I recently had a client who was determined to change his wife’s mind about something that he disagreed with. He was frustrated and upset that she wouldn’t “listen to reason.” He had explained to her how ridiculous her point of view was. He had told her that her thoughts and beliefs defied logic. Somehow, all of that had failed to convince her.

How is it that people change their minds?

Interestingly enough, the answer is embedded in the question. People, over time, develop thought and beliefs that are based on their experience, knowledge, and interactions with others. Once formed, those thoughts and beliefs become part of the person. They help him or her define who he/she is. As long as those thoughts and beliefs enable him/her to go about life in a reasonably good way, they remain unquestioned and firm.

However, when these thoughts and beliefs are challenged or questioned, a person must then either examine them or defend them. For most people, these thoughts and beliefs are so much part of them that questioning them would require a major internal reorganization. So what they do is to defend them. If the person came to these thoughts and beliefs in a reasoned way, then he/she will have a logical argument or facts to back up his/her point of view. If they were formed because of experiences, then he/she may have personal examples he/she can cite that make the thoughts and beliefs seem valid and reasonable.

However, if, upon examination, the person finds that his/her facts were wrong or the conclusions he/she drew were not well founded, then he or she can change his/her mind.

And therein lies the challenge. Because when we have formulated thoughts and beliefs that have become part of ourselves, it is very hard to give them up, even when we may understand that they are not well thought out or valid any longer. Coming to a different point requires quite literally, a change of mind. All of the neural pathways that we have been reinforcing for a long period of time now need to be changed. Now, A no longer leads to B, it leads to C, and that is difficult to hold onto when it has led to B for so long.

In many cases people really resist change. They say things like “that’s the way I am” and “I have always disliked (fill in the blank) and I always will” and despite facts to the contrary, they will maintain their old thoughts and beliefs.

For people who like to influence others, it is important to know a few things:

1. Change of thoughts and beliefs takes time. People do not change overnight and certainly not as the result of one discussion, no matter how hot and heavy. You can wear someone down, but that doesn’t mean you’ve changed his/her mind. Change is a process that goes on internally and pushing from the outside does not hurry the inside.

2. The more one badgers the other, the less likely the other is to consider the facts and arguments on the other side. When badgered and nagged, people generally will try all the harder to hold onto what they believe. Generally it will cause the other to solidify his/her opposition to the new idea. At that point it becomes a struggle for his/her identity and integrity as a person.

3. Arguing beyond a certain point may yield what looks like victory, but in the end, the other will either return to opposition later or passive aggressively oppose the other side.

How to be effective:

Trust that the other person is a healthy, intelligent person and that he/she is capable of thinking for him/herself and that if he/she is given information, he/she will examine it and decide what to do with it.

Give the person the time and space to consider things. Understand that relationships are not about how wins and who loses, who converts who to their point of view. Relationships are about mutual respect, so be respectful.

Be patient.

And most of all, understand that you yourself might sometimes need to rethink your own thoughts and beliefs.

Several years ago I read an article about the differences between men and women. I generally stay as far away as possible from such articles since I see them as drawing distinctions that may be true of some specific people, but certainly are not true of all men or women.

People who describe men and women as being from two different universes, I think, omit a great deal of data that contradict their thesis. In fact, I think of men and women as people, each one possessing his or her own package of talents, abilities, and, yes. foibles.

But this article talked about men and women being different in terms of their ability to be doing several things at the same time and it pointed to some reportedly reputable research to that effect. The article said that men, by and large, concentrate on the thing they are doing. They may be able to do two things at one time (like walk and chew gum) but add a third, and the man is not able to cope. Women, the article says, naturally multi-task. Of course, this too is an over-simplification and there are large numbers of men who also multi-task. This article also applies to them.

