How to Change People … Whether They Want to or Not
By: Jane Firbank
How often have you wanted to change someone’s behaviour … and found yourself nagging, pleading, shouting, complaining or just plain giving up, because nothing you do seems to work?
And if it’s a relationship you’d like to improve … how often have you heard people say, oh, that’s not possible unless you BOTH want to change? Well, tell that to the advertising industry … or your child’s schoolteachers! Of course you can change people’s behaviour … whether they want to change or not, and whether they know it, or not. After all, every dealing you have with someone influences to some extent how they feel about you and how they’re likely to behave with you next time they see you. So, you may just as well bring the process under some conscious control … and here’s how.
The first rule for changing the way someone behaves is blindingly obvious — yet it’s easy to get so stressed you just don’t see it. If whatever you’re doing isn’t working, then — however reasonable, sensible, justified it may be — stop doing it! Do something else. As they say, if you go on doing what you have been doing, then you’ll go on getting what you have been getting!
I’m reminded of Brenda. Her problem was her almost-teen daughter. The music practice she wouldn’t do. The room she wouldn’t tidy. The house resounded to furious slanging matches, endless nagging — all futile, except to make the daughter feel attacked and unloved, and the mother feel helpless, frustrated … and unloved.
Stopping fighting, letting the room and the music take care of themselves, was the essential first step towards rebuilding a mother-daughter relationship which both could enjoy and value … and in which change could take place.
Once you’ve stopped doing the wrong things, the right ways to create more productive, pleasant and life-enhancing relationships with the people in your life are really so simple.
* Reward. First, find some effective rewards. Whether it’s a smile or a compliment, a pay rise, a night out, a hug or a chocolate, rewards are things which make the person feel good — not necessarily what you think they should want. The wrong reward could turn someone off. Say you praise someone in public, and that embarrasses them. Or your compliment’s a backhander, with blame for the fact they didn’t do it before, and pointing out that they are now being good, under your control … we all know those compliments, and resent them! They are certainly not rewarding.
Of course, you may ask, ‘Why on earth should I reward someone for just doing what they should?’ Forget should’s and ought’s. It’s simple. You reward them because you want them to do it again.
* Be rewarding most of the time, then some of the time, then just occasionally. If you’re too obviously rewarding, every single time, people may well suspect they are being manipulated! Plus, as soon as you stop rewarding every time, they may rather quickly stop doing what you want. Imagine, your new husband brings you flowers every weekend without fail. Then, one week, he misses. Has he fallen out of love? Met another woman? Whereas, if he just sometimes, at unpredictable intervals, turned up with roses, you’d feel great when he did but he could miss out for a long time before you began to feel unappreciated.
* Having found some appropriate rewards, you apply them as quickly as possible whenever the behaviour moves, even a little bit, in the direction you want. You stay calm and pleasant but you don’t give attention to what you don’t want.
One of my patients found her mother’s almost daily telephone calls, guilt-provoking and destructively critical, left her really shaken. A simple strategy made a huge difference. When her mother said anything neutral or pleasant, Julie would engage in the conversation and sound interested. As her mother started on Julie’s faults, or tried to settle down to an hour’s moan … Julie sounded bored. If her mother went on regardless, Julie heard the doorbell or remembered an appointment after about a minute.
If you’ve seen those programmes where parents are taught how to deal with screaming toddlers, you’ll recognise this as the Little Angels or Nanny 911 technique of behaviour shaping. Rewarding the good, ignoring the bad, and ‘time out’ — ending the phone call — if the bad continues. It works just as well with adults. It gently moved Julie’s mother towards talking more appropriately to her daughter and also helped Julie feel in charge. Her buttons were no longer being uncontrollably pushed. Instead of being immersed in the situation, she gained a feeling of distance and control. And … just as those screaming toddlers look much happier once calm control is achieved … so Julie’s mother also benefited as, for the first time, they began to achieve some pleasant and mutually rewarding phone chats. So don’t feel bad about using these techniques!
* To stop behaviour you don’t want, remember, if what someone does isn’t noticed, appreciated, or rewarded, they’re likely to stop doing it. But if it’s the only way they have to get attention … then ignoring it will just make them up the stakes. There MUST be an alternative, acceptable way to get attention and reward, which, after all, we all need. Chloe’s husband went in for days of silent sulking. I suggested that she simply live her own life when he sulked, instead of frantically coaxing him to say what was wrong and trying desperately to please him and get him to respond to her. But withdrawing attention when he sulked was only half the answer — she also had to give more warmth, sharing, appreciation and fun when he wasn’t sulking.
Knowing you have powerful means for improving your relationships helps you feel calmer and more on top of things, less stressed so that your own natural warmth and personality can come out. Which in itself does wonders for your relationships … and your life.
Jane Firbank’s site, http://www.secretsofchange.com, has over 100 fascinating and helpful problem letter replies, plus scores of articles and book reviews.
Jane Firbank is a psychotherapist working from the new Human Givens approach to counselling. This unites cutting-edge psychological and brain research with the new insights of evolutionary psychology and the ancient insights of the traditional healing and spiritual disciplines. The Human Givens approach is powerfully and rapidly effective in helping people move on from depression, stress and anxiety, obsession, psychosis, relationship problems and addiction. Phobias, traumas and Post Traumatic Stress can often be removed in one or two sessions using the latest knowledge of how the brain works.
Jane Firbank, BSc (Psych), HG Dip, GHR, is in private practice in London, England where she also regularly writes and consults on psychological matters for the Press, TV and radio.