Relationship Building
“There is no remedy for love, but to love more.”
— Henry David Thoreau
It’s difficult to truly love anyone 100 percent if you don’t love yourself 100 percent. Practice giving yourself love, and compliment yourself. Write down seven things that you love about yourself, and be specific. Examples: (1) I’m very fit and take care of my body because health is important to me. (2) I take pride in my ability to make others feel great and be their best. (3) I see myself as an attractive person (it’s very important to see yourself as attractive). (4) I know that whatever I choose to commit myself to, I will accomplish it. (5) I’m very intelligent and am always looking for ways to better myself. And so on…. Write your seven specific things that you love about yourself on a piece of paper. Save this paper and use it as a tool to help you reconnect with yourself anytime you don’t feel 100 percent connected and in love with yourself. When both you and your partner love yourselves to the fullest level, giving love to each other becomes effortless because you are less focused on receiving love, because you are already full of love. You are more focused on giving love, which is always what your main focus should be.
Building and maintaining healthy, loving, passionate relationships is one of the most rewarding things anyone can do. The desire we all have for connection, love, and significance from other people is one of the strongest desires and needs people have. That being said, you’d think people would want to work really hard on bettering themselves so that they can build and maintain healthy relationships and feel the highest quality of connection, love, and significance. Yet most people don’t ever learn how to most effectively work on building and maintaining healthy, loving relationships.
If you treat your man like a king or a god, or treat your woman like a queen or a goddess, your relationship will transform. You must give, give, and give some more, and love, love, and love some more without expecting anything in return. You must treat each other with respect. You don’t care who’s capable of giving more when you know you’re each truly giving your absolute best toward constantly building and maintaining your relationship. If you keep a scorecard of who’s doing what more, you’re in a downward spiral. Instead, each person should be giving their all to constantly bettering the relationship every day. There are hundreds of ways to say “I love and respect you” through your actions and behaviors.
Just as you would care for and water a beautiful garden daily, and pluck away at the destructive weeds, you must care for your relationship and eliminate all the weeds (metaphorically speaking), or they will eventually take over and destroy the garden of your relationship. The beauty that used to be will die. This is what happens to most people’s relationships who stop working on it and just let things happen. You can’t expect things to get resolved without communicating and working on the relationship. I use the garden metaphor because, hopefully, it gives you a better understanding that you absolutely have to work at your relationship every day if you want it or expect it to flourish and give you the highest sense of connection, love, and significance, while also fulfilling all your other needs. When you apply this to your life, you can create the most loving, passionate, everlasting relationships a person can experience.
VERY IMPORTANT: (This part will be referred back to many times throughout the book. Pay close attention and refer back to this section as needed.)
Tony Robbins says that all humans have the same six needs. These needs are the reason why we do what we do. These needs are:
1. Certainty: The need to know things will work out the way you want or expect them to. That what you believe is true, is true. That by doing something specific, it will result in you feeling a certain way, be it working out, enjoying a hobby, taking a walk with your loved one, hanging out with friends, shopping, sleeping, eating, drinking, taking drugs, etc. What behaviors do you partake in that fulfill your need for certainty?
2. Variety/Uncertainty: Although certainty is a need, we also have a need for uncertainty and variety. It’s a paradox of conflicting needs which we’ve been blessed with. Variety has been said to be the spice of life. There are many ways to get a sense of variety or uncertainty. The weather is uncertain, although we like to try to predict it. You can achieve variety through drinking or doing drugs to change your state or focus. Drinking and doing drugs can give you a sense of certainty, but it can also give you a sense of uncertainty and variety. You can get variety from having a conversation with a stranger, watching a new movie or show, watching sports, going to school, trying new foods, dating new people, spicing things up in your current relationship, traveling to new places, listening to new music, getting in a fight/argument, etc. In what ways do you get a sense of variety in your life?
3. Significance: You can get significance in positive or negative ways. This isn’t the only need that can be fulfilled negatively, but it is more common. You can get it through being loved, feeling special, feeling needed and accepted. You can get it by earning lots of money, buying certain material objects, getting good grades, getting into a good school, achieving your goals, or through religious beliefs. Some negative ways people feel significant can be to join a gang, to put a gun to another person’s head, making yourself feel powerful or to bully people or boss them around in a destructive way. Some people actually fill their need for significance with a problem or complaint about their lives or themselves. They focus so much on a problem in their life that they use it as an excuse to never face their fears. By complaining about their sorrows and problems, they can get a sense of significance through attracting sympathy/empathy. Misery loves company, and, if you can be the most miserable, sad, and depressed person, you can feel significance through attracting attention. “Oh, I’ve got it way worse than you.” Ever heard anyone say something of that nature?
