You cannot change the circumstances, the seasons, or the wind, but you can change yourself.
Jim Rohn1
Savings Accounts Are Dead.”
That was the headline of an article in this morning’s newspaper. It seems that most banks are offering checking accounts that provide better interest rates than their savings accounts. But people are reluctant to switch their funds, because they’ve had those savings accounts for years. They’re comfortable. They’re familiar.
We opened our basic checking account and a savings account when we moved to California in 1990. It’s what everybody did back then, so we did the same thing. The idea was that you needed a checking account as a place to hold money that you were spending, and you needed a savings account to start earning for the future. All you had to do was leave that money in savings, and it would grow over time.
A few years later, we were talking to someone at our bank as he looked at our accounts on a screen. “You know,” he said, “we should move you into this special kind of checking account. It actually pays you interest, and there is no fee.” That sounded logical, so we did it.
We still have that checking account. The average interest we earn is about two cents per month. That means that over the years, I doubt we’ve earned enough to buy a venti mocha at Starbucks. I might be able to afford a shot of vanilla syrup and add the mocha later.
The other day, my wife said, “Maybe we should close down my savings account and put the money somewhere else.” I don’t remember what I said in response, but the little voice in my head said, “No! You can’t get rid of a savings account! What about the future?”
Old perspectives are hard to change. What worked years ago might not be appropriate anymore. But because those things are familiar, we’re reluctant to do anything different.
Time for a Change
That can be true in relationships as well. The communication patterns we used early in a relationship may have worked in the past but have become ineffective in the present.
I recently went to the ninetieth birthday party of a man I had worked with back in the 1970s. It was a great event, and I was able to connect with good friends whom I hadn’t seen since that time.
Because we hadn’t seen each other for decades, we started talking about things from the past, even using the same conversation styles we had used before. But the more we talked, the more different the conversations became. We were different people than we were all those years ago, and had to reconnect as the people we were now—not the people we used to be. The more we talked, the richer our conversations became.
In biblical times, people used wineskins to hold new wine. That new wine would ferment inside the wineskin over time, and the skin was flexible enough to handle the expansion. It was an appropriate way to store newly made wine.
Over time, the wineskin would lose its elasticity and become brittle. It was still good for storing old wine, but if new wine was put in it, the skin would tear from the expansion and fermentation. The wine would be lost. New wine needed new wineskins.
In the early stages of any relationship, communication is fairly simple. The interaction is basic and safe and expands as the relationship matures. We learn patterns of conversation that work well, and they meet our needs for a long time.
Over time, relationships often stop growing. They become stagnant. The wineskins (communication patterns) still work because nothing is changing. But when the dynamics of a relationship start to change and new things happen, those old patterns won’t last very long. When relationships grow, communication needs to grow.
If old communication styles get in the way of that growth, it’s easy to blame the other person. “You never listen,” or “You only think about yourself,” or “You’ll never change, so this relationship is hopeless” become common perspectives. We feel like giving up, because the other person isn’t cooperating. We become a victim of their choices, and our happiness and security are based on what they do or say.
We feel helpless. If the other person doesn’t change or cooperate, what are we supposed to do?
The Horse Whisperer was a late ’90s movie in which Robert Redford calmly and patiently won the trust of a traumatized horse and turned it into a strong but compliant animal. He started by simply sitting nearby and watching it for days at a time, connecting quietly until he built trust.
I remember thinking, “How could someone simply sit and stare at a horse for hours at a time?” My wife suggested that it was the same reason she could sit through a movie and stare at Robert Redford for hours at a time.
But something deeper was happening. Redford’s character had no guarantees about whether or not he could tame that horse. But he knew that nothing would happen if he tried to force change. He didn’t become upset when the horse didn’t cooperate. He didn’t yell or berate the horse for its behavior. He didn’t let his emotions be dictated by what the horse did or didn’t do.
He knew there was only one thing he could control: himself. That kept him from being a victim of the horse’s behavior. He simply sat in the horse’s presence and allowed the horse to be what he was. He didn’t use force; he used influence. Just being there and accepting the horse built trust over time, and eventually the horse began to respond to him.
Obviously, people are not horses. Our job isn’t to make people comply with our wishes. We want to find a way for two different people with two different perspectives to be in one healthy relationship.
