And how might things be different if we sent that message, "I believe in you," rather than "You need to change"?
Most social causes strive to change people: to persuade them to adopt a certain viewpoint, get involved in their communities, stop polluting, start exercising, take time to enjoy music, stay in school.
Contrary to the popular notion of resistance to change, I've found that people are more open to change than one might expect, even eager for it. What we object to is being changed; understandably, I'd say. Like the framework of helping, the notion of changing another person carries hidden messages: "I have the right answers and you don't, so you'd better listen up. After all, I know what's good for you. (In fact, I'm better than you.)"
Well! With that music playing in the background, it's little surprise that we see people resist our efforts to change them, however honorable and well-intentioned we believe ourselves to be.
Perhaps paradoxically, change happens more easily when we begin to genuinely see and honor the assets and unique perspectives that others have to offer. In other words, when we support their strengths instead of trying to fix what we think are their "defects."
This insight harkens back to the work of Abraham Maslow, who was the first psychologist to study healthy people. He observed that healthy chickens are good choosers. For example, they naturally select the food that is best for them. Similarly, when people are supported, feeling full and strong, they are apt to see more choices and to move naturally toward health and growth.
It's also reinforced by recent findings about how the brain works.
Researchers have discovered that the brain reacts strongly when it senses something unexpected in the environment. These "error signals" come from the orbital frontal cortex, a part of the brain that is closely connected to the amygdala--the brain's fear circuits. When these structures are activated, they draw energy away from the areas of the brain that support higher intellectual functions.
Telling a person to change a habitual behavior triggers this built-in mechanism. The natural result is that the person becomes uncomfortable, emotional, and impulsive. So the research says that a person who is "resistant" to change, or "defensive" about criticism, simply has a normally functioning human brain.
What if we stopped using up so much of our energy trying to change people?
Might it even be useful to go so far as to learn to accept (or even appreciate) the very behaviors we object to, which may have a value that we simply have yet to understand? For example, we might learn to see what is commonly called "resistance" as a person's way to express their desire to be heard, to be taken seriously as someone who matters, someone who cares. Besides, it's easy, I've found, to experience a choice for a person that they don't experience for themselves; that is, to see options for them that may be outside their awareness.
Taking this idea a step farther, those "undesirable" behaviors may even be a gift to us. "I have learnt silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet strange, I am ungrateful to these teachers," wrote Kahlil Gibran. In the end, loving kindness toward those teachers (a tenet, of course, of Buddhism, Islam, Judaism, Christianity, and other faiths) is bound to leave some for ourselves as well--just as in virtually every faith and culture the Golden Rule urges us toward an ethic of reciprocity.