Can’t live with ‘em, can’t live without ‘em: The people in our lives

What’s one question that has been asked probably more often than most throughout history?

We actually don’t know for certain, but we’ll bet it’s a fundamental question about human behavior.

In every culture and in every generation, people have tried to make sense about what makes humans tick by asking, “Why do people do what they do?”

Along with this first question comes one that has equally captured people’s attention: “What can be done to influence and change what people do?”

What Drives Human Behavior?

A lot of theories have been developed to answer these questions. One of the most influential is self-determination theory (SDT). Developed by Edward Deci and RIchard Ryan in the 1980s, SDT is a theory of human motivation and personality.

Originally focusing on intrinsic motivation -- the desire to do something because it is valuable and satisfying in itself--SDT was later expanded to include extrinsic motivation. That’s motivation driven by external factors, like recognition, praise, and rewards, or even rules and standards.

What Deci and Ryan found is that humans are driven by three psychological needs. These needs are universal and provide the foundation for psychological health and wellbeing for all humans.

The needs are for:

Autonomy: I can choose
Autonomy means that you are free to make your own decisions about yourself based on your own values and interests. You have a voice and choice. You control the course of your life.
Competence: I can act
Competence is having mastery over what it takes to lead the kind of life you want; having the ability and being effective in interacting with your environment.
Relatedness: I matter
Relatedness is having a sense of connection and belonging with others. It’s feeling cared about and cared for, and caring about and for others.

The need to be able to choose, act, and matter sound quite modern. But it’s not.

In fact, we are hard-wired for choosing, acting, and connecting with others.

It’s a primal need programmed into our ancient brain and nervous system because from the time we first evolved, choice, action, and connection allowed us to respond to danger, seek safety, and survive as the human species.

No Man Is an Island

You probably recognize the saying, “No man is an island.”

It was written by John Donne almost exactly 500 hundred years ago. What’s it mean?

Donne makes it crystal clear in the following lines:

[No man is an island]

entire of itself;

every man is a piece of the continent,

a part of the main.

What a great metaphor for that primal need for connection and to matter. “No man is an island” reminds us that no one is wholly self-sufficient. Each of us is one piece in a big puzzle of human endeavor. We need each other: Our survival, wellbeing, and happiness depend on it.

What Does Being “Part of the Continent” Mean When It Comes to Change?

When it comes to problems people have and the changes they want to make, the first question they ask boils down to one of two versions:

How do I do x?
-How do I get myself to be more productive?
-How can I get in better shape?
-How do I make more money?
-How can I make the best decision in the current situation?
-Etc
-Etc
How do I make another person do y?
-How do I make them respect me?
-How do I get them to meet deadlines?
-What can I do to get them to be better at collaborating?
-How do I get them to come on time?
-How do I make them more open?
-Etc
-Etc

Sound familiar to you? If you’re like most people, you’re probably smiling because you recognize yourself in many of these questions.

How Y-PET Works to Help You Power Through Change

We’ll get back to this, but first, let’s zoom out for another perspective.

Here’s our revolutionary Y-PET framework for change. It’s a powerful tool for change because it lays out in a simple structure that guides the process for positive, lasting change.

It’s powerful because it takes into account all the elements in a successful change process. Each element influences what you believe and how you think and feel. And all that affects how easy or hard it is to make the kind of changes you want to.

YOU: your values, purpose, and dreams
PEOPLE: from your closest connections, to people you routinely interact with, and beyond to those in your community and the world
ENVIRONMENT: the setting in which you live, work, play, and pray
THINGS: tools, props, and gear that can make change easier to do and stick to

What PEOPLE Has to Do With Change

Now let’s go back to those two questions we posed about change:

Whether it’s “How do I change (myself)?” or “How do I get someone else to change?”

As Y-PET illustrates, any change--and every change--is influenced by four factors. Each plays a key role in the change process.

This means that it’s not enough to focus only on motivation, goals, willpower, drive, or even passion. And it’s not enough to think that having all the right gear will ensure success.

The PEOPLE part counts, but it’s often not as fully appreciated as it should be.

Sure, people talk about getting “an accountability partner.” And of course, people participate in organized activities, get help from coaches, mentors, and teachers, and share their change process with those around them.

But PEOPLE mean a lot more than just these.

One of the biggest factors within the domain of PEOPLE is the social norm.

Remember our primal needs to choose, act, and matter/connect? The flip side of matter/connect is the primal fear of social rejection. It’s a primal fear because few if any people would have been able to survive by themselves, alone. Our survival and perpetuation as a species depended--and still depends--on our ability to connect to others. That means that we are exquisitely primed to notice what other people are doing, what they value, and where we fit in.

That’s not only what peer pressure in adolescence is all about. Peers and their acceptance of us influence what we do throughout life.

Want to test that idea? Imagine wearing a bright Hawaian shirt that’s perfectly acceptable and attractive to a cocktail party in Honolulu to a meet-and-greet for your financial management company in New York City . . . we don’t think so.

That’s a pretty simple illustration of social norms, but you get the idea.

If you live in a household full of people who love to drink and smoke, how well do you think you’d do to tell them that you’d turned over a new leaf and were giving all that up?

You get our point.

Beyond the influence of the social norm, there’s an aspect of PEOPLE that is challenging for most people. But when you master it, you harness the deepest power of PEOPLE.

What’s that challenge?

It’s probably the simplest but most difficult challenge people face, which is getting along with others, especially when those others seem to be so difficult.

Just as we’re hard-wired from evolution with the need to choose, act, and connect, we’re also hard-wired to behave the same way all other animals do, too.

That means we bite and we lick.

That is, normal--and even healthy--relationships are a dance from connection to distance and back. From connection to conflict and back. From rupture to repair.

In fact, the best relationships not only are best at connecting, but they are best at biting and licking--or in human terms, recovering from conflict.

Three strategies to “lick,” connect, and recover include:

Having transformational conversations to transform accomplices and foes into friends and allies
Setting boundaries that communicate what you need and express respect for the other person
Using a proven strategy to resolve interpersonal collisions and mishaps in which people not only walk away mutually satisfied, but have strengthened the relationship because they’ve been able to repair the rupture.

These are three major strategies and each has multiple steps.

But remember how we said that getting along with others is simple to do?

It is simple . . . but not easy.

The good news is that even the biggest journeys start with a single step, a single step that you can take yourself.

CLICK HERE FOR A BRIEF ACTION GUIDE that will help you take the first few small and doable steps.

If you're just joining and missed the series of posts featuring the Be Your Own Best Coach revolutionary Y-PET framework on the Art & Science of Lasting Change, catch up on previous posts below.

Y-PET stands for You, People, Environment, and Things. It’s a framework for change that gives you a systematic and deliberate way to manage the many factors that can either put you into the winner’s circle of positive change or leave you at the back of the pack.