Pull, don't push: how psychologists help a loved one actually change

The Short Version

Four people who study change came at the question from different directions: a social psychologist (Dolly Chugh), a self-help host (Mel Robbins), an organizational psychologist (Adam Grant) and a clinical psychologist (Stuart Ablon). They reach the same practical verdict. Lecturing, pressuring, nagging and offering advice nobody asked for don't produce lasting change, and they often make it less likely. What works is drawing change out of the other person:

• Chugh: model the change yourself, welcome clumsy attempts, and notice progress.
• Robbins: let the change become the other person's own idea, often by asking a question rather than making a statement.
• Grant: use motivational interviewing, which means asking open questions and reflecting back until the person finds their own reasons.
• Ablon: start with empathy, then share your concern rather than your solution, then solve the problem together.

They differ on why people don't change. Robbins starts from "if they wanted to, they would." Ablon insists people "do well if they can," so a stuck person is usually missing a skill, not motivation. That difference changes what "pulling" looks like in practice.

Table of contents

What They Said

Dolly Chugh: model, invite, reward, because you can't make anyone change

Chugh is a social psychologist and professor at NYU Stern. Robbins introduces her as someone whose "entire field of expertise is studying why people won't change" [1]. Before she offers any tools, she explains why change is hard for everyone, including the person who wants someone else to change.

Two bodyguards that keep change out. Chugh says the mind has two bodyguards [1]:

• Energy. The brain saves effort by running most of life on autopilot. She says that in a snap of the fingers we process something like 11 million small unconscious thoughts but only about 40 conscious ones. That is why you can arrive home with no memory of the commute. Knowing what you should do lives in those few conscious thoughts. Habits run the rest.
• Ego. This is our need to protect the identity we care about. She cites a study suggesting people value affirmation of their identities more than their favourite food, time with a friend, or even sex.

Health advice to a loved one hits both bodyguards at once. Exercise costs energy, and being told what to do threatens a core need Chugh calls agency [1]. Robbins jokes that nobody tells Mel Robbins what to do, not even Mel Robbins [1].

What unlearning feels like. Chugh demonstrates the gap between knowing and doing with a live Stroop test. Robbins has to name the ink colour of colour words. She manages when word and colour match. She stumbles when they conflict, even though she can describe exactly what she's supposed to do [1]. Chugh's point is that two effortless skills, reading and seeing colour, suddenly collide, and the friction Robbins feels is what change feels like. Unlearning has two steps: letting go of what you already know how to do, and then learning the new thing [1].

That should build empathy for the person you want to change. As Chugh puts it, "We want grace for our own mistakes and learning curve, and we want accountability for everyone else's" [1]. She adds that "you can't learn from a mistake you're still defending" [1]. This happens when we try to prove ourselves instead of improving. Her alternative identity is being "goodish" rather than good: "Goodish is actually better than good because you're constantly getting better" [1]. Being goodish doesn't mean letting yourself off the hook. If you say something hurtful, you own the harm, learn, and do better, without deciding you're a bad person [1].

Pull versus push. When Robbins asks how to help others change, she admits her instinct: "I'm trying to force" [1]. Chugh answers with a joke about her own parenting. Her most effective technique, she says, is singing badly to her kids. "If I'm saying, do this, do that, nobody's listening. I'm not getting anyone's attention. And then I start singing, you are my sunshine" [1]. She keeps going until they do the thing. "It's a little bit of a pull versus a push, right?" [1]

Push techniques direct and force. Pull techniques create conditions in which people want to act on their own [1]. She doesn't pretend pull is quick: "That almost always takes longer. Always. Then push. However, if it works, it lasts longer as well" [1]. Then comes the core of her model: "Realistically, you can model change? You can invite change. You can reward change. But you cannot make anyone change" [1].

Each of the three verbs has a specific meaning:

• Model. Chugh tells a fable about Gandhi, which she says "may or may not be true" [1]. A family travels a long way to ask him to tell their son to stop eating sugar. Gandhi asks them to come back in two weeks, "because two weeks ago, I was still eating sugar" [1]. Applied at home: if your partner snaps at the kids, don't critique them. Talk about your own struggles with snapping and what has helped you, such as eating a snack in the car before walking in [1].
• Invite. This is not issuing an invitation to change. It means giving grace to awkward first attempts instead of criticising them, because clumsy early attempts are what unlearning looks like [1].
• Reward. Tell people, in their love language, that you noticed and appreciated their effort [1].

