7 strategies To Accept People For Who They Are Instead Of Trying To Change Them

How to deal with being triggered

It sounds nice to accept people for who they are. It sounds like something you want to do. But I think we can all agree that it’s no easy task.

Whether it is your mum, your friend, or your boyfriend, you just wish they would be a bit different.

Let’s dig in and see what’s going on. I will give you 7 solid strategies to work with to become more accepting.

Should you accept people for who they are?

Let me start out by saying that there is a lot of behavior you shouldn’t accept. Your mum constantly criticizing your life decisions is a behavior where you need to set a boundary, rather than being more Zen about it.

You can disagree with them but still accept them

Having that said, acceptance will help you feel better.

You should work on this side of yourself because it will help your well-being. Imagine not getting upset by this very behavior, sounds lovely, right?

When you don’t accept people for who they are, you get all worked up and angry about their behavior. You are the one suffering through sleepless nights, tears, and one-way conversations.

You cannot change them

When you have come as far as to ask how to accept people for who they are, you have realized that they are not going to change.

Your boyfriend will always play video games and forget to make dinner; he doesn’t even want to change; he is happy with his form of relaxing.

Now the metaphoric ball is in your corner and you have to try and live with those people for exactly whom they are.

1. Don’t take their behavior to mean something about you

The first thing you need to know about anger and frustration is that those strong emotions rise in you because you make their behavior mean something about you.

You take it personal

In the example with the lazy boyfriend, you might make it mean that he doesn’t care about you and that he doesn’t love you.

Those are two painful conclusions to draw from the situation. No wonder, you want him to change. You are making his actions diminish his love for you.

It’s not video games anymore, it’s your whole relationship. It might be your whole identity at stake.

It’s his coping mechanism

The truth is that playing video games most likely is a coping mechanism for him. That’s how he disconnects from his stressful job or pushes away those feelings of being a failure.

You make their behavior about you, when in fact; their behavior is about them. That goes for your mum and her annoying habits as well. She is just acting in accordance with the cards that were dealt to her.

It’s them, not you

Reframing your experience like this will make you much more accepting.

Ask yourself why their behavior makes you so upset, and work with those feelings. In what way do you make it about you?

2. Practice mindfulness

We often try to change people because we think about the future.

You don’t like that your mother still smokes and never exercises, understandably.

But to accept people for who they are you need to bring your focus back to the here and now.

Listen to the sounds, inhale the scents, and describe your sensory experience.

Ground yourself. You are not responsible for those people.

Stay present

Feel the sole of your feet against the ground. At this moment, everything just is. It is neither good nor bad.

Doing different mindfulness exercises will help you stay present and you will be less worried about the future and less attached to the past.

I also recommend starting to meditate, being present with yourself will make you feel safe. This has helped me tremendously to become a more harmonic person.

3. Understanding where their behavior stems from

A lot of destructive behavior such as drinking too much or being aggressive stems from traumatic experiences in the past.

No one wants to be an asshole, but some people end up behaving that way because they didn’t feel seen and heard in their childhood. Deep down they don’t love themselves.

The same goes for smaller behavior such as leaving dirty laundry on the floor or being overly critical, it’s a learned behavior.

If you want to learn more about human psychology, I recommend my article Manipulative Behavior.

Everyone is born innocent and sweet

Think about your nemesis as a naked innocent child coming into this world.

Empathize with them.

The more sympathy you can feel for them, the more accepting you will become.

Ask them about their behavior

If this person that bothers you is someone close to you, you can ask them why they think they behave the way they do. Getting their explanation will help your emotional state.

The more you understand where they are coming from, the more accepting you will be.

Remember, in our own story, we are always justified. We have reasons for our actions and those reasons make perfect sense to us.

I think it will also help you to understand more about how insecurity work, read my article Signs of insecurity in a man.

4. Find out why their behavior bothers you

Another reason why we are irritated by the very thing that annoys us is that this kind of behavior is a trigger point for us. (Another person wouldn’t even notice those dirty clothes on the floor, and if they did, it wouldn’t annoy them.)

If you want to accept someone who is rude or tactless, think about what those qualities mean to you.

Why are you triggered?

Are those qualities that you are afraid of expressing yourself? Maybe you are not egoistic enough?

The qualities that trigger us the most are often the ones we don’t allow ourselves to have.

Do you have past negative experiences with those qualities?

When we are triggered our brain has opened its filing cabinet, and we are not only suffering the pain of the present but also all previous pain that has happened to us as a result of those qualities.

When your boo leaves the dishes in the sink you remember coming home to a chaotic home as a teenager. You remember your parent’s divorce and all the yelling, you remember feeling unsafe.

No wonder you feel like you are about to cry.

Name the qualities

When you are upset with someone’s behavior it is always helpful to name the very qualities that irritate you. For example, indifference and shallowness.

Knowing why you are triggered will help you feel less triggered.

5. Don’t let their behavior mean something about them

It’s important to know what quality you associate with their behavior, but it is also important to not take their behavior and make it mean something about them.

Just because your mum never calls or is always late, it doesn’t mean that she is selfish or that she doesn’t love you.

When we are not accepting of someone, it is often because we tell a story about who they are as a result of their behavior.

We tell ourselves that they are cheap or shallow and we judge them even harsher than they deserve.

Don’t get tangled in the dance of criticism

If you are locked in a constant conflict with someone close to you, it means that the two of you have a primary and secondary trigger pattern.

For example; you keep on criticizing them, they feel less accepted by you and they are more likely to exhibit the very behavior that annoys you. Since you don’t care about them, why should they care about you?

If you ask how to accept people for who they are you have probably already realized that you need to break the pattern.

Break the pattern

You, my friend, are on the right path.

By not judging them and letting their behavior annoy you, you do stop this destructive pattern you have found yourself in.

Instead of becoming angry, practice kindness and you might get a completely different result.

6. Focus on their positive side  

As humans we are programmed to focus on problems, that’s how we survived in our harsh surroundings. We had to constantly watch out for danger.

But in the safety of modern society, this survival mechanism does not always serve us.

If you are a more negative person than you want to be, know that this is your biological blueprint. You are wired for survival.

Thus, you focus on people’s negative sides, after all, those sides decrease your chances of surviving.

Practice gratefulness

To accept people for who they are, you need to draw your attention to everything that’s great about them. Make a list of all the qualities that makes you appreciate them.

Gratefulness is the opposite of anger and disappointment.

Every time you feel irritation rising in your throat, put your focus back on their positive sides and the joy they bring to your life.

7. Face the consequence of their behavior

Time for a reality check, sometimes a person’s behavior makes us boil over because we know that the way they treat us is unacceptable.

We might know, deep down, that we need to minimize their involvement in our life.

Basically, as a result of their behavior, we might lose them.  

You know it’s a non-negotiable to you

You become upset because you are feeling the pending loss. If this is the case, yes you need to accept this person for who they are, but you also need to keep your boundary.

Reflect on what it will mean to you if they never change. Will you have to walk away?

Are your anger and irritation a result of fear?

A Finale Note

You shouldn’t accept every behavior, but when you ask how to accept people for who they are, these 8 strategies will help you.