A Spell to Get People To Do What You Want

Spoiler Alert, my love.

There is no magic formula for making other people

change their behavior to suit our needs.

Changing the way others interact with you

starts with what we bring to the interaction.

This time, we’re going to zoom in on those moments

where we're wanting someone else to do something.

We’re going to figure out where our own power is,

and how to channel it into the change we're really looking for.

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Mentioned:

Marie Kondo's book The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up

Make Magic:

You can influence other people's actions and choices

but you cannot choose for them.

Instead, you can take responsibility for

your contribution to the situation.

Look for the ways in which you’re going along

with disrespectful behaviors.

And show YOURSELF the kindness, courtesy, and respect

you want to receive from the people around you.

Transcript: A Spell to Get People To Do What You Want

Natalie Miller: Welcome to Mind Witchery. I’m your host, Natalie Miller, and I’m so glad you’re here. 

Hello, my love. Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, today's spell is such a good one. I'm super, super excited to share it with you: a spell for getting people to do what you want. All right. Off the bat, I have to tell you, when I say "people," a spell for getting "people" to do what you want, when I say "people," by "people," I mean you, OK, because here's the thing. No one can make anyone do anything. And, in fact, I'm guessing that we don't really want to make people do things, right?

Like, even if I want someone to behave in a different way than they are behaving, I don't actually want to compel them or control them or dictate to them what they should do. I want them to come to my desired behavior for them on their own. Yeah? 

So, today's spell, the spell for getting people to do what you want, what it's really focused on are those moments where we're wanting someone else to do something. I want to look more closely at those moments, and to figure out where our own power is, and how to kind of reclaim it and then channel it into the change we're really looking for.

So, a premise of this spell is that no one can make anyone do anything. In fact, sometimes, maybe even often [laugh], we can't make ourselves do things. And that actually, the place where I want something but I can't make it myself, I can't get myself to do it, that is the place right there where we often are wanting other people to do for us what we ourselves are struggling to do.

So, let me give you an example of this. Let's say I want people to respect my time. I want my coworkers or my boss to respect my time. And that is what I'm thinking all the time. "Ugh, they don't respect my time. They don't respect my time." And I want to tell you right now, perhaps, that is true. Perhaps, your boss, your coworkers aren't respecting your time.

But you and I don't have any power when it comes to other people's actions and choices. Certainly, I can influence other people's actions and choices but I cannot choose for them. I cannot make them do things. But I can take full responsibility for my own contribution to the situation, that is, I can look for the ways in which I am not respecting my time. I can look for the ways in which I am going along with what I find to be disrespectful behaviors.

Now, I want to be really clear. I'm not blaming myself for the situation but I am taking responsibility for it. And how do I do this? Well, this is where the spell for getting people—AKA you [laugh]—to do what you want comes in. 

OK. So, happily, you get to begin in full complaining mode [laugh], so you can say, all right, they need to respect my time. OK. And then unpack a little bit. What would that look like? Well, they need to understand that I am only available between 10:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m. They need to respect that I need a full hour for a lunch break. They need to allow me to miss meetings that have little to do with my work.

So, I've taken that idea—they need to respect my time—and I've elaborated it a little bit into specific things that they [laugh] could do to be more respectful of my time. So, now, here's the spell. I go in there, and I change all of those third-person "they" statements into a first-person "I" statement. I need to understand I am only available between 10:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m. I need to do that. 

I said, "They need to respect that I need a full hour for a lunch break." OK. But I need to respect that. I need to make that declaration for my own self, to hold that time sacred for my own self. They need to allow me to miss meetings that have little to do with my work. No, actually, I need to allow myself to miss meetings that have little to do with my work.

OK. So, some of you maybe are like, "Oh, damn, this is so true," [laugh] and some of you are saying, perhaps, "No, no, no, you don't understand. I don't have that kind of power," or even, "Lots of people out there in the world don't have that kind of power." And I agree with you that there are power differentials and, at the same time, I know that our collective evolution depends on each of us being fully seated in the power that we do have, and even collaborating, co-creating with other people in similar situations to augment and expand our power.

So, you know, that first-person "I"—I need to respect that I need a full hour for a lunch break—that could be transformed into a "we"—we need to respect that we need a full hour for our lunch break—in which case I'm joining with other people to say, "Hey, this is what we need." And this, of course, we know does happen all the time in collective bargaining. 

So, I do believe that we can acknowledge and be real about the power differentials and power dynamics in various situations and, at the same time, we can take a stand for the agency and power that each person in and of themselves has. And that's really what this spell is about.

I remember once I was teaching this idea, and a woman said to me, "You don't understand. I can't even go to the bathroom at work." Now, this was not someone doing wage labor. This was an executive for a very fancy hotel chain. [laugh] She said, "I cannot go to the bathroom. My day is so packed, it's so full of meetings that I try to avoid drinking too much water because I don't want to need to go to the bathroom when I cannot."

