Over time in any relationship, people become super comfortable with each other and stop showing each other the love, admiration and respect that they feel. This familiarity causes them to feel like their partner just knows that they love them. After a while couples stop connecting on an emotional intimate level and begin to focus on criticizing their partners, especially with small things. According to clinician and psychological researcher John Gottman, the number one factor that ends romantic relationships are expressions of contempt by partners. Partners who focus their energy on being critical towards their partner, actually end up missing 50% of the positive things their partner is doing and will see negative things that aren’t even there. This not only leads to a distorted view of what’s happening in the relationship, but it breeds feelings of contempt and resentment.

On the flipside, Gottman and his researchers have shown that kindness and emotional stability acts like a glue that bonds partners together. If you think of kindness and generosity as a muscle that can grow stronger through exercising it, your relationship can radically improve.

What does generosity look like in a healthy relationship?

• Giving someone your time is the most valuable gift you can give. Being 100% present with them and being focused on what they are saying, rather than mumbling “uh-huhs” and going back to checking something on your phone can build connection, rather than weaken it.

• Take time to appreciate your partner’s positive qualities and be generous with your compliments. I fall into this trap with my husband. He will do or say something that makes my heart smile, and I will forget to tell him about it. I have to be intentional because I truly want him to know how much I admire and respect him. And he often replies that he would have had no idea that I felt this way if I hadn’t mentioned it. So, take the time to give your partner positive feedback.

• Don’t jump to conclusions about your partner’s intentions. It is so easy to assume that when your partner does something inconsiderate, it was intentional. Or if they are running late (my personal pet peeve) that they don’t value your time. Give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that your partner has good intentions.

Have you ever met someone and right off the bat, without even having said a word to each other, you can sense their disdain for you? How does that even happen?

We all have energy that we give off. Some people exist with diluted energy…Energy that has been watered down from their own insecurities, hurts, pains and suffering. Sometimes when they meet someone who has a balanced energy, they immediately bristle because that energy comes from a place that they lack and are starving for – peace and security.

This is literally an example of how someone else’s reaction has nothing to do with you and everything to do with them. Don’t ever feel like you need to dim your light because your mere existence threatens or irritates someone else.

If you find yourself in this situation, remember the energy you carry around reminds them of their shortcomings, failures or things about themselves they don’t want to face. And that’s okay. Perhaps you were placed in their path so they could come to terms with these things inside themselves and grow from it.

Often times we mistake our immediate struggles and adversities as our ultimate destination. We feel trapped, stuck where we are and have no idea that something significantly better is waiting for us on the other side. 

Let’s be honest – humans don’t like change. We like to be comfortable. We like our “knowns”. Even if they are suboptimal, we take comfort in what we know.

Sometimes things fall apart for a reason.  An old door needs to close before a new one can open. We have to fully let go of people and things for greater things to come into our lives. And we need to remember that our failures, struggles and life experiences prepare us for what is to come next. Just because we think our world is falling apart doesn’t mean that it is.

Think about your past struggles and all the adversity you have gone through and overcome. Think about how you have survived 100% of your bad days. How did it change you? What lessons did you learn that enabled you to grow and create a better life?

The truth is, we learn more from our hardships and failures than our success. What struggles have you overcome that helped create the amazing person that you are today?

Who we are is defined by our daily habits. It is what we do, not what we say we will do. I’ve fallen into the trap of planning out meal plans and exercise routines to lose weight, only to find myself deviating from my plan shortly thereafter. We all can sit down and write out our goals for the next few years and where we want to be, but unless we take daily, consistent action towards our goals, it’s simply just talk. It’s who we want to be rather than who we are.

You see, what’s holding you back is who you think you are not. How you become who you are meant to be is by getting over all your self-doubt, fears and inner criticisms that tell you all the reasons why you can’t be that person. You are your only limit.

I love to write. I’ve been out of practice for a while now. I started Daily Adage to get back into the swing of things, writing the things I love, like personal growth and self-improvement. Months before, I kept telling myself, “Yeah, I’m going to get back to writing because I love it” and time would just fly by without me writing a single word. And one day I just said, “Fuck it, I’m doing this” and got started. And worked a little on it every day. I want to be a writer, so I have to do it consistently.  

When we look at people who have become successful, there is one commonality. They kept going when they felt like giving up and they were consistent with their efforts.

How do you start doing the things you want to do?

Make the choice that you want your life to be different and know your “why”. Map out everything you need to do to make it happen. Take action. Be flexible in your methods, but firm with your goals. Promise yourself that you won’t give up and if all 999 ideas you have fail, you will keep going anyways.

Even if you have to start small, start now. What can you do for an hour today that will help you become the person you want to be?  Start now. A year from now you will wish you started today.

We often forget how resilient we are when we start to feel insecure. We forget how we have survived 100% of all the bad things that have already happened to us. Focusing externally on feelings of safety will only get us so far. We have to be willing to trust in our own ability to overcome and persevere.

If we rely on external things to make us feel safe, we will always be at the mercy of those external things. Our sense of security and being okay does not have to be in someone or something else’s pocket.

It comes down to our mindset. The things happening around us are very real, but we determine what we have faith in. Will we have faith in something that we cannot control, or do we have faith in ourselves who we can control? We control how we respond to everything around us. We determine our path and what we do.

When you begin to really trust yourself and know that no matter what you can handle things, other things around you become less threatening. Because you know that should you face betrayal, hurt or pain, that you will be okay in the long run.

Trust your wings. You were born to fly.

When you harm someone, it is easy to not think about it or forget the impact that you had on them. You can avoid sitting with the feelings of how you hurt someone else. But the person who was harmed always remembers.

I think about bullies in school or the workplace. Obviously, there is something going on with them because healthy people don’t go around tearing down other people. However, their impact on other people is real. And can be devastating. There is no universal way to stop bullies, because every situation is different and requires a different tactic. But one thing that I have found when dealing with bullying or harm from another person is just having someone to talk to about it. Someone who can listen and validate my experience. If you find yourself in a place where you are really hurting and struggling, please reach out to someone you can trust, or even a crisis line. Sometimes just being heard makes a big difference in your state of mind.

Most of us harm people unintentionally. I consider myself pretty empathetic, yet I sometimes I really screw up. And that got me thinking about how we can become more mindful of other people, so that we be more cognizant of the consequences of our actions or what we say.

Here are some ways you can be more mindful of others:

1.)  Remember that we don’t know what kind of path others are on. We don’t know what their life really looks like. All we see is what they are showing us. Always keep in mind that just because their life looks perfect on the outside, doesn’t mean that it is. Be open to the idea that they may be struggling, too.

2.) Stop using your world view as a filter for why someone else can feel the way they do. A lot of us have a hard time with this. We get caught up in our own beliefs and thoughts about things and assume that others think the same way. Remember that the person you are talking to has their own sets of beliefs, feelings and ways of looking at things that may be radically different than you. Their feelings are just as valid as yours. Try to immerse yourself into their mindset and see how they really see things and ask yourself if you were them, how would you feel?

3.) Don’t be so quick to be the super positive person. This one is my biggest challenge. When someone tells me that’s something wrong, I want to jump in and tell them they will get through it, are super resourceful and that they totally got this. It’s nice to be supportive and helpful but saying positive things right off the bat can sound like you are minimizing and invalidating their experience. Just because you see it as not the end of the world and completely fixable, doesn’t mean that they do in the moment. The best thing we can do is listen and really hear them. Then acknowledge and validate their feelings. We can offer our positive thoughts when they are less upset, and more likely to receive them as intended.