4. Connection & Love: This is ultimately the strongest, most rewarding and fulfilling need of them all — To feel a sense of connection with people, this earth and all it has to offer, and with your creator, and to feel desired, to feel true love, and to be loved. You can fulfill this need through getting close with other people, animals, or nature, and spiritually by connecting with your creator. A dog is an easy way to fulfill this need. A dog will miss you and show their love for you if you leave the room for even a minute. The old lady who has 100 cats fills her need for connection and love through having lots of animals. There are many different ways to feel a sense of connection and love. Some offer a higher quality and more fulfillment. But no matter what, you have to find a way to fulfill this need, because, without it, life is dull and meaningless. How are you getting a sense of connection and love in your life?
5. Growth: The need to grow and develop, the need for change and stimulation. Without growth, we die. Most people lack in this category, and it may be a reason they feel depressed or unmotivated. You can feel growth by going to the gym and sculpting your body. You can achieve it through going to school or by changing your diet so it’s healthier. You can start a new hobby or start progressing in your career at work. Listen to or read more material — like this book — that will aid you in personal growth. There are many ways to achieve growth. How do you get your sense of growth in your life?
6. Contribution: The need to give beyond yourself, to give to others and contribute to society and those you care about in some way. Giving gifts or presents or taking care of loved ones is a way some people fulfill this need. Some people do this through donating money or material items such as clothes and toys, volunteering, helping their friends, family, and others. In what ways do you contribute?
People usually value one of these six needs more than they value the rest. Which need do you think you value most?
In relationships — as in business — if the customer is not satisfied, they will not want to come back. If you don’t offer them enough certainty, significance, value, variety, connection and love, even growth, you will eventually lose their loyalty. If you don’t give your customer/partner what they want and need, they will eventually get it somewhere else. You have to fulfill all your partner’s needs even better than top-ranked businesses try to fulfill their customers’ needs. Your customer satisfaction should always be improving, which inevitably will mean more business and more loyalty. It’s simple. Make sure you’re fulfilling all your partner’s needs on a consistent and never-ending level, and your relationship will be great. The minute you slow down or stop doing your absolute best to fulfill their needs is the minute you risk going out of business or losing your customer and their loyalty.
Pick two really important things in your life and give yourself a rating out of 10 in each category of your six needs. If you’re in a relationship, compare another important area of your life to your relationship’s fulfillment score.
Your numbers may look different, and you may have picked a different option other than your job to compare to your relationship. Maybe you picked your hobby or your kids, if you have any. It’s healthy to have a high quality of fulfillment from other areas of your life. However, when an area outside your relationship becomes a higher quality of fulfillment in most of or all the six needs, your relationship may potentially be at risk. You need to find a rational and healthy way to balance your life with your partner’s. If your numbers are equally high or extremely low compared to your relationship with your partner, it does not matter, as long as your relationship is one of your highest ways to fulfill your needs, if not your very highest.
You can fulfill the same needs in multiple areas of your life. Are there areas in your life that fulfill your needs on a higher level than your relationship fulfills those same needs? Perhaps your hobby fulfills some of your needs more than your relationship. Or maybe it’s your friendships, or maybe your job. When your needs are fulfilled on a higher level than your needs are being fulfilled in your relationship, your relationship will inevitably suffer in the long term. This is because you will spend more time getting your needs fulfilled at a higher level from a source other than your relationship. In some cases, people will resent their partner for spending more time elsewhere. It is very dis-incentivizing for a partner to want to spend time working toward fulfilling their needs in their relationship, when their needs are already being fulfilled elsewhere. This is where rational and healthy compromise must take place.
When your relationship fulfills all your needs to the highest level, in the best and healthiest forms, you are bound to have an everlasting loving relationship together. Relationships typically have problems when one partner in the relationship is not fulfilling the other’s needs. When someone feels their needs are not being fulfilled, they will find a way to fulfill their needs in some other way. This can cause problems and make things worse in the relationship. Figure out how you are fulfilling your partner’s needs, and see where you could improve or add something. Make sure you and your partner both feel a high level of fulfillment in all six of the human needs as a result of your relationship. This can do wonders in repairing relationships, as well as in nourishing an already wonderful relationship.
If you would like more information on how to better your relationships and your life, visit: www.robbinsmadanescoachtraining.com. It’s a very helpful website that has free videos of live seminars where Tony Robbins and Cloe Madanes apply powerful strategies to help people make positive changes in their lives.
Stop blaming your spouse/partner for problems that most likely are rooted in your own internal problems. This goes both ways. Men and women are wired differently, although they share the same human needs. They try to fulfill these needs in different ways. Because I look at the world through the viewpoint of a man does not mean I cannot understand a woman’s perspective, and vice versa. The difficult part is remembering that we think differently because we are mentally wired differently. Most men try to think like a woman from a man’s perspective. It’s no wonder women think men are stupid, and men think women are impossible to figure out.
