A manager of a small bookstore told me the humorous story about a book in her store that would sell very well.
Because the title was so attractive to people who were interested in changing other people, many people would pick it up eager to learn the secret of how to change the negative people in their lives.
The book, How To Change other People, by Raymond Charles Barker, turned out to be a great disappointment to many of the people who purchased it, because ultimately the book was more about how to change yourself than changing other people.
Nevertheless, for anyone who would like to learn the secret of changing negative people, that is entirely the secret: the change takes place in you.
This kind of change is magical in its effect and well worth the effort to try an learn how to do it.
You might even think of it playfully as learning to cast happy spells on negative people, it can be fun and effective as long as you keep this secret in mind: you are not doing anything to anyone other than to yourself.
Until you can remove the label of 'negative' from the person you are dealing with and until you can be willing to be the person to change first, you will probably not have the magical results you were hoping for.
Getting Started Begin by choosing the person you want to practice on.
You might not want to start with the most difficult candidate right away.
Begin maybe with someone who you think is negative and who represents a low-level irritation and set your sights on changing them by changing yourself.
Preferably begin with someone who you have frequent contact with so that you can closely monitor the effectiveness of your life-changing program.
For this exercise to be truly effective you ought to have a notebook that you can set aside for this task.
Give yourself time to write down your honest assessment of this person's negativity.
This is no time to hold back.
Write down every thought that comes up, after all you are not going to be sharing these thoughts with anyone and you are certainly not going to be expressing them to your candidate.
What you will be doing however with this exercise is allowing yourself to express what is inside you.
This is a powerful first step to getting started with the change process.
Think of it as healthy venting.
Once your opinion of the person has been allowed to be expressed in writing, it has the effect of relieving the pressure of holding these thoughts inside.
Now that it's on paper you can take a sigh of relief and prepare yourself for step two.
Get a mirror Right here is where most practitioners of the art of changing other people will fail.
Their inability to assess themselves with the same bluntness and honesty that they assess their offender is what ultimately undoes them.
It takes a tremendous amount of courage and humility to answer this question: Where am I like that too? The way you use the question is to go over what you wrote down about the person you wish to change, sentence by sentence, pausing after each one to ask yourself where am i like that too? This is to be done calmly, serenely and blamelessly.
It's not about finding ways to make yourself wrong, rather it's about softening the mental hold we have one someone.
Next Steps What's next, you might ask.
This is the beauty of the exercise.
Nothing is next.
You go about your life as normal and notice the subtle changes that take place in you when you think about that person or talk to them.
Most importantly, be gentle with yourself and try to have fun noticing how very much we all are alike.
Because the title was so attractive to people who were interested in changing other people, many people would pick it up eager to learn the secret of how to change the negative people in their lives.
The book, How To Change other People, by Raymond Charles Barker, turned out to be a great disappointment to many of the people who purchased it, because ultimately the book was more about how to change yourself than changing other people.
Nevertheless, for anyone who would like to learn the secret of changing negative people, that is entirely the secret: the change takes place in you.
This kind of change is magical in its effect and well worth the effort to try an learn how to do it.
You might even think of it playfully as learning to cast happy spells on negative people, it can be fun and effective as long as you keep this secret in mind: you are not doing anything to anyone other than to yourself.
Until you can remove the label of 'negative' from the person you are dealing with and until you can be willing to be the person to change first, you will probably not have the magical results you were hoping for.
Getting Started Begin by choosing the person you want to practice on.
You might not want to start with the most difficult candidate right away.
Begin maybe with someone who you think is negative and who represents a low-level irritation and set your sights on changing them by changing yourself.
Preferably begin with someone who you have frequent contact with so that you can closely monitor the effectiveness of your life-changing program.
For this exercise to be truly effective you ought to have a notebook that you can set aside for this task.
Give yourself time to write down your honest assessment of this person's negativity.
This is no time to hold back.
Write down every thought that comes up, after all you are not going to be sharing these thoughts with anyone and you are certainly not going to be expressing them to your candidate.
What you will be doing however with this exercise is allowing yourself to express what is inside you.
This is a powerful first step to getting started with the change process.
Think of it as healthy venting.
Once your opinion of the person has been allowed to be expressed in writing, it has the effect of relieving the pressure of holding these thoughts inside.
Now that it's on paper you can take a sigh of relief and prepare yourself for step two.
Get a mirror Right here is where most practitioners of the art of changing other people will fail.
Their inability to assess themselves with the same bluntness and honesty that they assess their offender is what ultimately undoes them.
It takes a tremendous amount of courage and humility to answer this question: Where am I like that too? The way you use the question is to go over what you wrote down about the person you wish to change, sentence by sentence, pausing after each one to ask yourself where am i like that too? This is to be done calmly, serenely and blamelessly.
It's not about finding ways to make yourself wrong, rather it's about softening the mental hold we have one someone.
Next Steps What's next, you might ask.
This is the beauty of the exercise.
Nothing is next.
You go about your life as normal and notice the subtle changes that take place in you when you think about that person or talk to them.
Most importantly, be gentle with yourself and try to have fun noticing how very much we all are alike.
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