Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Do Your Relationships Work?

Are you willing to settle for less than success?
Do you want to compromise your values?
Are you sacrificing to keep your relationship?
Do you want the other party to sacrifice too?

Does your relationship lack common goals and values?
Are both of you totally honest and open?
Do you each contribute equally to the relationship: time, energy and resources?
Are you both committed to what is best for each of you?
Do you take responsibility for the quality of the relationship with no guilt or blame?

Couples try to make relationships work, because “They Love one another.”
We can love many folks whom we would never want to live with and partner with for life. 
Partners confess: “They need each other emotionally or financially.”
Whenever we are dependent on someone, we will receive whatever they have to give.

People often stay in a friendship, job, partnership or marriage, because they are stuck.
They may be stuck in loyalty, stuck in false hope, stuck in fear, stuck in a house or kids or agreement.
When we are afraid to make a change, because it will look bad to others or hurt someone, we are stuck.
To see clearly what is in our best interest, we must stop judging and clarify what we want.

When we make a relationship agreement, we often choose based on what we want to be true.
When we make commitments to be friend, partner, employee or spouse, we often choose emotionally.
When we experience the side effects of our agreements, we may be offended, disappointed or angry.
Emotions are wake up calls to invite us to look rationally at the component benefits and deficits involved.

Changing agreements responsibly and respectfully:
Changing agreements respectfully requires that we forgive ourselves and others for not choosing consciously.
Changing agreements respectfully asks that we stop the emotional blame and guilt game and be neutral.
Changing agreements responsibly requires that we clarify what is true for all parties, including expectations.
Changing agreements honorably requires that we seek only the outcome that is best for all parties.

Remember if it is not best for you, it is not best for them.
If you cannot be your best, you will not give your best to the other.
If either party sacrifices or loses, both people relinquish success.
Only when we give live our best and the other is giving and living their best.

Consider the Keys to Successful Relationships below:
They work! 
Consider letting go of what you hoped could be and choose for what you want.
Consider being grateful to learn the lessons for successful partnerships in all areas of life.

Loving us all as we learn to drop the drama, the fantasy and the games we play in life.
Betty Lue

Five Keys for Successful Relationships

To have successful relationships with partners, spouse, coworkers, teammates, children there are five essential factors: Joining, Honesty, Equality, Commitment, Responsibility.
Joining: All parties must share a common goal or vision for their relationship. This shared vision comes from communication regarding the needs of each individual, their vision for the future and what they share in common.

Honesty: Honest communication is sharing what really matters with no blame, guilt or withholds.
Honest is a byproduct of integrity, living one’s life on purpose with openness and appreciation.

Equality: When both parties are giving their best in each moment, there is equality.  Equality is not measured by comparison: it is experienced when there is the willingness to give one’s best even when it is less than the other.  To quit or hold back on one’s giving creates inequality.

Commitment: To commit to the fulfillment of the desired vision or goal and to the success of the relationship requires always choosing what is best for both.  Decisions are based on what is a win/win for all concerned.  One must be committed to what is highest and best for each party.

Responsibility: Being fully able and willing to respond to whatever is needed to create success through joining, honesty, equality and commitment is being fully responsible.  Where there is guilt or blame being communicated, there is inequality and victimization as well as lack of responsibility.

To be successful requires staying conscious.
To be successful requires a willingness to communicate with respect.
To be successful requires an acceptance of differences.
To be successful requires open-minded and appreciation of all parties.

To take on unconscious patterns of dysfunctional family systems will limit the success of one’s joining, honest communication, true willingness to give, total commitment to what is best for all and assuming full responsibility for the quality of the relationship.

If you want success and fulfillment in your relationships, begin today to observe what you can do to improve yourself and your way of relating in every way.  You need not depend upon another’s changing in order to increase the quality of your relating. You can do it yourself!

Blessings for choosing a better way,
Betty Lue