As a generalization, most men will make big problems small, and most women will make small problems big. This is just one small example of how we are wired differently. You must realize that everything just is, and then we perceive things from our male or female DNA wiring standpoint, as well as years of built-up webs of collected memories and associations that control our perceptions. Whether you perceive a problem as big or small, it is neither. It is whatever you allow it to be in your mind. So the next time you think your partner is “crazy” for thinking a certain way, remember that, if you were wired the same as them and experienced everything they have from day one until today, it’s unlikely that you’d be any different. The only way one can see things differently is with a mind shift, a reprogramming of the brain and how we have allowed it to think up until now. Rather than thinking your partner is being irrational, crazy, or anything of that nature, try asking them questions to find out why they feel the way they do, why they see things the way they do, and why they act the way they do (to fulfill their needs). As you begin to learn the answers to these questions, you will begin to understand your partner on a much deeper level, and your relationship will grow tremendously.
“Before you try to change others, remember how hard it is to change yourself.”
— unsourced
The next time you and your partner have a problem or a challenge, try to reframe this problem or challenge into a game or test. Most of the time, partners are testing each other to see how the other will react. Deep down, all women want lots of love and attention. Maybe some problems or challenges in your relationship can be fixed by just giving more love and attention.
The first and most important part in working on any relationship, is to first work on yourself. Until you are willing to put aside your pride and realize we all need to work on ourselves in some way or another, your relationships will never reach their full potential. Millions of relationships have failed because someone — if not both people in the relationship — were not willing to make a change, not willing to work on themselves, and better themselves for the sake of the relationship. Maybe they need to work on their forgiveness. Maybe they need to work on their health, or addictions, or commitment, or maybe they need to work on their honesty. Working on yourself is the key to allowing the important building blocks of a healthy relationship to flourish. Without self-improvement, growth, and development, a healthy relationship will not survive long.
Another extremely important part of maintaining a healthy relationship is trust. You must be able to know that you can trust each other. If you say something, honor your word. Although our actions carry more weight than our words, if you can’t communicate words with actions that match, your word begins to not matter. So say what you mean, and mean what you say.
Sacrifice is another crucial factor in maintaining relationships. Without sacrificing anything, how is anything of value to be gained? Be willing to sacrifice more often for those you care about. It always feels better to give than to receive. You must be willing to give things up for the ones you love, because the people we have in our lives always matter more than the things we have. My parents have always told me, “It wouldn’t matter if we lost everything we have — as long as we have each other and are all healthy and safe.”
Contribution and reciprocation are both important factors in successful relationships. I scratch your back, you scratch mine. Some people allow one person in the relationship to do most of the giving. If someone is giving, giving, and giving and never receives anything back, eventually they will find someone else who appreciates and reciprocates their generous giving. Life isn’t about taking — it’s about giving.
Another very important thing to remember in building and maintaining healthy relationships is taking the initiative. If you are planning something important for a loved one or helping them with a problem, take the initiative. If you have argued with a partner and he or she is upset with you, take the initiative to repair the relationship. Look at yourself as the mechanic of your relationship — fix the problems and make everything better. You must point things out and talk about them. Never wait to talk about something important. If someone is upset with you, give them time to calm down and let them cool their jets. Then take the initiative and make things better.
The only justifiable reason for waiting to take initiative is to let someone come back to reality from the distortion of their emotions. When your mind is filled with emotions like anger or sadness, your brain releases chemicals that have been scientifically proven to decrease cognitive brain function, meaning your emotions actually cause you to not think as clear. So the next time you or someone you’re dealing with is displaying emotions of anger or sadness, realize that chemicals in the brain are potentially causing you or them to think in a distorted, irrational way. It is important to avoid making important decisions in a highly charged emotional state. That is another reason why it is so important to have control over your mind. The quicker you can expunge negative, destructive emotions from your mind, the sooner you can make clearer, more authentic decisions.
A challenge or game for you and your partner
For the next 60 days, treat your partner like a god or goddess. You must show your partner — more than you ever have before — how much you love him or her. Bring back the spark from the dating days. Surprise your partner with gifts and flowers. Seduce your partner and increase your intimacy. Compliment constantly and justify your compliments with reasons. You cannot argue or fight for 60 days. Make your partner feel like he or she is the most important person in the world to you. Try acting like a puppy who gets excited for the smallest reasons and is crazy in love and constantly trying to play and be physical. You should know what your partner likes and enjoys. Treat them like it’s his or her birthday for 60 days. Get in touch with your creative side. I know this sounds like a lot of giving, and you may be wanting to know why you have to be the one doing this and not your partner. If you commit to this challenge, I predict that your partner will recognize what’s happening and will soon be taking the initiative. Remember, it’s about giving. The law of reciprocation should take of the rest.
Little tips for making people happy
Random Fact
Daniel Boone actually hated coonskin caps.