Ask before you advise. When a friend keeps ignoring your advice, Chugh's first question is whether they ever asked for it [1]. She cites the WAIT rule, Why Am I Talking?, popularised by Michael Bungay Stanier in The Coaching Habit. Talking at someone about their problem takes away their agency [1]. Instead she suggests asking: "do you want to be heard, hugged, or helped? And then my addition to that rule is or high-fived" [1]. She defines each option:

• Heard: "they need to vent."
• Hugged: "they need to feel loved."
• Helped: "they need my advice and they want it. They're asking for it."
• High-fived: for people who want their effort noticed. She says women in particular are rarely given permission to ask for this, so "we kind of keep dropping the breadcrumbs hoping someone will high five us" [1].

In her experience, about 90 percent of the time people answer "heard" [1]. Robbins admits her own mistake is rushing to lift people up when they just want comfort [1].

Feedback without adjectives. For defensive people, Chugh flips the usual diagnosis: "Sometimes the problem isn't the defensiveness. It's the feedback" [1]. Adjectives like "polished" or "thorough" are vague and easy to argue with. Good feedback does three things [1]:

1. States the expectation.
2. Describes the specific behaviour observed.
3. Explains its impact.

Robbins supplies the example. She came home after eight days away to a bunk room that "looked like they had been hazing people in there" [1]. Normally, she says, "the old Mel volcano" would have called her son and erupted. Instead she texted him and his friends photos of the beds, the towels on the floor and the wet bathing suits on the couch. She asked whether this was "representative of what you're capable of" and explained how it felt to come home to it [1]. Their answer: "no no no we can do better" [1]. Chugh walks through why it worked: Robbins stated the expectation, the photo was the observed behaviour, she described the impact, and "there was no adjective and you didn't need one" [1].

The one-to-ten rule. Chugh uses this in her negotiation classes and her marriage. Ask yourself, and the other person, "on a scale of one to ten how important is this" [1]. Often the task isn't really the ten: "the hanging up is not the 10 it's the me feeling heard is the 10 me not being expected to do it for them is the 10" [1]. The people around us often hear everything as a ten, and "if everything's important nothing is" [1].

The rule also reveals the other side's ten. Chugh asks Robbins how important it is to her son "to not listen to you." Robbins realises it might be "probably a 10." He's been at college for two years and needs his own space and his own rules. Or he's been "working all day in the hot sun washing disgusting windows" and just wants to rest [1]. Chugh and her husband use a simple rule. If both of them rate an issue between one and seven, the higher number wins and they move on. If either is at eight or above, it's worth a real conversation [1].

The limit: supporting versus enabling. Chugh calls this a central growth area of her life: "My definition of hell on earth is watching someone I love suffer and not being able to do anything about it" [1]. Much of what we call support, she suggests, is really an attempt to ease our own helplessness. That cushion can keep the person from facing the consequences of their choices [1]. Robbins describes stepping back as giving someone the dignity of their own experience. Both agree there's no formula [1]. Chugh's reframe: "Sometimes it's hard for us to let others grow" [1].

Modelling accountability. Chugh ends her leadership classes with two rituals [1]:

• Shoutouts: students publicly appreciate a classmate.
• Own-its: students take responsibility for something they didn't do well, such as being on their phone or arriving late.

Shoutouts far outnumber own-its. She wants to do more own-its herself "to sort of motivate more onus for my students as well" [1]. This is modelling again: showing accountability for your own lapses rather than demanding it from others.

Mel Robbins: make it their idea, and accept what you can't control

Robbins comes at the subject as a self-help host who keeps casting herself as "the jerk" in stories about her 26-year marriage [2]. She opens with a weekly cycle many listeners will recognise:

• Monday: "you're really, really like you're trying to be supportive."
• Tuesday: "you get a little bossy."
• Wednesday: complaining to friends.
• Thursday: "Now you bring in the self-help speech."
• Friday: tears.
• Weekend: "silent treatment. Ice all weekend" [2].

Her claim is that this whole cycle is approaching the problem wrong. The situation changes not when the other person changes, but when you do [2].

