5 Recommendations to Improve the Health of Your Relationships

What are the fundamental components of creating and maintaining good relationships with other human beings?

This is a difficult question that I’ve been thinking about ever since I started writing and speaking about self improvement.  It’s an age-old question.  It’s fairly easy to identify what we as individuals need to do to get in better physical shape and improve our personal finances.  These are basic components of life that are largely within our control.  However, relationships remind us of how little we control beyond ourselves.  

I’ll explore a few ideas in this article that have been lessons I’ve learned but in no way do I think this article is exhaustive.  These are the things that make the most sense to me to focus on when seeking to improve the health of our relationships with others.  Hopefully you’ll find some ideas you find helpful. 

Financially and Physically, Fit

Control what you can control.  Again, as individuals we have lots of control over how we spend money and how we take care of our bodies.  When we ignore these things or make choices that actively bring about chaos in these areas, we unnecessarily lose capacity to deal with those things we don’t control (In this case, other people).  So the first step to high quality relationships is managing yourself well.  That means financial and physical discipline.  I’ve gone over both of these areas in a fair amount of detail so I won’t belabor the point (Start reading those articles here).

Find Strength From Rejection

You can’t control what other people do.  You can only control how you respond to what other people do.  

• You meet someone and you think that you might make good friends with this person…
• You meet someone and you find them attractive and you’d like to go on a date with them…
• You see tryouts for an intramural soccer team at the community college you attend and you are interested in participating…
• You meet a coworker at your new job who’s been working there for ten years and they have a role you’re interested in and you’d like to be mentored by them…

In all of these situations you must risk rejection for the possible reward that comes from initiating contact and putting yourself out there.  I believe when social media and texting became popular, young people began to lose out on a vital skill in life:  handling face-to-face rejection.  One of the things that I’m most proud of about my teens, 20’s, and 30’s is all the times I met a woman that I found attractive, worked up the nerve to approach that woman face-to-face, and asked for a phone number only to be told ‘no’.  I’m proud that I never became bitter, I never stopped trying, and I strongly resisted the urge to believe something was wrong with me (though very tempting).  

I think about growing up in school and getting picked last for sports or not picked at all.  I think about getting picked on for being overweight.  I think about rejection from the opposite sex.  I’m appreciative of these experiences because after every rejection you realize, “I’m still alive and I’m okay…”  Rejection makes you tough.  Rejection teaches you how to appreciate yourself no matter what the outside world says about you.  Rejection teaches you that the limit of your control in life ends with you.

In my mid 30’s I realized that having the goal of being in a romantic relationship wasn’t practical because it implies that through a series of steps I can make a woman be with me.  I can’t make anyone want to be in a relationship with me.  All I can do is be willing to take the risk of trying to build connections with others.  It’s tough.  It can be emotionally traumatic and occasionally very embarrassing.  You may have to retreat from people sometimes in order to recover.  However, if the pain and discomfort is framed through the right lens, we can develop resilience and courage that allows us to step out there in a multitude of situations.  When it comes to relationships, if there’s no risk, there’s no reward.  We have to consciously develop our emotional armor.

Can you be yourself?

One of my greatest concerns in any relationship I’ve had over the last 10 years is the issue of whether or not someone will accept me as I am.  Can I be myself?  

As I’ve mentioned before, prior to meeting my wife, I spent over 10 years as a single man.  In that time it was often tempting to chase a more lucrative job because I was barely making any money as a personal trainer or motivational speaker.  That temptation increased when I found myself coming into contact with a woman I liked.  Quitting engineering had been a large point of contention with the woman I dated right after college.  After that time I would sometimes slip into the belief that all women wanted a man with lots of money.  I knew this wasn’t true but when you’re single for a long time and trying to understand why, your mind wants to invent stories that easily solve the problem.  Fortunately for me, I was able to shake these thoughts before making any drastic changes because I knew, ultimately, I would be unhappy chasing a career path to make someone else happy.  Over time I truly came to believe that if women chose to overlook me because I don’t have lots of money then that’s her choice and that gives me an opportunity to practice resilience in the face of rejection.  