Women, especially married women with children, are constantly doing more than one thing—talking on the phone and preparing a meal and braiding a daughter’s hair. Women have a lot of discrete tasks that they must accomplish, all of which take a lot of time, but some of which involve waiting time. So a woman might be mixing a cake batter when a child starts crying. She goes to comfort the child and the dryer buzzer goes off, so she goes with the child to the dryer as the doorbell rings and on the way to the door drops off the child at a toy box. Once finished at the door, she finishes mixing the cake and just as she is about to pour it into the pan, the telephone rings, but she just continues what she is doing, juggling the telephone, putting away the eggs and the milk, and closing the refrigerator door with her foot.

It’s a necessity for women who are mothers of young children to multi-task. Many women become very good at it. However, it can become an insidious handicap.

Over the years, women learn to be thinking of many things at the very same time, thereby accomplishing many tasks, but that also means that no one task has the advantage of full concentration. After years of multi-tasking, it becomes difficult to be fully present in the task and in the moment.

Time and again, I have met women who are so used to not being able to finish a sentence, that when they are finally able to speak, still can’t finish a sentence. They interrupt themselves mid-thought because another thought is present and it seems more important at the time. In fact, women often train themselves to be inattentive and to have very short attention spans.

What was a functional behavior when children were young becomes maladaptive when the woman is finally able to have uninterrupted adult conversations.

There are ways to identify if this is a problem for you:

1. Do you find yourself forgetting what you are talking about in the middle of a sentence?

2. Do you find yourself searching for familiar words?

3. Do you find yourself wondering what you heard on the news immediately after you heard it?

4. Do your husband and children report your having had conversations with them that you don’t recall?

If the answer to three or more questions is yes, then you might do well to begin teaching yourself to focus and be fully present in what you are doing.

There are several ways to do this. You can start by to turning off the radio or TV if you are reading or working on the computer. When you are speaking, keep your mind on the subject, “looking” ahead a few sentences so that you stay on the right path. You need to understand and believe that you don’t have to accomplish everything at the same time. It’s really OK to wait until you are finished with one thing before starting the next. Remember that what you are saying or doing is important enough to pay attention to. You don’t need to be in a frenetic rush to accomplish everything. After all, if you are truly present in the moment, then you will feel more centered and relaxed and you will live life to its fullest.

I don’t know where it comes from. I don’t know how to stop it. But I can tell you that one of the most powerful forces working against a good marriage is competition. I have observed, over the years, dozens if not hundreds of young couples embroiled in marital discord. He is unhappy with her. She is unhappy with him. He tells me how she is inadequate and she tells me that if I want to really know what inadequate is, I should spend a day with him.

Sometimes they sit there in my office and it seems as if both husband and wife have as the goal for the session to show me how superior they are to their mate.

And I wonder. Why does one have to be right and one wrong? Why can’t both be happy with the other. Sure her hair gets in the drain and her pantyhose are always draped over the shower door when he’s about to run a shower. But look again and you’ll see his socks on the floor and the stubble from his beard in the sink.

Even if the couple doesn’t squabble, their competition can come out in other destructive ways. The most destructive of these is the inability to appreciate the other. After all, if this person is your competitor, how can you enjoy his/her achievements? How can you appreciate when he/she is praised by others. Doesn’t that mean that he/she has scored a point over you? Such partners actually resent the other’s achievements.

At some point in marriage, there needs to be a realization that the two of you are a team. You are working together to make a full and rich life. It is, of course, not a competition, but in fact, a cooperative effort and therefore one’s success is good for the other.

Years ago when women first entered the workforce as professionals in large numbers, there was a phenomenon of men becoming angry and resentful of their wives’ success. The man would feel upstaged by a woman whose earning power exceeded his. When I mentioned the phenomenon to my husband, he commented, “Let’s give it a try!”

It is only when each person begins to see the other as an asset and not a competitor that couples can really become strong and feel secure. When a husband takes pride in his wife’s achievements in her home and professional life and a woman similarly appreciates her husband’s accomplishments in his life, then both feel loved and secure and both can enjoy the fruits of their labor. Praise and appreciation from others feels good. Praise and appreciation from a spouse is a precious gift that only a spouse can give.