30 Nov You Can’t Change Others: A Few Thoughts From Our President, Jeff Russell

Do you know someone you’d like to change? I will guess that you answered yes and that you’re probably thinking of more than one person. 

The reality is that we CAN’T change others. But, what we can do is work on how we change ourselves. This path is much easier than trying to make someone else change. 

If you’d like an exercise to work through this process, here is what I suggest from personal experience. Make a list of the people that you want to change. Then decide what you can do to change yourself in that relationship, and ultimately, how that relationship functions and feels. 

But, what happens if there is nothing that you can do personally? 

Well, if that person is bringing consistent negativity to your world, it might be that the person just isn’t a good fit for your life. Consider if that person is important enough to figure out some type of solution (even if it takes a lot of work). One caveat here, people can change, but they need to realize that desire and be willing to do it. 

Here is a quote by Confucius that I remember from way back: 

“Don’t complain about the snow on your neighbor’s roof when your own doorstep is unclean.” – Confucius

So, essentially, there is often much we can do within ourselves before jumping to blame others. 

On a similar note, I was jumping around on LinkedIn the other day and also found this quote on Brene Brown’s LinkedIn page: 

Sometimes the very evils that we want to fight in the world, the broken behaviors we blame on others, are also alive and us and in need of our attention or kindness or understanding our healing, you know. Sometimes what we long to see change in the world is an inside job. – Elizabeth Lesser 

Life is good. – Jeff 

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