What are Manuals?

Our personal rule books

If you guys are anything like me, I’ve acted crazy trying to get other people to behave the way that I want them to behave. Unsurprisingly so, it was always an epic disaster. Deep down I was just trying to get a person to behave certain way because I thought I’ll feel better when they do it.  

What was I even thinking??!!? That’s just the second most impossible thing in the world.

Anyways, whether or not you confess, you too have pretty detailed manuals for people in your life.This manual is like this rule book on how the other person should behave. Like a list of things people are supposed to do in order to operate properly around you. 

“If he would just help out a little more around the house, things would be so much easier.”  

“He should tell me he loves me at least once a day; that’s how good relationships work.” 

“They shouldn’t ask me to do this extra project; now I’m so stressed out.”  

Unmet expectations & resentment

Do you ever hear yourself thinking similar thoughts? If you interact with other humans, chances are you do.  Here’s the deal. We all have these unspoken rules and guidelines for how people “should” behave. 

And over time, we build up pretty thick manuals for the important people in our life. While these rules are great when the other people follow them…  There are also times when they don’t.  And when that happens, we often let ourselves feel pretty terrible.  

This is because we tied all of our emotional life to whether or not they follow it.  Now your big brains might go, aren’t I supposed to have some expectations from the people I love, of course you do! 

But they create their own feelings. You create your own. We get to feel however we want no matter what anyone else does or doesn’t do.  

That there is a VERY LIBERATING thought that I need you to borrow.    See, even though it may seem very justified to have expectations of other people it is also quite damaging and frustrating for ourselves to do so.  

What really creates happiness?

We have these belief systems that if other people would just behave themselves the way that we would like them to behave, then we could be happy.The problem is we don’t even realize that we’re doing this. We think that we have reasonable expectations of people in our life and that they should behave in a way that is reasonable.  

But what we think is reasonable and what other people think is reasonable is often times very different.

One of the first things that I think is really important to remember is that adult people have the ability and freedom to behave however they would like. That includes you. 

Imagine being in a relationship where you’re feeling like you’re responsible for someone else’s needs and they’re feeling responsible for your needs.

Then you’re in a real tight manipulating situation because you’re going to be constantly trying to control that other person so you can be happy. They’re going to be constantly trying to control you and no one is ever going to win. 

Managing expectations

The truth Is, first of all, you can’t control another person. Second of all, there’s nothing they could possibly do to make you as happy as you want to be. 

Most of us can’t control or manage ourselves, and yet we want to control and manage other people. Which is somewhat ridiculous.  

It’s really important to separate requests and expectations when it comes to relationships.

Clients will come to me all the time, you’re telling me I shouldn’t tell my husband that he shouldn’t take out the garbage or I shouldn’t tell my husband that he should be home on time, or I shouldn’t tell my husband that he needs to show up for family outings. 

I say, absolutely. You can make all the requests you want for as many people as you want. But when you tie your emotional happiness to whether they respond or not, that’s when you get yourself into big trouble. 

When you start banging your head against the wall And trying to manipulate them so they’ll behave in the way you want them to behave so you can feel better. That’s when you’re going to get yourself into a spiral of negativity. That’s the manual. 

The Solution?

The alternative is, you make a request and if they don’t honor the request, you take responsibility for how you feel about that.

But knowing that whether they decide to honor those requests or not has nothing to do with you, it has everything to do with them. And you can enjoy them as a person anyway.   The only thing I’m entitled to is taking care of my own emotional life and my own brain to make sure I’m thinking thoughts that serve me.   

Are you willing to give up your manuals? I have found that this sets people up to have very enjoyable, long lasting, conflict free relationships.   

Tune into this podcast episode to gain some eye-opening insights on how to find and keep love.

Manuals