You Can Change Other People

CHAPTER 22HOW NOT TO GET DISTRACTED: KEEP YOUR GPS ON

It's easy to get distracted from your objectives. When things get hard or complicated or a little confusing, distractions are tempting. They protect us from feeling discomfort.

The Opportunity step may be uncomfortable for your conversation partner because it's the point where they imagine a new direction—the point of forward movement where they let go of the comfort of resignation to an unsolvable problem and grab hold of the discomfort of trying again. Trying something new can be scary, especially when it requires shifting from helpless victim to accountable actor.

Because it's scary, your partner may pursue distractions—red herrings that may take you off your game so they can avoid taking a risk. They're not doing it maliciously or even on purpose. But the result will be a frustrating conversation that keeps them stuck. You need to keep them on track.

Don't take the bait: don't indulge, and don't argue. Both strategies will bring you to dead ends, or loops where you go round and round, failing to gain traction.

Instead, simply acknowledge them and move on. Here's how to bypass the most common distractions.

DISTRACTION: BLAMING OTHERS

One way our conversation partner can distract us from the process of change is by criticizing the people around them: The boss is an idiot. The teammates are jerks. The spouse is a nag. The kids are rude.

When they blame someone else, they're off the hook. “There's nothing I can do, because ...