Edited by Julie Taylor
If you want to improve your relationship, you must start with yourself.
Notice that the first 5 (out of just 6) tips are all work on yourself.
All you can really change is ‘you’ and your own habits and behaviours. Become the best version of yourself you can imagine. Learn to be realistic about your needs and expectations and communicate these clearly. Working on yourself can inspire your partner to make positive changes in their life as well! Here are some tips from ReBuildingYou to help you improve your relationship by looking inward.
Go Back to School
Your job can have a direct impact on how you feel about yourself and so on your relationship. However, our partner can easily feel neglected when we spend more time nurturing our career than our relationship. Finding balance is key! If you’re working a job that’s taking all of your attention and energy away from your partner, consider making a career change… (If focusing on improving your relationship is your goal.)
Jump-start a career change by going back to school and enrolling in an advanced degree program. For example, if you want to shift toward a career in business, earning a bachelor’s degree in business will open the door to many exciting career prospects. You’ll learn key business concepts from accounting and management to decision-making and marketing. Consider enrolling in an online program so you can continue working while learning on the side. This will also make it easier to spend time with your partner!
Start a New Career
Are you doing something you love to do? Loving what you do may be an important part of doing it really well. If you’re feeling burned out or dissatisfied at your current job, it may be the perfect time to consider shifting into a new career by starting a new job. The stress you’re experiencing can easily bleed over into your personal life. Update your curriculum vitae (CV) to detail your academic background, career experiences, and skill set. Create your CV by using a free online CV builder. Choose from a library of professionally designed templates, and then insert your text, graphics and choice of colours. Then you’re ready to put your resume ‘out there’ and feel out job prospects. ‘Informational interviews’ are useful to find out what is really involved in a specific job and whether you have the skills needed to get it.
Follow Your Entrepreneurial Dreams
If you’re feeling unsatisfied with traditional employment, consider starting your own business. Becoming an entrepreneur can boost your self-esteem and encourage the development of self-discipline. You and your partner could even go in on a business together! Starting a business is easier than ever, thanks to the numerous online tools and resources at your disposal. For example, you can find apps to automate marketing, accounting, and customer management, as well as online services that offer affordable business formation and legal support. A good idea is to continue with your regular job until your new business takes off, eventually going to part time and then quitting your regular job!
Develop Healthy Coping Strategies for Stress
Stress is inevitable in the modern world. Unfortunately, external stressors can easily drive a wedge in your relationship. Develop healthy coping mechanisms so you can prevent stress from spilling over and affecting how you interact with your partner. For example, Psychology Today suggests finding calming activities to relax your mind and body when you’re up against stressors that you have no control over. Yoga, meditation, reading, and other calming hobbies are great for this purpose. Faith in yourself, confidence that you will find the resilience to overcome whatever your current situation might be is also important.
Establish Better Sleeping Habits
Six to eight hours of good sleep are more important than you think. Unhealthy sleeping habits can be detrimental to both your health and your relationship. Some studies show that couples with different sleep schedules tend to report less relationship satisfaction and more conflict than those who sync up their sleep. It’s also hard to get high-quality shut-eye when someone else in the house is awake and making noise. If you like to stay up late and your partner goes to bed early, compromise! Accommodate one another. Adjust your sleep schedules, consider separate bedrooms but perhaps go to bed together for a short while each day or on certain days. Some people love co-sleeping and other don’t!
Hold Each Other Accountable
If you and your partner are exploring individual health and wellness goals at the same time, try to hold each other accountable! Communicate your goals to your partner and learn how to be a supportive accountability partner.
Sit down with your partner and create an accountability plan, discussing exactly how you can help hold each other accountable for following through with your goals. This will help you avoid coming across as nagging, judging, or aggravating. Communication is key!
Taking care of yourself, your needs, and your goals is vital to the health of your relationship. Whether it means going back to school, starting a business or new career, adjusting your sleep habits, or developing healthier methods for coping with stress, the actions you take in pursuit of self-improvement will spill over into your relationship. Better yet, jointly working on self-improvement and holding each other accountable will strengthen your relationship and help you feel a deeper connection to your partner.
Counselling certainly helps and finding the right counsellor is important. I like to look at things from an NVC and needs viewpoint: fill your own needs and you will feel good. If you don’t… And if you feel good, you can bet every other member of your household will feel good too.