October 9, 2024 at 2:04pm EST

You Can’t Change Them… Do This Instead…

Hi, it’s Juliana!

One of the hardest parts of having a narcissist in your life is accepting that there’s nothing you can do to help them change.

An exercise that’s helped me and many other people in our community come to terms with this is called “Trial & Error.”

Here’s how it works:

Take a piece of paper and draw a line down the middle.

On the left side…

Write down what you do each time you try to help them change, like:

“I tried addressing the toxic aspects of our relationship.”

And on the right side…

Write down how they respond to your efforts, such as:

“They told me I was having a mental crisis and shunned me for months.”

The reason this exercise works is because when you start tracking your attempts, you’ll reach a point where you think of trying something new…

…only to look back at your list and realize you’ve already tried it.

And it didn’t work. 

Eventually, you run out of new things to try and have to face the reality of the situation, which is there’s nothing you can do to help them change.

It’s not easy.

But…

It’s the first step toward freeing yourself from the endless cycle of trying to help someone who doesn’t want to change.

All the best,

Juliana