Top 10 Relationship Tips
Here are my top 10 relationship tips.
.
1. Respect. Respect your partner. Respect their differences. Respect their emotions. Treat them with respect in the same way you want respect. First and foremost, they matter too. They have an inner-child too. Respect their humanness.
2. Positive Bias. Build a positive bias for their differences. See traits in a positive way. Spin it for the benefits. Remember, you don’t want to be in a relationship with your clone, build a bias toward why it works with your relationship.
3. Rely on your values. Core values are our foundation, and they determine what’s important to us and who we are. Nurture personal values in the context of your relationship. Value family? Love? Autonomy? Safety? Nurture your personal values in the family system. Protect your relationship by focusing on ways to nurture values.
4. Be accountable. Don’t be a victim. Accountability is ownership, acknowledgment, admitting, and taking our part. Victim stance ignores, blames, pushes away, and avoids. Avoid criticism as it sets us up for defensiveness, contempt, and stonewalling (John Gottman work).
5. Gratitude. Express thanks. Focus on effort and good. Humans want to matter, belong, be safe, and be loved. Show and tell gratitude.
6. Replace competition with compassion. Don’t compete. Don’t keep score. Use comparison as fuel for compassion. People in relationships matter and their needs and efforts are valid. Show grace, kindness, and support.
7. Validation. Validation is the cure. It’s the balm we all need. Validation isn’t the same as agreement or truth or consent. It is acknowledgment. Their feelings, needs, thoughts, and struggles are valid.
8. Assertive communication. This is everything. Communicate with non-violence. I statements. Boundaries. Timeouts. Validation. Grab my communication course for 10% off today with code: selflove
9. Nurture Passion, intimacy, & commitment. SternBerg’s theory of love says it, nurture these 3 parts. Desire, emotional connection, and safe reliability.
10. Find things to laugh about! Keep it light! Be cool to each other. And always, don’t be a butthole