Wanting it can block it. Robbins calls this her most surprising realisation: "wanting someone else to change doesn't make them change. It usually stops them from changing" [2]. She describes relationships as a mutual exchange of energy. "It's only when you back off and you learn how to show up differently that the people in your life will have the space to start showing up differently too" [2].

The three truths. She builds this around three rules about adults that she says came up repeatedly while researching her book The Let Them Theory [2]:

1. "If they wanted to, they would." Adults do what they feel like doing. If a loved one isn't job hunting, they don't feel like it right now [2]. It stings, she admits, because "It also applies to you" [2]. To know where someone stands, she advises, "just watch their actions," because "Talk is cheap" [2].
2. "You can't make someone else change." Adults change only when they're ready, and the energy you pour into frustration is wasted. "Imagine if you took all that energy that you're frustrated at other people and you just poured that energy in a positive direction to make your own life better" [2].
3. "Stop being mad at people for not being who you want them to be." She asks who's the bigger jerk: the person who didn't take the job you wanted for them, or you for judging them [2].

Why lecturing fails. Robbins explains the resistance with myside bias, a blind spot studied by University of Toronto psychologist Keith Stanovich. Once we hold an opinion, we argue for our side no matter what [2]. She then cites research, without naming the study in these passages, about what happens when advice feels like a lecture. Saying "you should lose some weight" or "maybe you're drinking a little bit" counts as a lecture, and "Only three percent of people change when they feel like the change is being forced upon them" [2]. By contrast, "37 percent of people will change when they believe the idea came from themselves" [2]. Her conclusion: "you have to operate so that they believe the change is their own" [2].

The question that worked on her. When her husband Chris stopped drinking, she supported him for two days and then kept offering him wine while she cooked [2]. He didn't tell her she had a drinking problem. If he had, she says, "I would resist that because of the my side bias. I would argue, oh no, I don't" [2]. Instead he told her "nobody cares what's in your glass, but you." If she was concerned about her own glass based on what he was doing, she should think about what she should be doing [2]. "By asking that question and forcing me to think about my own behavior and my own choices, of course, whatever I do next is going to become my idea" [2].

Your changes confront people. A listener, Dan, asks why his wife called him a know-it-all on a pedestal after he started making personal changes. Robbins's answer: "Your changes do not inspire other people. They confront them" [2]. When your change makes someone question their own behaviour, attacking you is easier than looking in the mirror [2]. Her advice to Dan [2]:

• Apologise if his enthusiasm made his wife feel less than.
• Invite her to join him. "But do not tell her to, do not lecture her about it, do not force anything on her at all."
• Ask questions, such as why his changes bother her, or what about them inspires her.

She contrasts this with Chris's quiet example. He's up before 5:45 with his gallon of water and a workout with the dogs, and he never tells her she should do the same. That example is slowly making her wonder about getting up earlier [2]. She even notices the method in how her own show spreads: when you listen to a podcast episode... You think it's your idea? I love that [2].

"If they could, they would." Robbins softens her first truth with a story from that same morning. Their dog Homie had missed two vet appointments and was eight weeks behind on vaccines. Mel had written the dates in his folder but never put them in the calendar [2]. Chris, who never gets upset, slammed the folder down and told her not to blame her ADHD [2]. Robbins says she isn't letting herself off the hook. She is "motivated to try to figure out how to improve the systems that I have and improve the level of support that I have," but "my brain doesn't work like his" [2]. "If they wanted to, they would" holds for things like showing up or making an effort. Sometimes, though, it's more accurate and kinder to think "if they could, they would" [2].

She ties this to a listener named Lisa, who wants to scream just be better at people who wallow. Robbins says some people would love to have the level of discipline that you have, but they're not capable of it right now. They may be struggling with depression, or lack a supportive family structure, or not have had the experiences that built your habits [2]. Her test is to "check your ego." Ask whether you want someone to better themselves because you see potential in them, or whether you're "being really judgy" and assuming they have the resources, support and knowledge you had [2]. Believing that if you did it, they could too is inspiration. Believing they should is judgment [2].

Boundaries, not control. Pulling doesn't mean endless patience. For people who wallow, Robbins uses a six-month rule. People get six months to wallow about a divorce, a lost job or anything else, and then she draws a boundary [2]. A friend kept complaining about her ex long after the divorce and ignored every therapist and book Robbins suggested. Robbins told her she was no longer available as a sounding board for the wallowing: I am here for your future. I am no longer here for your past [2]. The point is that you aren't changing them. You're changing what you're available for [2]. Her image for a tug of war is that the fastest way to end it is to drop the rope [2].

