I receive a lot of texts, a lot of calls, a lot of messages and a lot of emails from
women who are in a lot of pain. They are literally at their wit's end because their needs and
wants are going unmet in their relationships because they cannot get a man's behavior to
change. If this trend continues, it's common for me to see depression, anxiety, eating
disorders, even addictions as a consequence. Today, I'm going to tell you a concept that
you're going to hate me for initially and then end up loving. The truth is this, you
can never change a guy's behavior. You can never change anyone's behavior. The more you
take responsibility for someone else's behavior, the more pointless pain you're going to feel
along the way. Believing that you have responsibility or the ability to change someone else's behavior
is one of the most common misconceptions in all of interpersonal relations.
While that might seem depressing, it's actually incredibly liberating because you can now
take the responsibility for his behavior off of your shoulders. While you can't get anyone
else to change their actions, you are in full control of what you do and what you do and
don't let into your life. You see, a lot of women I coach, they get stuck in words, stuck
in the verbals. They say, "Mark, I tell him, but then he tries to turn it around and put
it back on me," or they say, "Mark, he says, I'm the one being unfair. How do I make him
change his mind and change his behavior?" And I say to them, "Stop trying to make him do
anything. You're insane." Okay, I don't tell them they're insane, but I tell them their
idea is insane. Trying to control his actions is the equivalent to trying to control the weather.
I say to them, "Would you be pissed off if you couldn't stop it raining tomorrow, if
you couldn't stop the weather tomorrow?" And they say, "No Mark. That's ridiculous. That's
just insane." I tell them, you literally have the same control over his actions as you do
the weather. All you can change. I tell them, is yourself, your exposure to him, and your
attitudes towards him. If you tell a man, "Hey, my needs aren't being met," and he turns
around and puts that back on you or makes you responsible for that, that's okay. A lot
of women get stuck in verbals at this point trying to convince him or trying to show him
and trying to win some sort of argument. Often, voices get raised and it becomes this big
where you're trying to convince each other thing. That's not how you put standards in place.
If you want to get what you want from men without nagging or manipulation, just state
your standards and then understand it's on you to execute with actions. Just like a rainy
day, you're not going to get frustrated that it's raining. You're either going to start
accepting the rain, you're going to change your attitude about rain, or you're going
to stop exposing yourself to the rain and go inside. If he doesn't agree with your standards
and your boundaries, that's okay. If he doesn't want to act a certain way, that's okay too.
Don't, don't let this frustrate you and rile you up. It's then on you to decide what you're
going to do about it and your response, your reaction rather is your responsibility. You
just state what it is and then decide what you're going to do if it's not met.
There's no begging, yelling, or convincing required.
By the way, if you're enjoying the content, don't forget to hit the big red subscribe
button with the little bell. Now, what you decide is your boundary. That's also your
responsibility. And it's not really on me or any other dating coach to decide what is
your boundary and what standards you want to set. If you want your boyfriend to wear
a clown costume all the time, you can make that a boundary of yours. Okay, you've got
to think about what's intelligent and what makes sense and what's balanced and that's
why it's so important to read, learn, watch videos about how great relationships work,
a great relationship works and what a fair and healthy boundary is. If you want people
in your life to behave a certain way, just let them know what it is, and then quietly
go about enforcing that with your actions. You know, I haven't had for a long time people
in my life who crossed my boundaries because they just filter themselves out, and I don't
need to yell or convince them or shout at them otherwise.
So if you're serious about having great relationships in your life, about having great connections
with men in your life, understand that it's your responsibility to achieve that, not by
changing their behavior or making them act a certain way, but by understanding what you
will and won't accept by making it clear to people, not just your partners, but your friends,
your work colleagues, everyone in your life, and then quietly executing on that. Once you
do this, and once you do it well, you're going to attract the best guys to your life who
love and respect the standards and boundaries that you have and you're going to filter out
the others. It's the road to the best life possible, the best relationships possible,
not just romantically, but friends, colleagues, family as well. And the cool part is you never
need to beg, convince, or yell at anyone. Well, that's the video! I hope you enjoyed.
Let me know your thoughts, comments, questions, everything in the space below. I'd love to
hear it. Hit that big red subscribe button with the little bell, so you get the notifications,
and like I say, I want to hear your thoughts on this concept, so let me know. Put it right
in the space below and I'll see you in the next video very soon.
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