year, at the right depth and the right spacing. Powerful agents of change know that asking for change is also a delicate matter of tact and timing. People who just complain a lot without paying attention to how they do it are like gardeners who just scatter their seeds across the ground. It’s a waste of seed and a waste of complaints.
Good gardeners know that some plants can be started by seed in the garden, others must be started indoors. Change is like that, too. Some changes need closer attention than others.
Paying attention
Once you’ve made your complaint, there’s still a lot you can do to be sure that the change you desire takes root and grows up big and strong. A good gardener walks through his garden frequently to look at what he planted and see how it’s growing. Does it need some weeding, some watering, or some fertilizer? Effective agents of change review progress often and make adjustments as needed.
If you complain effectively, something which may be unexpected may happen. He may begin doing the very thing you asked him to. Change is sprouting. When that occurs, it’s a good idea to notice. Don’t be one of those people who ask for an apology and convince your partner to change but forget to follow up. Don’t speak up only when there’s a problem and fail to acknowledge when your partner is attempting a solution.
You might be skeptical that she’s making a permanent change. You might expect that, as soon as the heat’s off, she’ll go back to doing it again. You may be averse to heaping on the praise for something he should have been doing all along; but, when you’re silent when the very thing you asked for occurs, you’re neglecting the most powerful means you have available: your affirmation. Praise and gratitude are like water and fertilizer.
If you frequently review the change you wanted, you might notice it’s not growing well at all. You asked him to stop gambling, but you’re still finding lottery tickets in the garbage. When a gardener finds his plants aren’t growing well, she investigates why that is. She doesn’t just blame nature for not cooperating; she looks to see what she could do to help it. Maybe the plant is competing with weeds. It could be that bugs abound. She could have planted the seeds poorly, so they’re crowding each other, and so on.
Effective agents of change know that if they make too many complaints, the person doesn’t know what to work on. When change fails to grow, they look to see if they can do some thinning. They concentrate their efforts on the things that matter the most and reserve the rest for later. If you peppered your partner with complaints about his gambling, his good-for-nothing friends, his intrusive family, the weight he’s gaining, and the times he spends money like there’s no tomorrow and weeks go by with him doing nothing about any of it, then you’ve asked him to do too much. Work with him to choose a single item to change and he will gather the momentum to do something about the rest.
Just as gardeners know that plants need help to ward off pests and compete with weeds, effective agents of change know that sometimes people need help to achieve their goals. If your partner is still playing the lottery, then maybe he can’t stop gambling by his will alone. He needs some help, maybe more help than you can give.
Paying attention is so effective that, when you work out what you’re going to ask for, you might want to ask for the things your partner can easily do right away, just so you can more easily notice.
Let’s say your wife has had two DWIs. You have told her that if it happens again, you’re done. You’re leaving, and she can have six DWI’s, as far as you’re concerned; you’re not going to stick around and watch it happen. She could swear to you that she’ll never do it again; but, you know, even when it happens a lot, it still doesn’t happen very often. Five years could go by and you won’t know if she’ll get another DWI tonight.
The things you ask her to do should be things she can do right away, or even every day, and be related to the offense. Rather than ask her to not have another DWI, ask her to give up drinking, for instance; or, at least limit it to when she’s already home. Ask her to find other things to do when she needs to cut loose. Suggest she see other friends who don’t encourage her to tie one on. If she makes these changes, which can be enacted immediately and noticed daily, avoiding DWIs will take care of itself.
Harvesting change
If you’ve never grown carrots in your garden, then you’ve never known the wonder and delight of pulling a carrot from the ground and marveling at what you and nature accomplished together. When you serve your carrots to your family and acknowledge you grew them yourself, you’re tapping into a healthy source of satisfaction and pride. Eating a carrot you’ve grown tastes better than any you could buy in the store. If you have a garden and don’t partake in any of these pleasures, and just pull and eat your carrots mindlessly, then you’re missing out on the best part of the gardening experience. You’re likely to give up gardening and go back to buying your produce at the supermarket. So, take some satisfaction in a job well done.
In the same way, it’s important to commemorate change when it happens. Make a big deal out of it. Applaud what you accomplished together. Document the difference. Go out to dinner, take a vacation, or renew your vows in celebration of the change. Go to the hardware store, buy a hatchet, and take it out in the backyard and bury it. Create or designate some kind of symbol of the achievement: a work of art or a piece of furniture, some jewelry, a tree you plant in the backyard. Have something you can point to as a symbol of reconciliation, an emblem of the renewal of love.
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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