She applies the same logic to a friend whose boyfriend uses cocaine with his gambling buddies. Rather than trying to change him, the friend can tell him not to do it around her. That sets a boundary based on her own values and may prompt him to reflect on his choices [2].

Adam Grant: motivational interviewing, and the danger of being a "logic bully"

Grant, an organizational psychologist at Wharton, frames the problem through his book Think Again. He borrows his colleague Phil Tetlock's observation that many of us spend a lot of time thinking and talking like preachers or prosecutors, "either convinced that we're right or that the other person is wrong" [3]. The scientist mode he recommends instead treats opinions as hunches to test.

His own cautionary tales. Grant's main examples of how persuasion goes wrong are about himself.

A former student, Jamie, called for advice about whether to do an MBA. Believing "when somebody comes to me with a strong opinion, the best way for me to be helpful is to challenge it," he gave her a list of reasons she didn't need one [3]. They went back and forth for about half an hour until "Jamie said, you're a logic bully" [3]. He had overwhelmed her with arguments and data. She didn't agree, but she couldn't fight back. His first reaction was a little pride. On reflection he decided that if she couldn't own her decision, he had done her a disservice [3].

The second story is harsher. After two months of research for a bank, he presented 26 data-driven recommendations, which he now calls argument dilution. When a co-head of investment banking asked why they shouldn't just pay people more, Grant snapped: "I've never seen a group of smart people act so dumb" [3]. His lesson: when someone doesn't buy the data, get curious instead of mad, and ask what they actually wanted [3].

Why we push so hard. Grant gives two answers [3]:

• The generous one: we found something good and want to share it.
• The less noble one: other people's differing beliefs threaten our identity, and the harder we try to persuade them, the more we're really selling ourselves. The feeling of certainty, he says, is intoxicating.

That second reason matters for anyone trying to change a loved one. Some of the pressure may be about our own need to be right.

Motivational interviewing. Lewis Howes asks how to get people excited about something without making them wrong. Grant reaches for a method that came out of addiction counselling, "where you're trying to get people to quit problematic drinking or smoking, and you discover very quickly that preaching doesn't work and prosecuting is even worse" [3]. The psychologists Bill Miller and Steve Rollnick asked: "what if we just interviewed the person?" [3] The interviewer comes in like a scientist: "I don't know the person I'm trying to motivate or enroll, and I don't know what's going to motivate them to change, and it's not my place to tell them to change" [3]. The stance is "humility and curiosity," and the job description is "My job is to try to help you find your own motivation to change" [3]. In practice that means asking open-ended questions, reflecting back what you hear, and helping the person find their own motivation [3].

Grant shows what this would sound like using Howes's own wish to help people heal old resentments. An interviewer might open with: "look, I'm not here to tell you what the right decision is for you. I don't know what's best for you. I could tell you a little bit about what's worked for me. But I'm much more interested in what's worked for you in the past" [3]. Then come open questions about past experiences: "Did you suppress those? Did you, you know, did you actually try to confront them? How did that go for you?" [3] On the specific issue, such as whether to forgive someone, the interviewer asks "What do you think are the the possible upsides of going the forgiveness route? What are the downsides?" Then: "I'm just going to hold up a mirror and help you see your own thoughts more clearly" [3].

He describes it working in his own life. A friend was in an on-again, off-again relationship, and he had lectured her for years. When he simply asked what she missed and what she was glad was gone, she talked herself into her own decision [3]. He also notes a side benefit: "just letting go of a goal that you're trying to accomplish in the conversation means you don't ever feel manipulative. And you're also not even just trying to persuade. You're there to support to help to guide" [3].

Set the rules before the conversation. Grant recommends a "meta-conversation" before a disagreement [3]:

• Frame it as a debate. He cites evidence that asking "can we debate this?" makes people less likely to take it personally.
• When someone asks for advice, first ask why they're there. Do they want a decision validated, or their blind spots challenged? Only with that permission do the gloves come off.

