Most self-help readings tell you that it’s easy to improve yourself and your life. You can quickly lose weight, get rich, become popular, or find your soul mate. Just follow a few simple rules.
That’s what most people want to hear, but, for relationships, it can’t be true. If it was easy, you and many millions of other people wouldn’t have so many relationship problems.
These blogs are different. Instead of telling you pleasant lies, they will tell you some unpleasant truths, starting with the four worst ones:
1. The MAJOR reason for your relationship problems is that you can’t or won’t take uncomfortable actions.
2. You should relate to people on their terms because they won’t relate on yours.
3. You must sacrifice some of your needs to satisfy others. Trade-offs are inescapable, and nobody likes to make them. We want to satisfy all our needs.
4. Relationships CAN’T be easy because you must constantly analyze and adjust to changing situations.
When they read those points, some people say, “These blogs are not for me.” Good, if you’re looking for an easy solution to your relationship problems, they’re wrong for you. I’m a professional psychologist, not “Dr. Feel Good.”
Coaches, counselors, psychotherapists, attorneys, and other professional advisors are often asked, “What should I do about my wife?” (or husband, friend, boss, etc.) When they tell us their problems, it’s obvious that they want us to change the other person.
Our standard answer is: “I can’t do anything about them; they’re not here. All I can do is help you to change the way you react.”
Many clients say or think, “Why should I change? He’s the problem!” They often leave and look for someone who will tell them the lie they want to hear. “You’re right. They’re wrong.”.
Nonsense!
If you’ve read this far, your mind may be open enough to consider, at least briefly, that you should work on changing yourself. You won’t like doing it, but it’s the only way to improve many relationships.
Let’s discuss why you should read and subscribe to these blogs. Some of your most common and important problems require relating well to other people. You want to be their friend, seduce them, work well with them, sell them something, resolve personal conflicts, and so on.
Many experts tell you how to do these things, but they often give general advice: “One size fits all.” Because your personality and situation are different, some of that advice just doesn’t fit you. Either you can’t follow it because of who you are, or it doesn’t work with certain people because of who they are.
The approach that works well with Harry, bores Susan, and irritates Tom. You know that different people require different approaches, but don’t know how to adjust to certain kinds of people. Their thoughts, feelings, and actions make no sense to you.
WHERE ARE THEY COMING FROM?
When we can’t understand someone, we may ask that question. But we often don’t try hard to answer it. Instead of trying to understand how and why they think, feel and act differently, we usually try to make them more like us. We think, “We’d get along fine if they would just be more reasonable.” (that is, if they were more like me) Since they think the same about us, we get “a dialogue of the deaf.” We don’t understand them, and they don’t understand us.
These blogs are based on an entirely different premise: Understand and relate to people on their terms, not yours. These blogs will help you to do it. You’ll discover “where they are coming from” and how to relate well to people who are coming from many different places.
It won’t be easy because you will probably resist or even reject some of these blogs’ principles, especially the first one mentioned earlier: The major reason for your relationship problems is that you can’t or won’t take uncomfortable actions.
You may believe that you want to relate well to certain people, but you mostly want to be comfortable. You want them to accept your positions, your values, your ideas. You don’t want to adjust to them; you want them to adjust to you.
Sorry, but it won’t work. If you really want to relate well to other people, you have to understand, accept, and adjust to many uncomfortable facts, especially this one: Relate to people on their terms because they won’t relate on yours.
If you can’t accept that unpleasant truth, don’t read these blogs. If you can accept it (at least temporarily), these blogs can help you to relate effectively to a wider range of people. You’ll learn how to:
1. Identify your own relationship style and understand how it affects other people.
2. Pick up and understand the signals about other people’s styles.
3. Adapt your style to fit various situations.
Identifying your own relationship style and understanding how it affects other people are your first tasks. If you don’t know who you are and how other people react to you, you can’t relate well to many people.
WHY ARE PEOPLE SO DIFFERENT?
We naturally relate to others as if they were just like us. That’s the pattern that makes us comfortable. When they don’t respond the way we would, we get confused and irritated. The misunderstandings and conflicts between men and women are obvious examples.
In “My Fair Lady,” Henry Higgins asked that classic question: “Why can’t a woman be more like a man?” Countless women have asked the opposite question.
