Changing people: how do you do it?

Is it possible to change other people? Changing people is definitely possible, in this blog I'm going to tell you more about this and how this is possible for you too.

Changing people can be important in many areas of your life. For example, in your personal life it can improve your relationships, and at work it may be necessary because you just want to make a change at your company (or if you are not the end boss: need to make a change)

Especially at work, you quickly realize that people don’t change easily—even if they support the change and are fully committed to it. You don’t see that change reflected in their actual behavior. Researchers indicate that this is often due to a conflicting commitment. For example, your employee may unconsciously fear that successfully completing the change will result in them being assigned more difficult tasks they cannot perform, or they may be afraid of causing conflicts. It is therefore important to provide your employees with a safe environment where they can share these kinds of underlying concerns[1].

There are certain stages that people go through during a change. In this blog, you'll mainly try to stir up the first few stages, but the next few stages can sometimes suddenly go through super quickly, because a certain click is made in the brain.

These stages are:

1. Pre-contemplation (the stage before recognizing that there is something to change).
2. Contemplation (the stage when a person becomes aware of a problem).
3. Preparation (the stage when a person takes preparatory steps for a change, such as learning something or realizing something).
4. Action (the change is actually made, Such as stop snacking, because now you know why).
5. Maintenance (retaining the change and consciously not falling back into unwanted behavior).
6. Closure (the stage when you are no longer consciously engaged in the change, but have changed)[2].

Example of how easily you change people

First, let me give you a small example of how much influence you have to change people with a small adjustment. Suppose you have a neighbor and he greets you every morning. Nice and cozy!

Now if you're going to greet him with: "Hey motherfucker." How do you think he's going to respond to that? Different, of course, and that shows that you have already changed him by doing something different yourself.

That's usually the easiest way to get someone else to do something different. So you then start doing something else yourself.

When you do something differently, someone else responds to you differently.

Try Different

If you do the same thing over and over, you get the same result over and over. If you do something different, you get a different result.

Imagine you want to change your mother. She's always nagging you and you have the same response all the time, "Mom stop it, this and that." And it's just not working, even though you've been doing this for 10 years.

Then you just go and do something else: "Yeah mom, you're just right. I'm terrible too." You go full steam ahead with what your mom says. Then watch what happens.

What often happens is that they start indimming themselves. Sometimes that doesn't happen either and then you just keep going with it.

Because to attack, you need someone who feels attacked. If you don't come across that way, there's no point. You are like doing aikido, absorbing the attack and taking it with you.

So you start doing something different and you get a different response, the attack stops or your mother dims down and starts contradicting herself.

So, the easiest way to change someone is to change yourself. In NLP (neuro-linguistic programming), it’s often said that the meaning of communication lies in the response you receive.

What it means.

I say something, you get angry.

So then, I've done something.

This may feel weird. Because the other person says it or maybe you think everything is always 50/50.

Take 100% responsibility for what happens. Of course, in reality, it doesn’t have to be that way. But just imagine for a moment that you accept that—that it’s always up to you.

Then suddenly opportunities arise.

If everything is up to you, there are possibilities. After all, you can't change another person. You can slap him, put him into hypnosis, but is it then solved? We don't know.

Because it's up to the other person. We then actually give away our influence, our opportunity to do something different.

"No, it's up to you anyway, it's never up to me."

Then we deprive ourselves of the opportunity to develop ourselves, to change ourselves. How cool is that? When we develop ourselves, that's what makes us better.

From trying to change the other person, that doesn't make us better. It may seem that way.

"Yes, but then it gets cozier with the other person."

We are just not necessarily developed because of that.

So imagine being 100% accountable.

What could I have done differently? For example, it was not my intention to make anyone angry.

For example, I'm having a conversation with someone and suddenly someone gets angry.

I then say, "Gee, how nice you look." And then I get an angry response. How so? Did I say something wrong or say it in the wrong way?

So this statement provokes that reaction, which is not my intention. Now what else can I do to get the desired response, which is, "Oh, thank you 😊?"

How can I elicit that response from the other person?

Curiosity helps

Then suddenly I have many opportunities to try all kinds of things. Suppose I've tried a lot and the other person is still pissed off, then I know it's not up to me.

Yes, but just now you said it's always up to you.

Yes, first you can indeed look at how to get it so you get that nice response. How? For example, you can ask why the other person is getting angry, rather than getting angry yourself.

Then suddenly you get a whole different conversation. Because then you explore what it's all about.

So how can you change people?

First, assume that everything is 100% up to you.

If that's still - despite all the possibilities - eight or 10 times you've done something different and it's still there, is it really you?

Then become curious about what drives the other person's reaction.

So what is causing this reaction?

Don't ask: "Gee, why are you saying that now?"

Ask correctly, "How come you react this way?"

Then you can go on to ask, "What exactly do you mean?"

Then you can use the metamodel—a set of questions that helps you determine, for example, what a person’s metamodel is.

Is it something that has ever happened, have you yourself done something before toward that person? I don't know about any of it.

So you start researching and you'll find out.

So by asking meta-questions. By being totally curious about the drives, that's how you change someone.

Because through those questions, such a person himself becomes aware of why he does as he does.

It can deal with anxiety, with depression, with anything and everything.

By asking questions and feeding back what that person said, you can help the person change to how they really want to be, even if you don't know what that person really wants.

All you can do is take 100% responsibility and ask questions.

Also listen to this podcast:

https://www.buzzsprout.com/195236/3256591-hoe-kan-je-andere-mensen-veranderen?play=true

So if you want to change people at work this may feel like being a psychologist for a while, but that's all part of it (I can know because I too have people working for me 😉 ).

The step of curiosity is also something we use to help people change during hypnotherapy. This can sometimes take place in the preliminary conversation, but it also often takes place when the client is in hypnosis.

Indeed, in that hypnotic state, he can more easily find the answers to the underlying problem that may explain the unwanted behavior.

Once you have that clear, then you can get to work solving the problem. Sometimes just realizing why he/she is doing something is enough, but sometimes more work is needed.

Depending on the problem, there are a number of techniques you can use to help people change.

For a small problem in which you want to change behavior, the Swish technique can be used. With this technique you link good feelings to the desired behavior and bad feelings to the not desired behavior. That way it becomes much easier for the client to unconsciously show the good behavior.

For a larger problem, regression or a vision of the future can be used, something the person wants to achieve. Depending on the type of problem your client has, you can choose the best method for this. How to make these kinds of decisions you will learn in the training of the Hypnosis Institute Netherlands.

Would you like to learn more about hypnosis and how you can use it in your personal and professional life? Then join the free online masterclass.

Would you like to learn specific techniques to help yourself or others change? Then sign up right away for one of our training programs.

Sources:

[1] http://ceewl.ca/12599-PDF-ENG.PDF#page=78 The Real Reason People Won’t Change by Robert Kegan and Lisa Laskow Lahey.

[2] https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1999-02137-007