Practice first. Grant flips a familiar line: "The advice that we normally get is to practice what we preach. I think that's backward" [3]. In his view "we should only preach what we already practice" [3]. That echoes Chugh's Gandhi fable. He's candid about his own hypocrisy here. He tells people not to add a commitment without subtracting one, yet he only subtracts when something is finished [3].

A caveat on his own position. Grant admits his book may have understated the value of preaching to an audience that is already receptive [3]. That's a useful limit: lecturing isn't always useless, but it mostly reaches people who were already on board.

Stuart Ablon: collaborative problem solving, because people do well if they can

Ablon is a clinical psychologist with more than 30 years' experience. He founded and directs Think:Kids in the Department of Psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital and teaches at Harvard Medical School [4]. His method, Collaborative Problem Solving, was tested with kids in residential treatment and correctional facilities before it reached homes, schools and workplaces [4].

The one reliable predictor. Ablon says that across social science research on helping people change, there's only really one reliable predictor of helping somebody to change their behavior. And the good news is it's also the most powerful one... It's the degree of helping relationship between helper and help [4]. By that he means collaboration born of empathy, understanding and non-judgmental acceptance [4]. He adds that when you want to tell someone what to do, they'll never listen unless you start by listening to them [4].

Skill, not will. His philosophy rests on six words: "kids do well if they can. Oh. Not kids do well if they want to" [4]. "In all the years I've done this, I've never met a kid who prefers doing poorly to doing well." He tells listeners to substitute "adult, with spouse, with partner, with coworker, with mother-in-law, you name it" [4].

The usual belief, that people do well if they want to, leads straight to pressure. "You're going to try to pressure them, make them want to," starting early "with rewards and consequences" [4]. That works only if motivation is the obstacle, "But that's not what's normally standing in someone's way" [4]. Worse: "if you're trying to motivate somebody when motivation isn't the issue, not only is it not going to be effective, but it might make matters much worse" [4]. He cites about 50 years of neuroscience showing that people who struggle to manage their behaviour "actually don't lack the will to behave well. What they lack are the skills to behave well. Skills in areas like problem solving, flexibility, frustration tolerance" [4].

He reads a letter from a girl in the Boston public schools who was both an "exploder" and an "imploder." Asked how her sticker chart was going, she wrote: "my brain is idiotic. I make stupid mistakes. I mess everything up" [4]. She was more motivated than anyone to behave well, Ablon says. The last thing she needed was the message that she wasn't trying hard enough [4].

Five skill areas. Ablon describes five overlapping areas of thinking skills, largely housed in the prefrontal cortex [4]:

1. Language and communication. Knowing what's bothering you and putting it into words. A 15-year-old, or a 45-year-old spouse, can have six-year-old language skills.
2. Attention and working memory. People with ADHD can often hyperfocus on what interests them but struggle with what doesn't.
3. Emotion and self-regulation. Because consequences only work if someone has the impulse control to think about them in advance, "consequences in essence don't work for the people to whom they are most applied" [4]. A respected senior prison guard initially thought the approach might apply to 5 or 10 percent of the young people there. He later said more than 95 percent were struggling with exactly these skills [4].
4. Cognitive flexibility. Rigid, black-and-white thinkers do fine when things go to plan but struggle with change.
5. Social thinking. This includes reading how you come across and, most complex of all, empathy and perspective-taking.

None of these skills are correlated with intelligence. Adult brains can improve them with repetition and practice [4].

Why rewards and punishments backfire. "Discipline" originally means to teach, Ablon notes, and "punishment is a very poor way to teach" [4]. He names two harms [4]:

• Thousands of studies show external motivators decrease internal drive. People become more motivated to get the reward than to reach the goal, sometimes even behaving unethically to get it.
• Every reward and consequence carries the message that the person isn't trying hard enough.

His grandfather, who lived to 106, put it this way: "if you give a dog a name, eventually they'll answer to it" [4]. He also points to brain imaging showing that trauma and chronic toxic stress delay these same skills. Punitive responses add stress, which further stalls the skills, escalates behaviour and triggers harsher discipline, a vicious cycle [4].

Plans A, B and C. "Don't confuse simple with easy," Ablon warns [4]. For any problem with anyone, you have three options:

• Plan A: impose your will, physically or through rewards and consequences. It may get your expectation met, but it can harm the relationship and builds no skills.
• Plan B: collaborative problem solving, working together "in a mutually satisfactory way" [4].
• Plan C: strategically drop the expectation, "Not forever. Right. But just for now." It keeps things calm but leaves the problem unsolved. Crucially, "It is not giving in" [4]. Giving in is what happens when Plan A fails and you throw up your hands.

