Rethinking Persuasion and Influence

Have you ever changed your mind about something after someone has tried to persuade you to change your mind that way? Especially when they go on to later say how they changed your mind, but you know that they didn’t persuade you, you changed your own mind?

Or how about this: have you ever believed so confidently that you persuaded someone, but they insisted that they changed their own mind?

What both of these situations are indicative of is the fact that, as conscious beings, change happens from within. Change is a decision that we decide to make, not what others tell us to make.

Newton’s first law of motion which states that “an object at rest tends to stay at rest and an object in motion tends to stay in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force.” The same can be said about our mind, that our mind does not consider changing unless acted upon by an unbalanced, external force - typically observing a situation and acknowledging our feelings about it.

Therefore, when you think you are powerless, feel that you have no choice in a situation, or if think you are in a situation that you do not want to be in, realize that you think and feel about your situation because you have chosen to do so.

Likewise, when you feel happy about something, think positively about a situation, or even how you perceive of your own self, that this is also a choice.

If we have determined that the choice to change or believe what we want is ultimately ours to make, but that we only make a change when initiated by an external force, we begin to understand how important it is for us to observe the world around us and to recognize that if we truly wish to change that it must be our decision to first allow for ourselves to change.

Thus, we realize that persuasion does not exist. We cannot persuade someone to do anything, and no one can persuade us to do anything. After all, change is the choice of the individual…

If that’s the case, then what are we talking about when we talk about persuasion?

When we talk about persuasion and influence, what we are really talking about is the process of discovering what is relevant and important to someone else and altering our message to resonate with those priorities. The hope is that they will see this new reality as more beneficial to their life, and thus, make their own decision to change.

Next time you’re trying to get someone to see your viewpoint, consider this principle. Take the time to find out what is important to them with the issue at hand, and reconstruct your message in those terms.

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