I recently listened to a friend give a post-mortem on ending a business relationship he’d worked on developing for quite some time.
As we were talking, we got into observing some life lessons and out of nowhere I realized that one particular lesson has continued to hold disproportionate weight in my life — that people don’t change. Or put a different way: you can’t change people.
Now of course it’s possible that people can change: perhaps slightly, or in a way that becomes suitable or compromise-able, but my personal experience always seems to be that such a relationship is unsustainable in the long run. In particular this is difficult for me because I tend to be extremely loyal and put a ton of effort into relationships of all sorts — I like to make things work.
That said, whenever I have compromised my own beliefs, or convinced myself that just ‘giving someone time’ would result in the change I was looking for, I’ve been wrong.
So what’s my takeaway? I don’t know; I guess I need to trust my gut more often and be willing to make hard calls earlier, whether in hiring, dating or friendship.
The post Reflecting on a Life Lesson: Changing People appeared first on Leveraging Ideas.