There’s a principle here. When we try to force people to change or behave in a certain way, we’re setting ourselves up for frustration. We can influence them by coming alongside them and simply being in their lives, watching and studying and accepting them. But there’s no guarantee they’ll change.
It’s critical that we don’t become a victim of their choices. We’re responsible for ourselves, not for them. If our happiness and identity are based on what another person does, we’ve given them power over our lives. We need to take ownership for ourselves, not give it away to someone else.
It’s like playing checkers. We move our checkers across the board, and the other person moves theirs. Our job is to control our move and then to respond when the other person makes a move. We can’t control how the other person plays; we can only control how we respond. It would be inappropriate to run around the table and take over for them if they’re not playing the way we think they should.
During tough conversations, we get frustrated when the other person doesn’t respond the way we want them to. Maybe we find ourselves feeling angry at their words. At that point, we can choose to give in to our anger, or we can make the choice to handle the anger appropriately. If we give in, we’re no longer in control. We’re letting their choices determine how we feel.
Effective communication can take place only when we stay on our side of the checkerboard. We can’t control what another person does or says, even if we’re frustrated with how they interact with us. We can only control the moves we make and how we respond to their moves.
It’s kind of like teaching someone how to do something but getting frustrated when they don’t learn quickly enough. We want to jump in and do it for them because it seems easier than watching them struggle and seemingly waste time.
When my wife got a computer for her business, she signed up for a year’s worth of one-on-one instruction. She could go back to the store once a week and an instructor would walk her through a new skill.
Some of the instructors would explain a process, demonstrate it, and then let her do it a few times until it became familiar. Other instructors would explain and demonstrate, assuming that it made sense to her. But she would have to say, “No, I need to try it myself to get it.” She could sense their frustration as she tried tasks herself.
Committed to Insanity
The popular definition of insanity is, “Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.” That’s such a simple concept that we often overlook its impact, especially in relationships. We’ve learned patterns of communication over time by seeing what works and what doesn’t. We’ve discovered how to push another person’s buttons, and they’ve figured out how to push ours.
We decide to work on a relationship because we want it to grow. But when we hit tough conversations, we fall back on our old patterns. Instead of making conscious choices about how to respond, we put our brain on autopilot. We say something without thinking, and we let the other person push those old buttons that determine our responses. We forget that we can choose how we respond. We don’t have to be a victim of our emotions; we have the power to choose.
Assuming those old patterns will work in a new situation is insanity. If we want different outcomes, we need to make different choices. Our ineffective perspectives are getting in the way of effective ones. The old wineskins are brittle and need to be replaced.
What do we replace them with? Here are a few perspectives to consider if we want to make our conversations more effective.
We replace blaming others with taking ownership. We need to take responsibility for what we do in any relationship or conversation. When we assume the other person is the problem, we short-circuit the communication process. Blaming others is unproductive because we give up control of ourselves in the relationship. When we suggest that they need to change in order for anything to be different, we put them in charge of the relationship and we give up our influence.
We replace expectations with expectancy. When we have expectations of what needs to happen, we’ll usually be disappointed. We play out conversations ahead of time, thinking of what we need to say, how they’ll respond, and what we’ll say when they do. But people almost never read the script we’ve written for them, and we get frustrated. They don’t meet our expectations, and we don’t know how to respond.
It’s better to have expectancy. We don’t know how things will turn out but simply anticipate the results. We make choices about what we say and how we respond during the conversation, but we don’t plan them ahead of time. We don’t prescribe their side of the conversation. We simply wait to hear what they say and then respond to their moves.
Conversations aren’t scripts that we read; they’re real-life exchanges between two people. The goal is connection, not conversion.
We replace assumptions with truth. When our view of ourselves is based on the opinions of others, we set ourselves up for failure and frustration. Our self-esteem and our identity become the products of how other people see us. That’s unhealthy, because we give away the ownership of our emotions as we try to please others.
It’s even tougher when we make assumptions about how other people view us. They haven’t told us that we’re boring or irritating or inferior, but we’ve decided that they must feel that way. This is often a reflection of how we see ourselves. The downward spiral continues, because we believe our inaccurate assumptions and let them shape our view of ourselves.
