By Eric J. Leech
There is a good way to conduct your relationships and a not so good way. To make life even more difficult, sometimes the good can get mixed in with the bad, and a supposed relationship booster quickly becomes a lot more like a bummer. Here are four booster relationship qualities gone bummer, and what you can do to put them back on the right track.
1. Pleasing Yourself vs. People Pleasing
The problem with trying to please everyone, is it just can’t be done. There is always somebody who won’t be pleased, and the person who is trying to make everybody happy, ends up being pulled in several different directions until they have an anxiety breakdown. It is a very good quality to want to please others and do right by them. However, if you put someone else’s needs over your own every time, you will only end up sabotaging your happiness. This may seem like a noble thing, until you realize that the best relationships are those made up of an equal partnership. This is where both partners maintain an equal value between each other, and work to maintain that through compromise and communication. The most important step for any self professed people pleaser is to get back in touch with their own needs and feelings. A little self pleasing makes everybody happy in the end.
2. I Wanna’s vs. I Don’t Wanna’s
Negative lists are very popular. Articles like 5 Ways to Spot a Player, 4 Classic Jerk Types, and 8 Signs He’s in it for Sex, are important to get things clear of what you’re not looking for, but if you hang out in negative-ville too long, you’ll lose focus on what’s really important. Imagine yourself deciding how you want to decorate your bedroom. If you were to make a list of all the things you didn’t want, you would end in a tizzy of counter productive ideas. A more constructive means would be to focus on the things you do want. Relationships fare best when each partner focuses on the good, rather than the bad. Research suggests that happy couples accept 80 percent of what they were looking for in a partner as well enough. This isn’t settling, but taking account of all the good, before allowing the small amount of bad to overshadow why you chose your partner in the first place.
3. Having Aspiration vs. Defining Yourself By Your Profession
While it is indeed a good quality to aspire for better things in life, there is a line where that can be taken overboard. Having strong convictions (core beliefs) is critical in understanding who we are, and defining our identity. If a person defines themselves by their success and career, they lose their identity, become a workaholic, and end up cynical with nothing warm to offer other people. If you are not living for the moments spent with the ones you love, you lead a very spiritually impoverished life. The sad truth is many people do not discover this until their declining years. It’s never too late to change, but now is always better than later!
4. Looking for a Blessing vs. Being the Blessing
By a sign of grins in front of your computer monitors, how many of you looking for a relationship, have wished/prayed for a blessing, in the form of a good man or woman to be brought into your life. Science teaches us that true happiness comes from having relevance, purpose, and impact on the world. From the time we are born, we are taught that good things come to those who work hard, learn well, and have faith. Rather than focusing on the blessings we wish to receive, we should focus on becoming the blessing to others. Being a blessing liberates us from singular self focus, giving us a sense of accomplishment with the here and now. Our dreams may not always come true, but helping others to achieve theirs is actually more fulfilling than receiving everything you ever wanted.
The smallest twist in the way you approach your relationships, can be the difference between a bummer outcome or a stellar beginning. As Jack, the lead character from the Titanic movie said, “make each day count.”