Loving Successfully

We have heard many suggestions on how to be successful in life. Believe in yourself, persist, get up every time you fall down, understand there is no failure only feedback, learn from mistakes, reach for the stars and walk toward your goals. All this is true, plus for any career or trade you choose there is a set of skills that you must master if you are to be successful.

We understand this when it comes to career, however when it comes to building loving relationships we tend to think it should just happen. Successful loving relationships also require vision, persistence, learning from mistakes and developing skills; they don’t happen by accident.

First question to consider is, “Where does your relationship fit on your priority list?” If the answer is that your relationship gets what is left over after you have met your work, personal, social and volunteer commitments then it is quite possible that your relationship is suffering from atrophy.

When it comes to physical activity, our muscles gain strength through use and if we are inactive for more than two weeks they start to atrophy or waste away and weaken. Our relationships are strengthened through time and attention and they will waste away if they are at the bottom of our priority list.

Making our relationship a priority is the place to start. To build successful loving relationships the following are some important relationship skills to learn and practice:

• Self-responsibility – you and only you are responsible for your thoughts, words and actions
• Ability to appreciate differences – remember your partner is different not wrong
• Listen to understand – become open minded and open hearted
• Hang on to self – take a deep breath and count to ten, learn to sooth your own hurts and disappointments to reduce over reactions
• Empathy – ability to see things from your partner’s perspective
• Supporting – ability to be there for your partner
• Maturity – choose to behave like an adult in your relationship
• Negotiation – think win win, rather than having to be right
• Holding your tongue – don’t say the things you will wish you could take back later
• Fighting fair – be able to disagree without being disagreeable
• Stay in the present – practice dealing with what is rather than being stuck in the past or worrying about the future

Just like any other area of our life where we have or want to have success, relationships require time, skills and persistence to be successful.