Here's the scenario. I'm in session with a couple and we start an intervention that requires stating things from a personal perspective for one person and listening and summarizing for the other (without giving their interpretation or jumping into why). Easy peasy, right?
WRONG.
This isn't a fun topic for people, although I would argue it's one of the most necessary things that people should do. Personally, I love this topic. I love seeing people self reflect in such a way that they can honestly own whatever it is that they're doing in a given situation. I also personally love this topic – I'd rather know what my stuff is then have it metaphorically slap me in the face later on to the point that I feel completely blindsided.
We've all been there. There's that one person who just gets under our skin, who we can't understand, and who operates in a way that makes little to no sense to us.
Let's get clear on a few things before I start getting into this. First of all, when I say difficult people, I don't mean 'people who are intentionally difficult.' I simply mean people who we experience as difficult. That's key here. Secondly, difficult people can include those people who we just don't click with.
I'm just going to come out and say it. Life can be boring, mundane, and monotonous. There. It's out in the open. Can't take it back.
It seems that so many people strive for this "perfect" life, but don't realize that striving for something that doesn't exist without embracing this basic sort of fact (that's clearly a personal bias) that life can be boring at times leads to feeling dissatisfied and unhappy. It's not that I don't want people to strive for better or more or more content or happier, but I want people to be realistic about their strivings.
I'm sure I've read something similar to this somewhere - most things I reflect on come from things I read or hear (probably not alone in that). SO, it was this notion that the best predictors for where you're going to be tomorrow and then the next day and then the next week and so on is not where you are today, but what you're doing.
Basically, the best predictor of future actions are current actions. I'm not going to go so far as to say that nobody can 'move' in their life. I don't think that's true. What I do think is true, however, is that people only move when they put in the effort, intention, and focus on moving. And I think that getting to the point where you're putting all that time and energy into something you don't see results for right away is, well, pretty disheartening. So then we say "eff it" and go back to what we were doing right before.
