I have been in a few relationships and not all of them are the same, you have relationships with your spouse, with your friends, your family, co-workers, children and all of them are different except for one thing. You. You are the same for all of them, you decide when to be nice, when to be mean, when to show up or be on time. You decide if you are going to be a good friend, or a bad one, A good mate or bad. You get the point...or do you? We have all been in some sort of relationship and sometimes you meet someone who wants to change who you are, or maybe you are the person who wants someone else to change.
I'm going to let you in on a little secret, the only person you can change is yourself. You cannot force someone else to change. You can try guilt trips, nagging, anger, crying, threats, pleading and probably a bunch of other things I cant think of right now. But the bottom line is you can only change yourself. Here is an example: Lets say you have a friend who is constantly late for everything, and you have tried everything to get them to be on time but nothing works and you are sick of it but don't know what to do. Since you can't change them, you have a choice not to rely on them for anything and if they show up at your next party, great! You can choose to not be friends with them at all anymore and that might make you feel bad but if they can't put the effort into a relationship then why should you? Here is another example: Your significant other doesn't help you do anything, and you have gotten into quite a few fights over this issue in the past and you don't know how to fix it. You can decide at that moment that you don't need help and you can do it all yourself, Once you have done that and committed that thought to your actions there would be no reason to argue. OR, you can get out of that relationship and find someone that IS very helpful.
I know that there is compromise and that happens a lot in relationships but when there is no compromise and no answers and you know that you are not going to change the other person's mind then its up to you to change things in yourself, because that is who you have direct control of.
I understand that these are hard choices to make but there is some light at the end of the tunnel.
While you cannot forcibly change someone, you can inspire them to change. The challenge here is how do you inspire someone? I would have to say with positivity and by leading by example. When you inspire someone else it's usually because you are doing it for yourself and not for them, a good example of this is when someone you know does something successful, and gets acknowledgement from complete strangers. I have thought, oh wow maybe I can do something like that too. I play a lot of guitar and if I see an amazing performance on guitar it inspires me to practice and get better. I'm sure a lot of us have seen a motivational poster on Facebook, and some of them actually are really inspiring! The thing with inspiration is that you have to relate to it on a personal level.
I was inspired to start this blog because I could relate to a character in the movie: Julie & Julia.
(yes I know I'm a guy)
Scott Goerz
