You can’t help those who don’t want help

As someone who operates a self-improvement platform, I am sure you can recognize that I aim to help people. My entire life I wanted to help others, whether my parents, teacher, my friends, whoever.

I always had an intuitive understanding of human emotion and behavior. I also was quite perceptive. Naturally, when I would see someone in an unideal situation and I would see what behaviors were contributing to it, I would let them know, whether they asked or not. Throughout the years of witnessing the backlash my unsolicited analyses, I have also learned that many people do not want help, let alone, help that may indicate they are part of the problem. 

To this day, at times I still offer advice as an impulse reaction however, I have gotten better at being a listening ear and simply ask if they would like my thoughts. And what I have noticed is that someone wanting to hear my advice and then also to do what is recommended is rare unless they came to me specifically for help. 

Why? Because of something I have mentioned before on this platform, sometimes people get comfortable in their suffering or victim mentality. Even if you ask ahead of time if they want to hear your opinion and they say yes, they may very well just be hearing it while already knowing what they are going to do. They already have their plan set and nothing you can say will help as they do not actually want to be helped. 

Buuuuuut, as for those who take the proactive approach to ASK for help, those who come to the platform for help, they are making your advice part of their plan. They value your insights as part of a solution they want to implement. Therefore, when you suggest that their own behaviors are contributing to the problem (as they usually are), they are more likely to empower and help themselves. 

You cannot force someone to take help. You cannot force someone to help themselves. If they want the excuse, the suffering, the circumstances, to avoid solutions or accountability is their intention. 

And it is devastating when it’s someone you care about. Some of the people I love most in the world are the most stubborn and set in their own ways. Time after time they come to me complaining of their situation, blaming others, or even going as far as denying an issue, and I simply nod my head and listen. Time after time, I worked with them on solutions but they either, did not want to hear it, claimed they did not need it, or acknowledged the solution but just didn’t enact it. 

I’ve had to walk away from people whose problems negatively affected those around them, including me, because of their refusal to accept help or help themselves. I’ve had to distance myself emotionally where I do not feel the need to swoop in, I accept that they accept their own problems. And I’ve had to discipline myself to have the same conversations over and over with them because they actively produce their own issues. 

If they want help, they will come. And even know, I have a whole catalog of resources for them. 

If you also struggle with all this, I am sending you so much love. I cannot express how frustrating it is, but please know that you cannot help those who do not want help. 

- Dani 💚💙