Intentionally prioritizing time in your couple-ship is one of the keys to its long-term, happy life. Intention is required. Without it, your relationship will only be a shadow of its true potential.
If you are an upwardly mobile executive or business owner, you have created your success through focus, follow-through and developing trust with others in your work environment (including clients). Those same rules apply at home, however many become too consumed with the success-curve to fully appreciate their importance at home.
Why is it that we KNOW that focus and intention is needed to move our careers to the next level and yet we put our most important relationships on the “automatic” setting?
It’s probable that we never saw “career success + home life flourishing” modeled for us.
For most, we just saw the guy get the girl and they rode off into the sunset. We never saw what happened to the relationship once the credits stopped rolling. We never saw the continued ups & downs of life and whether those conditions presented were even overcome.
Here’s an important truth: we get what we focus on.
Focusing our attention and creativity on work only, while leaving our relationship to just naturally “be happy and fulfilling”, is a set-up for results that we do not desire. Without focus and intention, our home lives become lackluster and non-rewarding. One of the partners begins to feel ignored, not important, or under-valued and discontent sets in.
So what is the plan, then? It’s pretty straightforward. It first starts with figuring out what our priorities are.
Our priorities will always reflect what we value and they might need to be reassessed. If work or career has consumed so much of what you do that you never mentally leave it, there is some clarity needed as to what truly matters.
Then, setting aside a bit of time daily to think through your relationship and your home-life is required. Again, focus determines direction and this daily habit, just in itself, will create a positive shift.
Here’s some things you can do to get things back on track:
- Take some time to assess your values.
- Set time aside each day to review them and align your schedule to reflect them.
- Be honest with yourself – what is the state of your couple-ship?
- What is the vision for the life and relationship you desire?
- Practice being in the moment and appreciating just what is happening in that moment.
- Bring small amounts of creativity to the moment.
- Be consistent – no change ever happens without consistency.
- Leverage the accountability of a coach so it becomes a habit to live your priorities.