How can I change others?

I believe that you cannot actually change other people, but you can initiate or inspire change in those around you, and vice versa. If you look back over your life experiences, I am sure you can find something someone said or did that altered everything that followed. Maybe it was a teacher who believed in your potential, and inspired you to make the most of yourself. Perhaps it was a lover who allowed you to feel beautiful for the first time.

Alternatively, it could have been something damaging, like a hurtful taunt from other kids on the playground that convinced you to stop playing sports forever. The absolutely terrifying thing about becoming aware of the impact of your behavior is that you never know for sure what its far-reaching effects will be. Everything you do ripples outward over time, from person to person. You can be cruel or kind; either way, the energy almost never stops with the object of your action, but is passed along. It does make sense to think twice before doing something that will spread negativity indefinitely. Far better to let your love radiate out into the world.

 Generally speaking we have little control over most things in our lives other than how we respond to them. But, we can certainly have a profound influence on those things going on in our lives and how we respond to them. We can expand or shrink our influence by the choices we make.  At work, we expand our influence by behaviors like Being a team player, Helping out, Being assertive, Being trustworthy, Respecting others. We can shrink our area of influence by engaging in destructive attitudes and behaviors like Constant negativity, Blaming, Not helping, Gossip, Not keeping your word, Disrespecting others.

There are certain things we have NO control over, including traffic, the economy, other people, etc. This is actually most things in our lives.

Some things we DO have control over in our lives, which in essence is how we think, feel, and act. In other words, we only have control over how we act and react to those things that happen in our lives. This is, in the realm of everything, a small part of our lives that we actually have control over.

We also have “influence” but not direct control over some things. Examples of what we have “influence” over would be other people (i.e. we may not control other people but we can certainly influence how others react to us by our treatment of them), our futures (to the extent that we can plan for them), etc.