“Consider how hard it is to change yourself and you’ll understand what little chance you have to change someone else.”
Jacob Braude
“Yeah, but…This time they will listen, I just need to try harder. I need to work on my convincing argument. It will definitely work this time, I just need to yell more…”
Wouldn’t life be so much easier if you could change people? Annoying, frustrating, or upsetting you? No problem! Just one quick rant and you will have no more issues…
It’s absolutely exhausting to try and change someone. It’s like trying to push a semi up a hill. But for some reason, we all attempt to do just that on a regular basis. Whether it’s your spouse, friend, co-worker, kid, or parent we all will eventually get into an argument because someone doesn’t like how we think or act.
Think about the difference between herding sheep versus cattle.
Cattle you push them from the back of the herd to get them to move forward. With sheep, the shepherd leads his flock. They follow his voice as he goes before them.
I don’t know about you but the more someone tries to tell me what to do, the more I dig my heels in. I might agree with them but won’t budge simply to prove a point.
Now, if someone calls out to me to follow them that’s different. Give me some direction but let me do the work of discovering the path.
Lead don’t push.