Motivation: Why you’re stuck even while in therapy
If you go to therapy, you expect to learn something new and to change the way you see things or change something that you’re doing. You will be sold on many different programs and techniques that will do this for you.
What you generally will NOT be sold on is negotiation. Generally, most therapists will hand you a copy of their policies and ask you to sign them, and that’s the end of negotiating in terms of pricing, logistics, and agreements. You either agree or disagree.
What if I told you that negotiation should not stop there, and should extend to the very treatment that you receive as well? What if I told you that if you do NOT negotiate what you want out of treatment, you’ll end up wasting a lot of time and money? What if I told you that if you negotiated appropriately, you can gain faster results? Let’s address each of these points as to how they work in therapy and how they may apply to you.
Change is a powerful industry and motivator for many people. However, change doesn’t come for free. I’m talking much more than just a monetary price tag. If you wished to change, you must be willing to give something else up, commit to a strict decision, or pay a “price”. That’s just the way that the universe and the world works. So why is it important to negotiate this?
It’s because you’ll always have GOOD reasons to hold onto what you’ve been doing already. Ambivalence is a powerful factor for people who want to change. In my experience, almost 100% of people I’ve worked with show ambivalence to change. That’s because when I ask them to give something else up, commit to a strict decision, or pay a “price” they usually give me non-committal answers. We can prove that even you have this ambivalence in 5 minutes with the exercise below.
Write down one thing that you want to change in your life right now. Keep it nice, simple, and specific. Don’t write a huge wish list, just write down one thing that you don’t like that’s happening in your life that you want to change right now. It could be wanting to learn an instrument, improving your mood, dating, overcoming your fears, letting go of anger, or building self-esteem.
What I want to change: ___________________________
Then, write down a number from 0-100% how motivated you are to do whatever it takes to make that change happen within the next 1-7 days. 100% means, “I don’t care what the recommendations are, I will do everything that is recommended to me, no questions asked!”. 0% means, “I refuse to do anything right now!”
Motivation: ________ (0-100%)
Now write down a list of GOOD reasons to AVOID/NOT DO whatever it takes to make that change happen within 1-7 days. Some good reasons could include:
1. I’m busy right now
2. I need to take care of another project/thing right now
3. I’m too stressed/overwhelmed to add more stuff on my plate right now
4. I’m too scared of trying, failing, and then not wanting to try ever again
5. I’m too depressed/unmotivated to even get started.
6. My problems are real and I cannot just talk myself out of it
7. I don’t like being told what to do
8. I should be able to change on my terms, not anyone else’s
9. I’ve already tried what’s been recommended to me; it just doesn’t work!
10. etc.
Did you write down the motivation level and some GOOD reasons to NOT do whatever it takes to make change happen? If you haven’t, please do yourself a favor. Take out a pen/pencil or open a word processor on your computer, and start writing things down. Writing what you want to change will take 30-45 seconds max. Writing down a number will take less than 5 seconds. Writing 5-10 GOOD reasons will take around 2-5 minutes.
Once you’ve written everything down, look at your motivation and all the GOOD reasons. You see what you just did here? You wrote down something you wanted to change, but then you told yourself that you’re either not 100% committed to it or you had a bunch of good reasons to avoid making that change. Therefore, is it any surprise why you’ve been stuck?
If you decided to work with a therapist, and the therapist also assumed you were 100% willing to do whatever it took to improve your life, how well do you think that’d go for you considering how almost everybody (including yourself) is ambivalent on change?
Your therapist will probably become frustrated chasing after you and trying to convince you to do their program or their special techniques. Nobody likes to be told to do anything, so you’ll likely push back by “forgetting” to do assignments, showing up late to appointments, cancelling at the last minute, or just generally feeling uncomfortable/dissatisfied/distant while in sessions.
To properly negotiate your treatment, you’ll have to have an honest conversation with your therapist about what actions are necessary on your part to reach your goals. You can discuss this with your therapist, or simply let them know directly that you’re feeling ambivalent about their recommendations. If your therapist is also serious about helping you change, they’d hold your feet to the fire. They’d tell you that they’d only be willing to work with you if you can make a 100% commitment. If you could not make that commitment, the therapeutically appropriate action is to let you go so that you can have time to think about it and make a decision before coming back to do therapy.
Once you’re able to negotiate and agree to a 100% commitment, this can speed up the pace of treatment and recovery for you. This is because now your therapist knows that you’ll be working with them. They won’t have to drag you along or push you to do anything. Paradoxically, you’ll feel more empowered because you’ve made a strong decision for yourself and committed to doing something to help yourself without your therapist telling you what to do.
When you know what you want and are 100% committed to getting it, you’ll be fully aware of your therapist’s role. A therapist is an empathic, knowledgeable, and oftentimes flawed guide for your own needs. However, if you’re not 100% committed to getting what you want, you’ll be in a clingy, dependent relationship with your empathic, knowledgeable, and oftentimes flawed therapist.
You’ll subconsciously hope your therapist will fix things or make it “easier” for you to change. Some therapists may actually enjoy this role because it makes them feel like they’re your “rescuer” who has all the answers to your questions. They may really love keeping you in their practice for years because it makes them feel needed and useful! You may even like that because they seem like a really good friend who listens and doesn’t expect much out of you.
You have a lot more power than you realize in therapy. While the programs and techniques can be variably helpful, the only one who will always be able to dictate the flow of your own progress is you. Making a commitment and allowing yourself to be held accountable may seem unfair or non-compassionate. You may look around and wonder why other people don’t need to do this kind of thing. You may ask yourself why you have to conform to expectations. You may feel angry or hurt at the thought of being coerced.
In my experience, proper negotiation is one of the fairest and most compassionate things to do. It is definitely not coercion. It’s a practice that goes back to Buddhism, Stoicism, and Christianity: to respect your values, to recognize your own journey to change, and to always hold you in high esteem by allowing you to choose what you want. This approach can create great therapy experiences. The trade off is that it can be quite a bit of hard work, pain, and effort. Ultimately, whether you want to go through that is up to you. If you decided you could, fantastic changes will always happen. I’ve seen it countless times in my practice. I’m certain you can do the same for yourself. I would never ask someone to do anything if I didn’t believe in their own power to do it.