Now, this extraordinary, powerful woman was in a leadership position in this company and, yet, she was giving away this power to go to the bathroom. And part of the way she was giving it away was by putting it on the people who overscheduled her, believing something very akin to, "They need to respect my time." 

Now, after several months of working together, not only did this lovely person begin drinking water at work and going to the rest room, she also actually discovered that the headquarters of the fancy hotel chain had these gorgeously appointed meditation rooms in the building. Can you believe that? She had no idea that they were there, and she only found them when she started to take responsibility for her own time, for respecting her body and her health and her wellness in her workplace.

And what she discovered is that there were actually other people there who had lobbied for resources like the well-appointed meditation rooms that were there all along. And she only found them—I want to be really clear—she only found them through taking responsibility for doing what she wanted to do, which was to drink and pee at work. OK. So, that's one workplace example.

Here is perhaps my favorite ever example of this. It happened in a group coaching session once upon a time, and a woman was talking about how she had a very difficult time ever getting to do focused creative work in her workplace because people were always interrupting her. And she said, "You know, I have this lovely office, and I have a door. But right next to my door is one of those ceiling-to-floor-length windows. And when people look into my office, and they see me sitting at the desk, they just knock and don't even wait for me to say 'come in' to open the door and ask me some questions, or ask me to look at something."

And she was frustrated about this. She was like, "People are so rude. People are so inconsiderate. My door is closed. They should understand that that means I'm not to be disturbed." And, so, I asked her, "So, do you understand that when your door is closed, that means you're not to be disturbed?" And she was like, "Well, of course, I do."

And I said, "OK. Well, what do you do when they knock and open and ask you a question?" And she was like, "Well, I mean, I'm probably visibly annoyed." And I said, "OK. And what do you do?" And she's like, "Well, I mean, I just answer the question."

I was like, "OK. So, it sounds like you don't fully understand that when your door is closed, that means you're not to be disturbed, because you kind of participate in the disturbing." So, in this moment in this class, a woman raises her hand, and she says, "This is so interesting to me." She says, "You know, nobody really bothers me at work." And I said, "Oh, yeah? Tell us more about that."

And this is what she said. [laugh] This is so great. She said, "Well, so, I have a cubicle. I don't have an office. I just have a cube," and she's like, "and, you know, there's no door or anything to it." She's like, "So, I went to Bed Bath & Beyond, and I bought this shower curtain, and a way to hang it up." And she said, "When I have my curtain closed, people understand I'm not to be disturbed, and nobody interrupts me." 

[laugh] Isn't that fabulous? That was the best moment. We all like were wowed and awed and realizing that the reason the shower curtain worked as a barrier, and the office door didn't work as a barrier, was all about how the person inside was thinking about what that barrier meant. Like, does she see the door as a door? What does she make the door mean? How is she responding to someone coming to the door?

I was talking to my partner about this spell, and he said, "Oh, yeah, it's kind of like that idea that you teach people how to treat you," and I do think that is a part of this here. Even further and deeper than that though, I think it's acknowledging that all situations are co-created. We are co-creating, no matter the power dynamic, we are co-creating. We do have our own agency, always. We do have choice, always.

Now, sometimes, those choices are more limited. But the more fully, I believe, we stand in our own agency, the more fully we take responsibility for our contributions to the situations, the more empowered we are because our choices are aligned with our values and our desires. And when we are choosing in accordance with what we want and with who we want to be, I think we glow with power and influence, and I think our contribution grows. Our influence is strengthened.

So, when I was thinking about this spell, and kind of where it came from, immediately what came to mind for me is a passage from Marie Kondo's Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, which I think is a phenomenal book, especially because of moments like this. And I am going to read extensively from the book.

So, what Marie Kondo is talking about, she's asking the question, like, "Well, what do you do when, here you are, you're ready to tidy up but your family is messy?" And she has this amazing little section of the book that is titled If You're Mad at Your Family, Your Room May Be the Cause. [laugh] 

So, she says, "It can be very annoying when your family doesn't cooperate with your attempts to achieve the ideal home." And then she talks about how she has, herself, experienced this many times in the past. And she talks about how she would just throw people's stuff away, and she was obsessing over other people's rooms, and the communal spaces, and everything. OK.

Now, here's where it gets really good and where it relates to the spell for getting people to do what you want. So, she says, "After I was banned from tidying other people's spaces, and I had nowhere to turn but my own room, I took a good look around it, and was struck by a surprising fact. I realized with a shock that I was guilty of exactly the same thing I had been so bitterly accusing my family of doing. Not being in a position to criticize others, I sat down with my garbage bags, and focused on tidying my own space."

So, there she was, believing that her family needed to tidy up. Her family needed to declutter. Her family needed to clean things out. And when she actually took a look at her own room, her own contribution, what she found was a mess. OK. She keeps writing.

"After about two weeks, a change began to occur in my family. My brother, who had refused, no matter how much I'd complained, to get rid of anything, began a thorough sorting of his belongings. In a single day, he disposed of more than 200 books. Then my parents and my sister gradually began to sort and discard their clothes and accessories. In the end, my whole family was able to keep the house much tidier than before."

