Why you can't change anyone

I realize that a lot of my articles have been about changing yourself in order to fit the needs and wants of your future spouse, boyfriend/girlfriend, or friends. But today I need to correct what might be a misconception about this topic: The only person that YOU can change, is you.
We all have equal potential to change our lives for the better, some are further in their progression than others, but each of us has the ability to become as benevolent and rich physically, mentally and emotionally as we desire. Why do people fail to obtain the things that they talk so much about wanting? Because, even with the ability to do anything and become anything, there are many who do not tap into their full potential.

Change requires work; it is a very challenging, and progression isn’t easy. The reason why so many people fail to achieve success in this life is because they:

1. Do not work hard enough-- Real growth and progression comes not from the end result, but the process of making a transformation. Eggs do not instantly become chicks, children are not instantly made into adults, and dreams do not fall right into our laps. There are a lot of things that happen “behind the scenes” before the end is reached. Success requires a gradual process, and work is a necessary component in achieving the things we desire most. No one can put in the work for you; no one cares enough about your success to do it for you, you need to do all of the hard work by yourself.
   Once you decide that you want to have an amazing relationship for the rest of your life, you still need to put in the work and make an effort to obtain that relationship.
2. Do not make the right sacrifices-- Sacrifices are only sacrifices when something is put on the line or given up. Ideally, sacrifices are designed so that when you give up one thing, you receive a better thing in its place, but not all sacrifices work out that way. When you sacrifice the wrong thing, you don’t get any closer to the thing you ultimately want to have. True too, when you give up something that isn’t really of worth to you, then you really aren’t sacrificing and won’t make any progress either.
   Selfishness is a natural part of every one of us, and it is often this character trait that we must sacrifice in order to reach our goals and dreams--particularly when those dreams involve relationships with other people.
3. Aren’t working towards anything--To reach success, you need to have a well-defined idea of what success is. What is it that you are working towards? What do you want to accomplish? If you can’t answer that question, then you are left at a standstill--you are left like the sailor who has no heading and with no heading, it doesn’t matter which direction you go, you still won’t get any closer.
   With relationships, you need to understand what it is that you want out of a relationship. What needs do you have to fulfill? At what point in the relationship will you feel you have reached success?

Just like no one can do the work for you, you can’t do the work for someone else. Any sacrifices that others make are sacrifices for themselves and not for you. And even if other people share your goals and dreams, until YOU reach those goals and dreams, you haven’t obtained success--they may have, but you haven’t.

Now, let me throw in some additional insights that were hidden in what I just told you:

1. relationships are work. They are never-ending, because the moment that you stop working on improving your relationship is the moment it becomes stagnant and falls apart.
2. It requires work on both sides. If one of you doesn’t put forth an effort then it will fall apart, no matter how hard the other person works to save it.
3. You can’t expect people to make sacrifices for you. –This goes two ways: you can’t expect them to sacrifice in your behalf, because as I already explained, that doesn’t work. You also can’t expect them to make sacrifices to have you without you making equal sacrifices for them. Purely one-sided relationships don’t work…there is no such thing as 100/0 relationship.—that isn’t a relationship, it’s one person pushing things on the other person.
4. Your goals are YOUR goals. When you get into a relationship with someone, there might come a point where you have gone above and beyond their expectations—you fulfilled their goals and dreams. But at that moment, they may not have quite fulfilled your goals and dreams yet. You can look at this in two ways: A) It would be easier for you to find someone who has equal expectations and goals and dreams, because then you will both feel you have achieved success and fulfillment at the same time. Or B) you could look at that and say: just because he or she is satisfied doesn’t mean that I am, and -I- need to put in more work and sacrifice more in order to get there. If #2 is the case, then you need to be upfront with the other person the moment that you realize that they are “over-satisfied”. You need to talk to them about where you would still like the relationship to go and see what trade-offs can be made in order to reach that point. This sounds contrary to what I mentioned previously, but they may need to sacrifice a little more in order to continue having you—to balance your relationship out.
   
5. Relationships must clearly take time to build. Anything that requires work, sacrifice, and goals/dreams/or plans will take a lot of time in order to come true. “Rome wasn’t built in a day,” it took a lot of work, sacrifice, and planning to become what it ultimately became, and when that pattern of work, planning and sacrifice became corrupted, it fell.