It may be the case that you see others acting in a certain way and want to change their behavior. Doing this by any form of form gets you as much resistance as it takes to cancel out your force. One way to cause a change in response from others is to change yourself first. While you can’t control everything or anything about someone else, you have the opportunity to alter something you have been doing, and this will then result in a different response from the person you were wanting to “change”.
You’re Not Actually Changing Them
The idea behind this is that it is not likely that you will change another person’s personality. They are quite fixed in place. However, you can change your own actions, so that the responses you get from that person would be different. If you had been forcing your way upon them in order to pressure them into change, instead avoid this, and treat them differently. You can give them positive encouragement that leans toward a more wholesome response. You could also be more neutral and see if they give up their habit when you are in that state.
Stick To What You Can Control
Since you have no control over others, none of the thoughts you have related to forcing their will to change are worth your time. Those thoughts tend to negate some of the core values of the individual, so they will be resisted like you are attacking their reputation. Sticking to what you can control will leave you with a higher percentage of self-achievement, as you can get a 100% ratio of making changes in yourself, but maybe a 10% ratio of causing a change in another person, which would become frustrating.
Cause And Effect Starts With Your Actions As The Cause
Your words can cause an effect, but your actions are more powerful causes of effect. When you move to the left, the other person will move to the right to adjust. Each thing you do causes a slight adjustment in the other person, so as you keep working on your own end, you can end up at a point where the relationship is less frustrating for the both of you. It is not so much that you are manipulating them, but that you are only acting in a way that brings about the qualities of theirs that you can appreciate.
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You are right, actions are more powerful causes of effect. I think people will follow an advice only if they see that it worked for the other person and if they think it will work for themselves.
Oscar: That does sound about right. It connects with the success of some sites where the writer points out that he is learning daily just like the readers, because then the readers know that the talk matches up with action. Action without talk is good, but doesn’t fully help pass on the knowledge, talk without action tends to get cyclical and moves the person from point A to point A instead of point B, and then talk that is associated with action gets the job done and lets others know more about how to do it themselves.
Thanks for your thoughts.