Only Plan B builds the relationship and the skills [4]. Step one is to list problems specifically, not as behaviours like "disrespect" but as situations and triggers: when it happens, and over what [4]. Robbins links Plan C to her Let Them Theory [4].

Plan B, ingredient one: empathy. This is the hardest ingredient, and it means understanding, not merely saying you can see they're struggling [4]. "Empathy regulates. And when people are regulated, they're much more able to express what's going on for them" [4]. Robbins offers a line she loves: "it's not your child's job to help you understand them" [4].

Ablon spent about five years studying recordings of these conversations. He found successful empathy uses only four tools [4]:

• Clarifying questions, asked like a detective.
• Tentative, educated guesses when the person struggles to explain.
• Reflective listening, putting what you heard into your own words rather than parroting it.
• Reassurance that this isn't a sneaky form of Plan A.

He suggests openings like "I just want to understand," or telling someone you know there must be an important reason for the behaviour [4].

Ingredients two and three. Once the other person is reasonably calm and their concern is on the table, share your concern, not your solution. Offering your solution at this point is "tricky plan A" [4]. Robbins calls this a breakthrough. She defaults to problem solving, "I'm either running people over. Or I'm frustrated because I see a solution that I think works, but now somebody feels like they're being minimized or micromanaged" [4]. Ablon's reply could stand for all four experts: "people want advice far less often than we think. And even when people seem open to advice, they're typically not going to follow the advice if they haven't been co-authors of the solution" [4].

He coaches Robbins through turning a solution ("they need to get medicine") into her real worry: the person can't get out of bed, and she feels she's losing them. He recommends "and" instead of "but" [4]. Then comes ingredient three: brainstorm solutions together that address both sets of concerns [4]. His memory trick [4]:

• Only your concerns on the table: you're headed for Plan A.
• Only theirs: Plan C.
• Both: Plan B.

The pull method in hard cases. Parents who give a struggling young adult deadlines for a job and an apartment often get "dissociative compliance," a checked-out yes [4]. Ablon's alternative is to get the young adult's perspective and goals, share your concerns, and build a short-term plan together [4]. On money, he asks parents to share their real worry rather than their solution [4]. On social media, which he calls the biggest parenting challenge of this generation, listening first often reveals that kids share their parents' concerns. Then families can work together against the algorithms instead of against each other [4].

Where They Agree, and Where They Don't

They agree that lecturing fails. Each expert says so in their own terms:

• Chugh: "you cannot make anyone change" [1].
• Robbins: lecturing reaches "Only three percent" [2].
• Grant: "preaching doesn't work and prosecuting is even worse" [3].
• Ablon: pressure aimed at the wrong problem "might make matters much worse" [4].

They agree on unsolicited advice. Chugh's WAIT rule and her heard/hugged/helped/high-fived question [1], Grant's habit of asking whether someone wants validation or challenge [3], and Ablon's finding that people want advice "far less often than we think" [4] all say the same thing. Find out what the person wants before offering solutions.

They agree on modelling. Chugh's Gandhi fable [1], Grant's "only preach what we already practice" [3] and Chris Robbins's quiet morning routine [2] all treat your own behaviour as a stronger signal than your words. Robbins adds a warning the others don't: your changes may "confront" people before they inspire them [2].

They agree on questions over statements. Robbins's account of Chris's question [2], Grant's mirror-holding questions [3], Ablon's clarifying questions and guesses [4], and Chugh's "is this representative of what you're capable of" example [1] all work by having the other person produce the reasoning.

They agree on the limits of support. Chugh worries about support sliding into enabling [1]. Robbins uses the six-month rule and drop the rope [2]. Ablon offers Plan C as a strategic pause rather than surrender [4]. None of them describes pulling as infinite patience.

They disagree on why people don't change. Robbins's first truth, "If they wanted to, they would" [2], sits against Ablon's kids do well if they can... Not kids do well if they want to [4].

• Robbins's version is built for accepting other adults. It gives you back your energy and tells you to read people by their actions, because "Talk is cheap" [2].
• Ablon's version is built for helping. If you treat a skill gap as a will gap, you reach for pressure, which "might make matters much worse" [4].