Maybe you have experienced this, my friend. Maybe there is some place in your life where you just stepped into a greater level of integrity when you started doing for yourself what you wanted other people to do. Like, for instance, for me, a year ago, I wanted people to invest in me. Oh, I wanted them to invest in me. I wanted them to believe in the value of my work. And the way that I made that happen was that I went first. 

This is something I say to my clients all the time. "That's what you want people to do? Well, then, you first. You go first." I wanted people to invest in me so I needed to invest in me. I wanted people to believe in the value of my work so I needed to believe in the value of my work. 

Working on that project, on me taking care of my own thing, did exactly what Marie's own tidying did in her family. It created this energy, this integrity, this influential power that helped us to get what we wanted. It helped Marie get a tidier household. It helped me to attract and sign clients who valued my work, who were willing to invest in my work. I went first. Marie went first.

OK. So, back to Marie. Remember, she's got the messy household. I know this resonates with some of you. She's got this messy household, and she says, "To quietly work away at disposing of your own excess is actually the best way of dealing with a family that doesn't tidy. As if drawn into your wake, they will begin weeding out unnecessary belongings, and tidying without your having to utter a single complaint. It may sound incredible but when someone starts tidying, it sets off a chain reaction."

OK. There's more. There's more. [laugh] You just need all Marie's wisdom on this one. "Cleaning quietly on one's own generates another interesting change: the ability to tolerate a certain level of untidiness about your family members." So, she says, "Once I was done with my room, I didn't feel constantly irritated by the stuff that belonged to other people." 

I think this is fascinating, and I think this is a version of righteous discomfort, which I've talked about, like, just a couple of episodes ago, right? Like, can I be with the discomfort of cleaning up my own mess? Can I be with the discomfort of holding a boundary? Can I be with the discomfort of investing in myself? Can I feel so aligned and have so much integrity in my own choices that other people's choices don't fuck with me as much? Yeah?

OK. Last little bit from Marie. "If you feel annoyed with your family for being untidy, I urge you to check your own space, especially your storage. You are bound to find things that need to be thrown away."

OK. This next sentence is in big, bold letters. "The urge to point out someone else's failure to tidy is usually a sign that you are neglecting to take care of your own space." Right? And then the very last line of this paragraph is, "The first step is to confront your own stuff."

And I would say that is the takeaway for every single situation where we are annoyed with people or wanting to control other people. The first step is you need to confront your own stuff, right, because confronting your own stuff, your own reasons for not wanting to take a lunch break, your own reasons for allowing people to interrupt you, your own reasons for attending meetings that you think are bullshit, your own reasons for undervaluing your work, when you confront that, and then you get into alignment with what you value and what you want, then you will be solidly in your own power, and you won't want to give it away to other people, that is, [laugh] you won't need other people to save you from the situation that you find yourself in because you will be creating a new situation.

Please believe me on that. When you go first, when you do for yourself the things that you are wanting everyone else to do, there is such magnetic, vibrant, unbelievable power in that. I want you to experience that, no matter where you find yourself. OK?

So, the spell for getting people to do what you want, number one, "people" is you. You first. You first. What is it that you want them to do? Like, make a list. Be in full complaint mode as you make a list of all the things you want them to do. And then, one-by-one, go through, switch it from "they" to "I." I need to do that. I should be respecting that. I should understand this. 

And ask yourself, how can I do that? What would that look like? How could I begin to do what I want? And then watch magic happen, just like Marie Kondo wrote about, the shift, the change that you create in your situation, in the way people respond to you, and even often in the relationships, in the collaborations, in the communities that you find yourself. 

In that case, you won't need or even want people to do what you want. You won't want to control them because you'll be learning from them. You'll be inspired by them. Their choices will help you to refine and understand your own choices, and, in that way, we will all grow. That's the world I want to make, and I hope that you will step all the way into your power, and make it with me. Even just listening to this episode is a big step toward that. 

All right, my love, so wherever you feel the most complain-y, wherever you feel the most annoyed, that is the place to go clean up your own stuff. Start doing for yourself what you want them to do. Go first. It's you first, and then see the magic that happens. It truly is life-changing magic.

OK. Big thanks to a huge contribution from Marie Kondo today, and thank you so much for listening. See you next time. Bye for now.

Thank you for listening to this episode of Mind Witchery. To catch all the magic I’m offering, please subscribe to the show, or if you want a little bit of weekly witchiness in your inbox, sign up for my Sunday Letter at mindwitchery.com. If today’s episode made you think of a friend or loved one, your sister, your neighbor, please tell them about it. We need more magic-makers in this troubled world. 

Like all good things, this podcast is co-created by stellar people. Our music is by fabulous DJ, artist, and producer, Shammy Dee. Our gorgeous art is by the sorcerers at New Moon Creative. Mind Witchery is produced in conjunction with Particulate Media, K.O. Myers, executive producer. And I am Natalie Miller. Till next time.

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