Day 16 - Understanding a way to do something

For the negotiations section

Generally if you want your partner to do something, it can help to imagine a pathway by which they do it.

Say for example you want them to dress better. You can go around hoping that they get inspired somehow, from the models on the internet, or the cool hedge fund guys you see around town. You hope they would be inspired, care enough about you to make you happy, and change.

But it can help out to actually imagine the steps that you might do to get there, that a person might do to get there, and that they might do to get there.

First of all if they need new clothes, can they afford it? Are there thrift stores nearby? Do they enjoy shopping?

If they enjoy shopping and looking good, and aren’t, they are probably depressed. “Why are they depressed” would be a better starting point than “why are they not respecting me by not being depressed and looking good.”

If you point out to them that they are not dressing as stylishly as they usually do, they would probably mutter about how they’re doing as best as they can and to please leave them alone.

Perhaps they do not like their body, and don’t really believe that anything would actually look good on them. In that scenario, you just getting them specific items you want them to wear can work very well. If they are default just reaching for things because they do not believe in their own good appearance, then if you replace their things with comfortable things on their body that are also things you want them to be wearing, they will probably wear them.

But in that case, if you start talking to them about why they “should dress better” they would probably run away in a fit of tears because they already think they are ugly and a person they love is drawing attention to it.

Meanwhile, somebody who wants to be more stylish, but can’t afford it, would probably glitter all up at the suggestion of taking them on a shopping spree as a present. but you “telling them to do it” would make them feel a lot of negative emotions, as this is something they want to do, but cannot.

There are also people who are stubborn and do not want to be told what to do. If you tell them that you want to take them shopping, they would be stubborn about it because they like being bossed around. They go shopping when their friends all go to the store, or when there is a sale. That way it feels special, not like a chore.

As you can see, if you want your partner to dress better, there can be a large variety of options depending on the situation. But a simple “i would like you to dress better” might be met with a lot of resistance, even across a variety of levels of desire to do the thing they are asking you to do and a different variety of intrinsic motivation they have to do it.

And idea that "the problem is their lack of intrinsic motivation” can be keeping you away from a problem solving mode around actually solving the problem.