This is not to say that we shouldn’t ever compromise.  But to me, compromise comes after time has been taken to understand a person’s character and overall trajectory in life.  

This is also not to say that ‘make-or-break’ criteria  is invalid in relationships.  People have the right to make their choices.

This is to say that it is my experience that it’s really hard to force yourself to be something that you are not.  It’s exhausting.  I’d rather be me and be alone.  I’m betting most people would agree with this sentiment if given the time to really think about it.

Can we disagree without disrespect?

Most people would agree that being able to differ greatly on important life issues without name calling, getting physical, or any other form of disrespect is the ideal.  I can recall being in college and being very interested in a young lady who was a chemical engineering major (I was an electrical engineering major).  Being an overweight kid and dealing with a fair amount of bullying growing up, I was very shy when it came to females.  It took me a long time to build up the courage to approach her.  When I did, she seemed open to me.  She gave me her phone number.  She then proceeded to do what I would call ‘the-run-around’ or ‘stringing-me-along’.  She would give me just enough attention to keep me interested but she had no intentions of dating me.  This went on for an entire spring semester.  Over the summer I woke up to my naivety.  The next fall I was so frustrated with her that I would ignore her when I saw her.  She would say hello and I would walk past her like she didn’t exist.  Eventually I softened and I apologized for my cold shoulder.  She apologized for how she behaved.

I was ashamed at how I responded to her behavior.  I returned immaturity for immaturity.  It was disrespectful.  I could have easily just been cordial and went on with my life, but I was caught up in being vindictive.  Since then, I’ve realized that being able to look back at situations like these and know that I communicated truthfully, empathetically, and respectfully is most important to me when handling conflict.  The situations I regret are the ones where I acted immaturely and the ones where I held my tongue when I had something I wanted to say.

Final Thoughts – The Most Important Aspect of Quality Relationships

Again, I want to be clear that I don’t believe I have any all encompassing solutions to what makes great relationships.  However, relationships are a fundamental component of life and exploring how we can make them better is a fundamental part of self improvement.  So I must approach what is often a complex topic.

I’ve had many rough conversations with family, friends, and significant others.  When you go from timid 305 pound kid, to losing a 100 pounds, to college engineering major, to corporate america, to quitting a high paying job, to joining the military and going to war, to paying off $60K of debt, to starting my own businesses and failing, and writing about all you’ve learned along the way… I’ve gone through many evolutions and to some extent the people close to me have been dragged along for the ride.  In all this I continue to learn that no one (not even my wife) is going to understand me better than me.  I suspect that’s true for everyone.  I’m not saying that I’ve mastered any of the lessons in this article and I damn sure haven’t mastered this last one:  Hide forgiveness in your heart.

Forgiving offense might be the basis of all quality relationships.  I have this uniquely strong ability to remember details about people that I interact with.  I tend to remember small details people tell me about their lives and I remember details about our interactions.  If we meet each other and have a conversation and months later I see you and tell you I don’t remember you, I’m probably lying to you.  This means that I remember so much of the verbal abuse I took off of other kids growing up.  I remember the physical and sexual abuse from my older sister.  I remember the arguing between my mother and stepfather when I was growing up.  I remember the contentious conversations with friends and family when I was quitting engineering and the insults people dished out because they disagreed with my choices.  If I didn’t have the ability to forgive while also being able to repurpose aggressive energy (many of these experiences left me angry/enraged), these memories would absolutely destroy me.  

I suppose if you are reading this you are someone who is interested in self improvement.  As you do the hard work to evolve in positive ways, sometimes it will be the people closest to you that hurt you most because of that evolution.  This makes sense.  People who are perfect strangers to us have no real sense of when we change and they have no emotional investment in us staying the same.  Therefore, they won’t be offended by our personal growth.  But people who know us well become accustomed to what we are and it can be jarring for them when we decide to change (even when that change is absolutely for the better).  So, by all means do the work to improve, but please hide forgiveness in your heart and exercise it on your journey.