How to make relationships work

Making relationships work, whether in your professional or personal life, making friends or finding love. If you want to make your relationships work, there will be an element of stepping out of your comfort zone in order to get to know people. If you are genuinely interested in people, you will draw people to you and make relationships that you wish to keep. Relationships are like cars, great when they are going well and are truly horrible when they break down. Why is it that we treat complete strangers better than we do those close to us? If you want to improve our relationships with others, first start with yourself.

One of the great lessons that I have learned in my life is that you can’t change anyone else, you can only change yourself. How do you feel about yourself and what you offer, if you don’t feel worthy of a good relationship you are more likely to put up with unacceptable behaviour from others and justify this to yourself because you feel that you are not worthy of being treated in a better way. In order to change the way that others see you, you must first change the way that you see yourself. Treat yourself as you would a best friend, look after yourself as though it actually mattered. Make an effort for yourself not for anyone else and see what a difference it makes in your life. Be complete in yourself and don’t look for others to make you complete.

If you really want to improve relationships there are three important things that you can do - communicate, communicate, communicate. Communication is key to any great relationship. In good relationships people talk to each other, they make time for each other and show interest in the other party. I was talking to a professional family mediator the other day and she told me that one of the reasons that most marriages fall apart is due to lack of communication, people simply stop talking to each other. The pressures of everyday life get in the way, people start to think that the other partner should know what they are thinking and people stop communicating altogether. In organisations where people are working on different floors, or different sites and sometimes even different countries, communication becomes even more important. Today when we have the technical knowledge to communicate quickly and easily, there is still a need to actually talk to people face to face and not assume what others are thinking, after all we not are mind readers. Non verbal communication also has a part to play in relationships at work and at home and by making sure that what we say is congruent with what we do. Body language can tell us so much about what someone is really thinking without uttering a single word. The way that they respond, if they are open or closed and the micro expressions that they use are all tell tale signs of how the relationships is going. So check yourself and watch others body language too. Finally relationships are a two-way street with both parties required to make an effort in order to make it work.

Many of my clients have found relationships at work or at home to have improved after working with me, so if you would like to improve your relationships do get in touch.