Truth is the basis for a healthy self-esteem. Making assumptions about how others view us turns us into people pleasers. Since our opinions of ourselves are based on whether people like us or not, we do everything we can to make them like us. In the process, we give up who we really are.
We replace selfishness with synergy. Synergy is a combination of determination and compassion. Determination means we have the integrity to stand up for our own needs, while compassion means we’re committed to addressing the best interests of the other person.
In tough conversations, people with determination alone are committed to getting a satisfying outcome for themselves and don’t care whether or not the other person is satisfied. They’re not necessarily rigid about their opinions or insisting on being right. But their priority is achieving a solution they can be excited about, not one they have to settle for. This is a selfish perspective and doesn’t lead toward resolution of tough conversations.
A person with compassion alone is interested only in making sure the other person is satisfied with the solution. They do what they can to make sure that happens, often at the expense of their own wishes. Such people often give in to the other person so they can avoid conflict. This is a weak perspective and always makes relationships lopsided.
The goal is for both people to be compassionate as well as determined to find a satisfying solution that works well for themselves and the other person. That’s a healthy approach because both people are working as a team to achieve a good outcome. That’s synergy.
We replace pride with humility. When we believe our perspective is the only accurate one, we can ignore the opinions of others. Such pride can get in the way of effective communication. Humility means we hold our positions loosely while exploring the views of another person.
If we have strong opinions that are different from those of the other person, we can easily focus our energy on the other person instead of on the issue, thinking they’re wrong and we’re right. Even if we see some validity in their position, we don’t want to admit it because it would feel like a sign of weakness.
Humility doesn’t mean they’re right and we’re wrong. It means that the relationship is more important than the issue. Pride keeps us from talking honestly because we’re unwilling to explore beyond our own opinion. When that happens, connecting stops. Humility is at the base of all effective conversations—especially tough ones.
Prioritizing Relationships
If our identity is based on what others think of us, we don’t want anyone to think poorly of us. So we put a lot of energy into making sure everybody likes us. We make choices based on their interests, not our own. That can wear us out.
Technology can make the situation worse, because there are more ways to connect with people than ever before. That means we have a lot more people to stay connected with and impress.
When I signed up for Facebook, I heard from people I hadn’t seen for decades. Many were friends from high school or college, and they sent friend requests. I accepted many of the requests because those people had been good friends in the past and I wanted to reconnect. (In reality, I think many people connect just to see what their friends look like after all these years.)
Social media drops many people into our lives. If we’re not careful, we can have more people in our lives than we can handle. Since they were friends in the past, we might feel obligated to maintain those friendships at the same level they were before. We’re letting them come over to our side of the checkerboard instead of taking ownership of our moves. But we have only a limited bandwidth for relationships. If we try to stay well connected with everyone, we dilute each relationship.
So what should we do? Do we need to ignore those people? No, we need to prioritize them. We need to decide who gets our best attention and who gets less. The closer they are to us, the more attention they deserve. Our spouses and immediate families are the relationships we should be the most committed to, so our connection with them comes first. That’s who we spend the most time with, and tough conversations with them matter most. If we spread our emotional energy too thin, we won’t have enough energy to maintain our critical relationships. Taking ownership means we make the decisions about who we converse with, and what that communication looks like.
We’re the ones who have to decide who else gets our attention and how much (we have to determine the priority and order):
I found several old high school friends on Facebook who I’ve reconnected with because they were valuable friends in the past. We stay on each other’s radar but don’t spend hours on social media with each other. We comment into each other’s lives occasionally, which is appropriate.
Others post often and try to rebuild those past relationships and seem hurt that I don’t respond in the same way. It’s not that those people don’t have value; they’re just lower on my priority list. I don’t want to sacrifice my current relationships for those from the past. I’m responsible for owning my choices, not them.
I used to feel guilty when I didn’t stay in touch with people I was so close to in the past. But some people come into our lives for a season, and then we both move on. That’s okay. We become new people in new places.
Practical Steps for Taking Ownership
So when it comes to tough conversations, what can we do to stay on our own side of the checkerboard?
If we take ownership of ourselves, we’ll be in the perfect place to have tough conversations when they’re needed.