Self Improvement

3 Innovative Ideas to Improve Your Relationship with Yourself

This is the Most Significant and Least Understood Relationship You Will Ever Have

When we think about relationships, our minds tend to first go to a spouse or a significant other or the lack of a significant other.

Then we may think about children and family… then perhaps extended family.

Next, we probably think about friends and associates in our various pursuits.

How often have you thought about your relationship with yourself? It has a greater impact on your other relationships than you have probably ever considered.

What constitutes a positive relationship with yourself and how do you achieve it?

Innovative Idea #1 to Improve Your Relationship with Yourself -Treating Yourself in the Same Way You Treat Others

This is all about identifying the attributes of character you believe are necessary in any relationship.

Your list might include things like

Honesty … Integrity … Courage … Happiness … Spiritual … Positive Attitude … Tolerant … Respectful … Has Dreams & Goals … Organized …Self Motivated … Friendly … Gratitude … Kind … Persevering … Service Oriented … Good Work Ethic … and the list could go on.

Create a list of the attributes of character that you value most highly and why each one of them is important to you.

Ideally your list will have 6–8 attributes listed. It can be as few as 3 or as many as 12 but 6–8 seems to be the sweet spot.

Once you have created your list step back and ask yourself the question “How do I stack up”?

Do I exhibit the characteristics I look for in others? If my friends, family and associates were to describe me, would they use the words on my list? If not it is time to take a hard look in the mirror and commit to personal development to attain those attributes of character.

Here is the kicker.

Assuming you have the attributes of character on your list and you demonstrate them in your interactions with others do you demonstrate them in your interactions with yourself?

If kindness is on your list and you are kind to others and would never put someone down, are you kind to yourself or do you put yourself down.

Several years ago I started doing something that tends to stun people. One day I was with my friend Janis. Her self-esteem is not one of her strengths. She began putting herself down. I don’t even remember what it was about.

I said “I don’t allow anyone to put one of my friends down in my presence.” It took her a few minutes to get what I was saying and then she was at as loss as to what to say, so we began to talk about it and had a really good conversation. To this day there are times when I will say that to Janis but now she gets it.

This really is about living with integrity. Knowing what you value in others. Holding yourself to the same standard you hold them to, not just with them but also with yourself.

Innovative Idea #2 to Improve Your Relationship with Yourself-Invest the Time & Energy in Yourself You Invest in Your Best Friend

We invest time and energy in the people we care about. We do this with family and friends in particular.

We don’t get to choose our family but we do get to choose our friends. For clarity’s sake we are going to focus on friends in our example.

I was recently working with a young man (he is only 26 and doing this work at his age really impressed me) and he wasn’t getting the concept of investing in himself to get to know himself.

The following conversation made it crystal clear.

I asked “If you met someone you wanted to get to know better because you saw the potential for a great friendship, what would you do”?

He responded that he would invite him to some networking events.

No … no … this isn’t about a business relationship (and knowing that he loved sports) I asked if he would invite him to come and shoot some hoops with you.

He responded yes and he could invite him to go running, and proceeded to list other activities.

I said … “So you would be willing to invest time and energy in getting to know him?”

His response was that absolutely he would be willing to make that investment.

Then I asked … “Would you be willing to invest the same time and energy in getting to know yourself that you are willing to invest in getting to know someone else?”

He had never thought about it.

Have you?

If you truly want to stop making assumptions about yourself and really get to know yourself then you have to invest time and energy in getting to know yourself.

If you need help doing this you will find it right here. Download your copy of THE 7 Pillars of a Happy & Successful Life. This is guaranteed to bring your understanding of who you are and who you want to become to an entirely new level.

Innovative Idea #3 to Improve Your Relationship with Yourself-Learn to Say No.

Do you frequently feel overwhelmed? Is there simply too much on the to do list and not enough time and energy to do it all? When this happens your self-esteem takes a hit. You feel like a failure because you can’t do it all.

Remember what I just said about not allowing someone to put themselves down in my presence? Well, if you are here you are my friend. so stop it and listen up.

You are not inadequate. You are not a failure. You have simply said yes too often to too many people. You have done it with the best intentions in the world, but you are killing yourself in the process.

People ask us to do things to help them. They are people we care about and things we recognize as being good. We say yes. They get to move a monkey off of their shoulder and onto ours. They are happy because they know they can trust us to do what we say we will do.

Pretty soon we are weighed down with everyone else’s monkeys. Someplace buried in that collection of monkey are our monkeys … things that are important to us.

Because being honorable and keeping our commitments to others is a core value we jump through all kinds of hoops to do what we have promised, but it comes at a cost. The things we are passionate about get pushed back till “tomorrow”, but all to often tomorrow never comes.

Does this sound familiar? Would you like a sure fire solution to never feel overwhelmed in this way again?

Learn to say no to good things and good people so you can say yes to great things.

We all have good people in our lives who want our help doing something they are passionate about. We care about them. We agree that what they are doing is good. But it is not something we are passionate about. It doesn’t matter if it is caring, or a sense of obligation or guilt that drives us to say yes when we should say no. That yes comes at a high price.

You just accepted their monkey and moved it to the front of the line ahead of your monkey. Is that really what you want to do?

Instead you could say “Melissa I love what you are doing and I look forward to hearing about your success but I’m not in a position to help you with that right now”.

You have validated Melissa’s importance to you. You have validated her project. You have not accepted her monkey.

Melissa may be disappointed. She may try and guilt you into changing you mind. Whether you do or you don’t, it is your choice.

Melissa will then have to look for someone else to help her. Hopefully she will find someone else who shares her passion. When she does they have the potential to create something greater than you and she could have created because although it was great for her it was only good for you.

When you do this you have the freedom to pursue what is great for you. You are no longer putting yourself on the back burner.

This is the epitome of win-win. You both are doing what is great in your life. You are not only impacting your life, but the lives of everyone in your circle, and the world.

Think of a world where everyone was sharing their greatness … it is hard to fathom how amazing that could be.

Bonus Tip

Go back over your calendar for the last 30 days. Most people find that 75–80% of their productive time was devoted to things that for them were “good”. About 15% of their time was devoted to things that were “better” and less than 10% of their time was devoted to things that were great. That doesn’t even include the time wasted on things that don’t rise to the level of good. In an ideal world we would flip those numbers and 75–80% would be devoted to great but for most people that isn’t realistic. Think how different your life would be if “good” was reduced to 50% and “great” was increased to 35%. That is the power that comes from saying no to good so you can say yes to great.