The two partly meet. Robbins herself adds the gentler "if they could, they would" for cases like depression, missing support or her own ADHD [2]. She reserves "if they wanted to" for things like showing up and making an effort. Ablon's research, though, suggests the skill explanation applies far more widely than most people assume. Recall the prison guard who moved from 5 to 10 percent to more than 95 percent [4]. The practical question is which lens you start from. Ablon would start with "can't" until proven otherwise.

They disagree on how much to engage. Robbins's emphasis is on stepping back: stop wanting, accept people as they are, and let them choose [2]. Ablon's is on stepping in, collaboratively, to solve specific problems together [4]. Grant falls in between: show up, but only to ask and reflect [3]. Chugh offers both. Model, invite and reward are active, while her enabling caution and her "let others grow" line lean towards stepping back [1].

They have different views on whether some pressure works. Chugh jokes that she's "all for bribery" and uses her terrible singing as leverage [1]. Ablon argues that rewards reduce internal drive and that consequences fail exactly where they're used most [4]. Chugh frames the singing as pull, since it gets attention without lecturing. Still, her "reward change" means noticing and appreciating effort, which is different from Ablon's target of incentive charts and consequences. Grant, for his part, concedes preaching may help when an audience is already receptive [3].

Why It Works

The sources give several mechanisms, some backed by research and some by observation.

Agency and identity. Chugh's ego bodyguard explains why advice backfires. Being told what to do threatens agency and the identity we protect [1]. Grant gives the mirror image: our own push to persuade is often about our identity, and the harder we try to persuade them, the more we are really selling ourselves [3]. Pull approaches leave the other person's agency intact.

Myside bias. Once someone holds a view, they argue for it [2]. A statement like you have a drinking problem triggers defence. A question like Chris's makes them think, so "whatever I do next is going to become my idea" [2]. Robbins cites the 3 percent versus 37 percent finding as the payoff [2].

Ownership. Ablon's observation is that people "typically not going to follow the advice if they haven't been co-authors of the solution" [4]. Grant's friend talked herself into her decision [3], and Grant regrets that Jamie couldn't own hers [3]. A decision someone authors is one they defend rather than resist.

Regulation before reasoning. Ablon uses Bruce Perry's sequence "Regulate, relate, reason" [4]. Empathy calms people, sharing your concern invites them to relate and help, and only then can you reason together. If they get upset, go back to empathy. Dysregulation is contagious, Ablon says, but so is calm [4].

Skills grow through practice, not pressure. If the obstacle is a skill, motivation tools miss the target, and the shame they carry adds stress that delays skills further [4]. Plan B itself is the skill-building, because it means practising real problem solving on real problems [4].

Unlearning is uncomfortable and slow. The Stroop demonstration shows that knowing isn't doing, and that changing an automatic behaviour creates friction [1]. That is why Chugh says pull "almost always takes longer" but "lasts longer as well" [1]. It is also why she asks us to welcome clumsy first attempts rather than criticise them [1].

Specific feedback can't be argued with. Adjectives invite debate. An expectation, an observed behaviour and its impact don't [1].

Where It Applies, and Where It Doesn't

It applies across relationships. Ablon explicitly extends his method from kids to spouses, coworkers and mothers-in-law [4]. Chugh uses her tools in her marriage and her MBA classroom [1]. Grant applies motivational interviewing to friends, career advice and teams [3]. Robbins applies her truths to spouses, siblings, parents and friends [2].

Some tools fit some settings better. Chugh says the heard/hugged/helped question "probably won't work in the workplace, but I think it works really well in family" [1]. Grant's meta-conversation and "can we debate this?" framing suit work disagreements and advice-giving [3].

It doesn't guarantee change. Robbins's figure is 37 percent when people believe the idea is theirs, not 100 [2]. Chugh's whole model starts from "you cannot make anyone change" [1]. Pull improves the odds and protects the relationship. It doesn't take control.

It isn't a disguised push. Ablon's "tricky plan A" warning [4], Grant's remark that letting go of a goal in the conversation means "you don't ever feel manipulative" [3], and the reassurance tool in Plan B [4] all say the same thing. If you ask questions while secretly steering toward a fixed answer, people will notice. Robbins's playful promise that loved ones are not even going to know you're doing it [1] sits uneasily beside this. The experts' own descriptions suggest the method works best when your curiosity is real.

