You don’t have to change someone’s beliefs to change their behaviour

It's more important to help people do the practice rather than working on changing someone else's mind!

Image by Sven Lachmann from Pixabay

Don’t push your beliefs and ways as the superior choice

When someone says to me “Trust me, it’s going to work” I immediately get suspicious and it’s more difficult for me to believe in the process.
What I would prefer to hear is “Would you like to try it this way and see how it goes?”. It has a much bigger chance to make me try. I don't think that I'm alone in this.

Give people choice and allow them to try and test.

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I will never forget a puppy instructor course I took and one puppy owner we worked with. At some point, she said “You are so kind to this dog. I don’t have time to wait for him to walk so slowly, I need to call him” I said, “It’s great to have strategies for different times, here we are learning a new approach and when you can’t use it, you still have a tool that works.” Then I or my colleague asked her “Do you think there is a time in a day when you can practice what we are learning here?” She said, “Yes, in the morning I have more time but not later in the day”. We said, “Brilliant! Just a little bit of practice is already great!”.
In two days we heard from a team who worked with her, she said: “I really like how this slowing down works. My puppy is much more confident”.
That was the biggest reward we could get! She not only tried for herself, she even saw the benefits herself. We didn’t push, we invited to try. No one likes being forced to do something but they might be open to trying.

Still. Not everyone will!

This way has a much bigger chance to work but some people won’t be willing to try. Let them have this choice. They might come back later when they will feel ready or you can find someone else who will be ready now. Allow people to have their choices and don’t use force. That’s what force-free means to me. If you are a force-free trainer, be a force-free teacher for people too. It’s not just about giving animals choice, it’s about giving this choice to humans too. We create more opportunities, we teach new things and if we show the benefit of it, they will use it. If there is a value in what we ask to do, the human and animal will do it. For some humans, the value might not be clear or the cost might be too big and that’s ok, you never know if they won’t come back to try some other time.

What not to do

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Don't judge their ways. Even if you feel that what people are doing is wrong, take some time to understand why they are doing this. Using electric collars (also called e-collars or shock collars) is a good example. Many trainers see it as cruelty. It’s banned by law in many countries and there are studies that support this view. Yet, what good does it do if someone comes to you to ask your advice (let alone if he doesn't even ask for your advice!) and you judge them as cruel because they used this tool? Have you ever wondered why they use it? Don’t judge, don’t hate, explain that you believe there are alternative approaches that work very well in the long run without side effects. Ask them: “Are you willing to learn something new and see how it goes?” Some people will, some people won't just yet. It can be a long process to change the mentality of some people. When you judge them, both of you will get upset and you will have harder time explaining your points. It's not helpful for anyone.

Is it easy to stop judging people? Not at all! I still do that but now I am able to catch myself and realise that my judgment is not helpful. If it is not easy for me to stop being judgmental then why would I expect people who use different training techniques to change their ways easily just because I have good (in my opinion) arguments? If someone came to you and said all the arguments against your long-held beliefs, would you immediately just start believing in what he is saying? It's not a straightforward path to change the way we do things. I believe it's best to start with yourself. Change yourself before you demand it from other people and see how your change influences others around you.

Photo by Utopia By Cho on Unsplash