I get it: You’re not relaxing on the beach every day with your partner sipping cocktails and enjoying the views.
(If that was your life everyday, you might just be bored to tears anyway.)
Instead, your typical day is packed. You’re busy and successful and have far too many things to take care of to think about your relationship.
All that is about to change.
See, your relationship is one of your most important assets, and yet we don’t give them enough credit in this world. As a result, people suffer and tolerate mediocre relationships, feeling drained and exhausted as a result, sometimes without even realizing how much better things could be if things were different in the love department.
Today I’m going to share 3 simple steps for busy people to create success in love.
Heed my words.
Step 1: Understand the Power of Love
Good news: Love is no longer a mystery. When we take the time to understand the power of love, as Huey Lewis sang, it becomes all too clear how important it is for us to nurture our relationships.
A strong relationship translates to:
A decreased sense of fear and pain in scary or painful situations, greater success in career and business, improved health, greater happiness and better sex. It improves our brain functioning, heightens creativity and causes us to be more open to new experiences. Basically, a strong relationship impacts us positively across the board in every area of our lives.
In the longest running study of humans of all time, which followed freshman men in Harvard to their deathbeds, it was noted that one predictor of economic success was having warm relationships with others. In fact, he found that the men who ranked highest in terms of warm relationships averaged an annual earning of $114,000 more than those who appeared to have the least warm relationships during their highest earning years.
The director of the study, George Vaillant, also took his findings from this 75-year study and boiled happiness down to one word: Love.
A strong relationship should not be considered a luxury or only for the lucky.
Given all of the myths that we are taught about love and how it is modeled to us, it’s no wonder why so many relationships are messed up. Many people have resigned themselves to the belief that a solid relationship will always be out of reach for them.
Fortunately, in the past 15 years or so, thanks to pioneers in the field of love and relationships, we now know how love makes sense and how to actually shape it. We know that we’re all wired toward love, that humans are resilient and we change over time, and that even the most hopeless among us can have strong relationships.
Step 2: Prioritize Love
Now that you know a strong relationship not only will make your heart sing but will help you be stronger, braver and bolder in every area of your life, including your business, you might be interested in paying a bit more attention to your relationship. That’s good.
The important thing to do here – which may sound so obvious – is to prioritize love.
I get it: When things between the two of you are going well, your relationship may be the last thing you think about taking care of. When things aren’t going well, you may just want to run like hell from it or you don’t know where to begin. Either way, in good times and in bad, making your relationship a priority in your life is a must.
When I work with a couple who are totally lost from each other, I help them articulate experiences to each other that they might have not even realized they were having. They initially talk to me about these experiences, and eventually are able to turn to each other. Over time, they become really good at speaking with each other in this way and no longer get tripped up in their same old problematic cycles of disconnection, and I’m made redundant. I start feeling like a third wheel!
Even so, unless they continue to conversation without me, they’ll come running back to me for my help.
The key here is: Continuing the conversation.
Or – if we haven’t met or you haven’t had the conversation – start having one!
Love is essentially a deep emotional bond with someone. We nurture that bond by sharing emotionally with each other on a deep level.
This requires slowing down, stopping what you’re doing, really tuning into yourself and your emotional experience and sharing this with your partner.
Doing this for yourself is a gift on its own, especially if you’re typically swept up in the chaos of life.
Sharing your experience on this level with someone you love makes it that much more powerful.
Having this kind of conversation for a lot of couples who are just starting to connect requires structure.
Just like an alcoholic who starts AA benefits from the structure of meetings and accountability, or someone who starts working out for the first time needs a schedule, when you’re starting to first prioritize your relationship, you need to have some kind of structure to actually be with each other.
That weekly meeting with your assistant? It’s automated and scheduled.
Your session with your business coach? It’s automated and scheduled.
Automation and scheduling saves you time, keeps you all accountable and guarantees that it will happen.
Time with your partner? If you’re just starting to prioritize your relationship, automate and schedule it.
Of course that doesn’t exclude the possibility for spontaneity and romance, but at this point, a guaranteed conversation and real check in about how you’re actually doing is much more called for than the possibility of roses and chocolates.
Step 3: Get support
I get it, it’s hard for the best of us to get support (ahem, myself included). But seriously – if you’re so busy and successful, why are you doing the laundry? And in terms of your business, why are you taking care of those tasks that a college student could handle at a much lower cost? Wouldn’t you rather be doing something either more in your zone of genius or spending quality time with the people you love?
Delegate, delegate, delegate.
Think of how many hours a week you spend doing things that someone else could handle for you.
When those hours are freed, you won’t feel so frazzled and busy all the time, you’ll have more time to be with your other half, your relationship will start to thrive when you start taking care of it, and you’ll be that much more energized and available for your work in the world.
Don’t be afraid to also get some professional help with your relationship because it can go a long way.
The International Centre for Excellence in Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy likely has a qualified Emotionally Focused Therapist near you.
What would a stronger relationship look like for you?
Leave me your responses below.
Cheers to thriving in business and in love,
These 3 steps are extremely important. Can you tell me why women dont naturally think about delegating? Why is it that we need to do everything on our own when`exactly that is making us kind of “poor”, stressed and disconnected to ourselves and our loved ones…???
I just really reflect on that in my own business where I support busy women just from another angle. I know you are a psychologist and maybe you have some inspiring thoughts on that.
Thank you for all your sharings.
Hi Liselotte,
There are probably a number of reasons why women don’t naturally think about delegating — fortunately some do — but by & large, the majority of women that I know have been cultured to do everything that they know how to do themselves. This is in part true for men as well, I think, but I agree, women tend to have a more difficult time with this. Sometimes it can be about control and making sure it’s done just the right way, but other times we don’t even think of it because if we can do it, we should, right? I think it also comes in part from a scarcity/hoarding mindset around money. And so we have a group of overworked, overstressed, tired and disconnected people — with depression & anxiety rates at an all time high. We are at an interesting time in history in which we no longer live in communities where everyone has roles to assist with different tasks, but we are living more on our own — and I think it’s very dangerous without the right kind of support and connections! Thanks so much for your comment. What do you think?
All my best,
Jenev