Men Are From Mars; Women Are From Venus and similar books have helped millions of people to understand why they have problems with the opposite sex, but their principles are much too general.
All women are not alike; neither are all men. If a man treated Charlotte, Diane, and Barbara the same way, one of them would like him; one would ignore him, and the third would fight him. The same applies to a woman who used the same approach with Tom, Dick, and Harry.
You need to learn how to relate to this individual, whether they are male or female, young or old, educated or ignorant, spouse, parent, child, friend, neighbor, boss, co-worker, or subordinate. That’s what these blogs are all about. We know how to relate to people like ourselves, but don’t know what to do with the ones who are too different.
Our relationships’ success or failure depends upon the combination of our own and the other person’s styles. I focused on this issue in my books, videos, and training programs: Selling: The Psychological Approach, Negotiate To Win: Gaining The Psychological Approach, and Is Trump’s Negotiating Style Right For You?
Dr. Karen Horney, an eminent psychoanalyst, was the original source for my work. She often wrote that there are only three basic ways to relate to people:
· Friendly people move toward others with warmth, trust, and dependency.
· Aggressive people move against others with force, competition, and dominance.
· Analytic people move away from others with facts, logic, and detachment.
These patterns are really dimensions. You can be high, medium, or low on any of them, and you probably combine two or even all three.
In addition, nearly everyone’s style changes occasionally. When they are angry, friendly or analytic people can become aggressive. When they are confused or frightened, aggressive people may become analytic or submissive. You should constantly try to understand, not just how people usually act, but how and why they are acting differently now.
We think that our style is the best, and we dislike and misunderstand the other two. Friendlies see them as “bullies” and “cold fish.” Aggressives call them “wimps” and “nerds.” Analysts regard them as “savages” and “bleeding hearts.”
Yet each style has its good points, and the best one depends upon the situation. Qualities that help you in certain situations harm you in others. For example, you need aggression in competitions, but it prevents friendship, trust, and objectivity. Friendliness builds strong, trusting relationships, but it causes exploitation by aggressives and rejection by analysts. Detached analysis reduces emotions’ destructive effects, but it creates insensitivity to motives and feelings, and it causes distrust.
The best style is usually balanced. Balanced people are more flexible, and they can relate well to a wider range of people and situations.
More extreme people are often controlled by their needs for warmth, power, and distance. Regardless of what the situation requires, they generally act in ways that make them comfortable, but disturb others. For example, if a friendly and analytic person must work or live together, they severely frustrate each other. The friendly one tries to get closer, and the analyst runs away. The more they try to satisfy their own needs, the more frustrated the other one becomes.
We do what makes us feel good and then rationalize that it will get the best results.
· “A personal relationship is most important; you have to build trust.”
· “No! You should take control; let them know who’s boss.”
· “You’re both wrong. You’ll get the best results if you stick to the facts and keep personalities out of it.”
All three are rationalizing because there isn’t one best approach. In fact, the biggest reason that relationships are so difficult is that you must often act unnaturally. You want to fight, but should be gentle. Or you want to emphasize logical analysis, but have to push hard. Or you want a warm relationship, but should use force or facts.
If you can’t control your own needs for warmth, power, or distance, you can’t adjust well. In fact, you may not realize that you should adjust. You will just do what comes naturally, even when it‘s the worst approach.
Your first task is to understand your own style: Why do you think, feel, and act that way? How do you affect other people? What are your natural strengths and weaknesses? Another blog contains a quiz: “What’s Your Relationship Style.” To take it, click HERE.
These blogs will also help you to understand other people’s styles, and they will recommend the specific adjustments needed to relate well to various kinds of people.
IS THIS PROCESS TOO COMPLICATED?
You may believe that it is. That question brings us right back to my first point: The reason you and most other people have so many relationship problems is that you won’t take uncomfortable actions.
You want things to be simple, but relationships between different types of people aren’t simple. If you don’t analyze what you BOTH want and how you BOTH feel, you can’t make rational compromises.
And, if you don’t make rational compromises, you will certainly frustrate each other. That frustration can “simmer.” You’re both unhappy, but not so much that you end the relationship.
Unfortunately, the frustration may grow until you or they can’t stand it. Then one or both blows up. Sometimes, you just argue. Sometimes, you separate. Sometimes, you divorce, sue, fire, beat up, or even kill each other.
Dr. Al Schoonmaker
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