It doesn't mean tolerating everything. Ablon keeps Plan A for situations where you need to impose your will, while warning about its costs [4]. Robbins draws lines about what she's available for and what she'll allow around her [2]. Chugh's one-to-ten rule says eights and above deserve a real conversation [1].

Serious struggles need more than conversation skills. Several stories involve depression, addiction, ADHD, trauma or substance use [2][3][4]. Motivational interviewing comes from addiction counselling [3], and Ablon's method was developed in clinical and correctional settings [4]. If someone you love is struggling with addiction, depression or a mental health condition, these approaches can shape how you talk with them, but get the advice of a qualified professional.

What To Do With It

1. Check your own motive first. Before you raise the issue, run Robbins's ego check. Do you want this for them because you see their potential, or because you feel superior and assume they have resources they may not [2]? Remember Grant's warning that part of the urge to persuade is protecting your own identity [3].

2. Rate it from one to ten, for both of you. Ask how important this really is to you. Is the ten the task itself, or feeling heard or not being treated like the maid [1]? Then guess how important it is to them, including how important it is to them not to be told what to do [1]. If you both land at seven or below, let the higher number win and move on. Save real conversations for eights and above [1].

3. Name the problem as a situation, then pick a plan. Write it down Ablon's way: when it happens and over what, not "he's disrespectful" [4]. Then choose deliberately. Use Plan A if you must impose, Plan B to collaborate, or Plan C to drop it for now as a strategy, not as surrender [4].

4. Ask what they want before offering anything. Try Chugh's question: heard, hugged, helped or high-fived [1]. If they're asking for your view, use Grant's version: do they want the decision validated, or their blind spots challenged [3]? Expect "heard" most of the time [1].

5. Lead with understanding, using four tools. Open with something like "I just want to understand" [4]. Then:

   • Ask clarifying questions.
   • Offer tentative guesses if they struggle to explain.
   • Reflect back in your own words.
   • Reassure them you're not about to spring a solution on them [4].

   For a decision they're weighing, ask Grant's paired questions about upsides and downsides, then "hold up a mirror" [3].

6. Share your worry, not your fix. Once they're calm, say what concerns you, using "and" rather than "but." For example: you're afraid you're losing them, not that they need to take medication [4]. Then brainstorm together until both sets of concerns are addressed [4]. If they get upset, go back to empathy [4].

7. Ask the question that makes it their idea. Instead of a verdict, ask something that turns their attention to their own choice. Chris Robbins did this with "nobody cares what's in your glass, but you" [2]. Robbins did it with "is this representative of what you're capable of" [1]. In Grant's case it was what do you miss, and what are you glad is gone [3].

8. Give feedback without adjectives. If something needs saying, state the expectation, describe the specific behaviour (a photo works), and explain its impact [1].

9. Model it, and own your lapses out loud. Practise the change before you mention it, as in the Gandhi fable [1]. Talk about your own struggle with the same thing and what has helped you [1]. Try Chugh's "own-its" at home or work to show accountability [1]. Live the routine without commentary, the way Chris does [2]. Expect your changes to confront people at first [2].

10. Welcome clumsy attempts and notice effort. When they try, treat the awkward first version as what unlearning looks like rather than critiquing it [1]. Then tell them, in a way that lands for them, that you saw it and appreciated it [1]. Skip sticker-chart-style incentives that signal they weren't trying hard enough [4].

11. Know when to step back. If you're cushioning consequences to ease your own helplessness, you may be enabling [1]. If someone has wallowed for six months and ignored every suggestion, change what you're available for: I am here for your future [2]. Hold your boundaries based on your own values, drop the rope [2], and remember that "Sometimes it's hard for us to let others grow" [1].

Sources

1. Dr. Dolly Chugh on Dealing With People Who Won't Change: Model, Invite and Reward · The Mel Robbins Podcast
2. Mel Robbins on the Three Truths About Adults That Make Relationships Easier · The Mel Robbins Podcast
3. Positively Influence Others, Increase Mental Flexibility & Diversify Your Identity with Adam Grant · The School of Greatness
4. Harvard Psychologist Shares 6 Words That Will Change Your Family · The Mel Robbins Podcast