Have you heard the expression: “people don’t change?”
I believe that people do change. Sometimes slowly, barely noticeable, sometimes fast and dramatic. However, we are changing all the time.
If people are capable of changing, and they do change, then, why is there the consensus that people don’t change?
1. We don’t like change
There is something comforting and comfortable about people around us to stay as they are. Even when they are making positive changes, it takes some effort, on your part, to readjust your attitude, behavior, and views. Therefore, you might feel forced to make a change as well, a change that doesn’t come from your personal desire or need.
As long as people are behaving as they’ve always done in the past, we see them reliable. You will rather trust someone that stays the same for years and years, than trusting a person that makes improvements about himself\herself all the time.
Why?
Simple: you know how to behave and what to expect from those people that seem pretty much the same, good or bad.
Overcome your resistance to change by upscaling your interpersonal skills. Knowing how to collaborate and relate to people in many different ways, improves not only your relationships with others but also the most important relationship you have, the relationship with yourself.
2. With some people, you will not get along no matter what
Chances are you don’t like people that you believe need changing, and chances are you will not like them even after they change. Therefore, perhaps you see no improvement in them either way: staying the same or being different. Your mind is set, and almost nothing that those people would do can make you view them in a better light.
Would you notice a change in better in people that you don’t like? Would you acknowledge/ see the change? Would that change make any difference in your perception about who this person is?
Most probably you would not because when you don’t like someone, it is not as much their behavior or yours that causes the dislike, but the chemistry between the two of you. Water is a marvelous natural element; oil is a useful one, and yet, they don’t go too far together. Is it not? Who’s fault is it? Is it the water? Is it the oil? Or is the chemistry between the two?
No matter what change people would do, if the chemistry is not there, you will not like them more. You will probably think that their change came too late, or that is not enough, or you could find something else that “needs changing” about them.
3. We like to be right
When you formed an opinion about somebody, you what to be right. It is not your vanity that makes you feel this way; it is your preservation instinct.
If you cross a savannah and see, with the corner of your eye what seems to be a lion, you are right indeed to seek safety. You know you’ve been right to do so even if, realizing later that what you saw was a bush leaf in the shape of a lion, an optical illusion.
4. Someone that changes once might change again
Most probably you have at least one example in your life of a person that made a change only to change again quite rapidly. Don’t you?
When people are making fast changes, it could appear to you that they haven’t changed at all. They are as always: never the same, therefore unreliable, therefore, unchanged.
5. You are living inside of your mind
You don’t know what you don’t know, and sometimes, don’t care to know more about what you don’t know.
Are you right to do so? Yes, you are. There is only so much that one person can learn, and there is only so much that a person needs to know. Your energy and time are limited and for this reason, you are right to spend them in your interest, to satisfy your needs, desires and wishes.
Your emotional intelligence is your guide in deciding what you need or ought to know. Most times when you’re indifferent to some people or things, you are right to be indifferent.
Now, how do you receive the changes people around you are making? Do you resist to them? Do you expect people to be the same, so you know how to be and behave towards them? If your answer is yes, you are not alone. Most of us resist change even when is for the better.
Most of us expect people to be the same because we don’t want to put the effort in changing alongside with them; plus, change lives in the territory of the unknown.
That being said, I want you to know that change is a part of life. It happens if you want or not. It happens if you resist to it or go along with it.
When you embrace change, yours or others, you will be richer at the end of it.
Give yourself and others the permission to change; change at the speed and rate you feel confident. Educate yourself about the changes people that matter to you are making and educate other about your changes so that the transition is a painless one, a positive experience with lasting positive results.
Do you know what hitting the rock bottom, actually means? It means fearing more the prospect of living with the problem indefinitely and fearing less the adventure into the unknown.
When you want to change, don’t wait until you can’t deal with the problem or situation anymore before making the step into the unknown.
Allow yourself to change and live the wonderful experience that change is giving to you.