A Miracle A Day

Archive for the ‘Priorities’ Category

A Simple Way To Easily Keep Your Focus All Day Long

A Simple Way To Easily Keep Your Focus All Day Long

We all have a natural tendency to start losing our focus as the day drags on, especially when we're working on something other than what we really want to be doing.  It becomes harder and harder to pay attention to what you're doing… your mind starts to wander and pretty soon you're working at a fraction of your peak efficiency.  Sometimes you may even become annoyed at yourself for it, but that doesn't really help, it just makes it even harder to focus.

There is, however, a fairly simple way to keep your focus all day long, and it doesn't even take much time.  And, as a bonus, not only will it help you to keep your focus, but it will also help you to train your subconscious in what is important to you, and thus which choices and opportunities to bring to your attention.

And now onto the meat of article, how to keep your focus all day long:

Preparation

The first thing you'll need to do for this to be the most effective is a list of specific things in your life that you want to improve.  The easiest way to get such a list is to sit down with pen and paper (or electronic equivalent) and write down whatever comes to mind as something you would like to improve.  Anything that is really general, like "I want to be more successful", refine down to one or more specifics, such as "I want my income to increase".

Now take that list and narrow it down to something like 4-6 items that are the most important to you.  Take those items you have left and put them into a positive and current sentence.  As an example, if you chose from above the specific of "I want my income to increase", you could take that and turn it into "My cash flow is increasing."  That's positive, as opposed to something like "I'm not going to smoke", and current, rather than future like "I will make more money".

So… that's the one time preparation, although you can, of course, revisit the list at any time if you find that one of the things on it is no longer of as much importance (or if you simply find something of more importance).  There is also daily preparation, done each night just before bed. Each night, just before bed, make a short list of things you need to do the next day.  This shouldn't be more than few of the most important things, not a comprehensive list of everything you have on your plate. 

Now, onto the next phase…

Execution

First thing in the morning, soon after you wake up, take five minutes of quiet time for yourself.  Start this quiet time with deep breathing, concentrating on feeling your breath slide in and out.  After you feel your body relax and your mind achieve quiet (which should only be a couple minutes if you do this regularly) repeat to yourself the phrases from your list… "My cash flow is increasing.", etc.  Focus on each one for just a moment, then move to the next.  After you have finished that list, quickly review your to do list from the night before and decide the order in which you are going to do those things.  Now you're ready to go start your day knowing what you need to do and where you want to go… and your focus should be sharp.

You should repeat this process every two or three hours throughout the day.  It should only take a few minutes each time, and the time it takes is likely to go down as you get used to doing it.  It gives your mind a chance to clear out all the debris that working builds up, refocuses you on what you want to improve in your life, and offers a chance to review what is left on your to do list, letting you see your progress and keeping you from straying off too far with distractions.

Each of those three things is important, but the thing that helps the most is clearing out the mental debris.  This builds up constantly during the day and most people only clear it out at night when they go to sleep.  If you keep it cleared throughout the day, however, it's not there impeding your ability to focus, and also lets you get to the good sleep faster, since there is little built-up debris to clear first.

And that brings us to the final phase…

Review

First thing in the morning is the most important part of the execution phase, because it sets the tone for the day.  There's another very important part of the whole process, though, and that comes at the end of the day, just before bed.  This is the time when, after doing your deep breathing and review of the areas where you want to improve, you review your to do list to see which things on the list were accomplished.  This can be a good way to feel like you got something productive done that day.

After you review your list for the day, take the time to make a new one for the next day.  You can include anything that wasn't completed from the day just past, as well as anything new.  Take a moment to picture yourself the next night with your new list accomplished, and then put it away until the next morning.

It's also a good idea to mentally set a time that you intend to wake up in the morning, and use another phrase, something along the lines of "My sleep is restorative and refreshing.  I awaken each morning focused and alert."  This combination, setting a specific time and essentially telling yourself that you are going to sleep well, can help you to actually sleep well and awaken in the morning feeling refreshed and mentally clear.

Summary

This process generally takes no more than 30-40 minutes of your day, in 5 minute chunks, and will more than compensate for that time by keeping you focused and operating near to your peak efficiency.  It also helps you to keep an eye on what areas of your life you want to improve, teaching your subconscious to bring situations and opportunities involving those areas to your conscious attention.  If that isn't enough to talk you into trying it out, remember that it also helps you to focus on getting the most important things done each day, with reminders throughout the day of what you wanted to accomplish.

All of that works out to help you easily keep your focus all day long.  It also helps you to reduce your stress, frustration, and feelings of not getting anywhere, bringing more peace into your life.  It can even help improve your relationships, as that can easily be on both your "areas to improve" list AND your "to do" list.

If you have any suggestions for ways to improve this process, or other things that you can add to it, please leave them in the comments. 

You might also like

Author

October 4th

Awareness, Body/Mind Relationship, Energy, Feed Your Mind, Internal Quiet, Planning, Priorities, Subconscious

Top 5 Ways To NOT Be Like Britney Spears

How To NOT Be Like Britney Spears

There was a time, not so long ago, when a great many people would have jumped at the opportunity to switch places with Britney Spears.  That idea is not nearly as popular today, due to the mess that she's been making of her life.  So where did she go wrong, and how can you avoid the same mistakes?

There is a mistake that is common amongst all demographics, when it comes to leading their lives, but is more prevalent among celebrities, especially if they became celebrities when they were young.  What is that mistake?  The answer is simple… they let other people tell them who they are.

There will always be people around you who want to tell you who you are, either directly or indirectly.  Celebrities have a lot of people in their lives, and those people are even more likely to try to tell the celebrity who they are.  Combine that with becoming a celebrity while you're young, and thus don't have a good idea of your own about who you are, and it can be overwhelming.

So, how can you avoid this?  Well, here's a good start…  The Top 5 Ways To NOT Be Like Britney Spears:

  1.  Take Time And Room For Yourself

    It's important to have some time for yourself, with no one else around.  Your body and your mind both need this time to heal and strengthen.  As a celebrity, and one of the most popular for gossip magazines, Britney has a harder time than most getting time to herself, with the paparazzi always around, as well as fans, people seeking business deals or endorsement, etc.  Non-celebrities can have a hard time finding time for themselves, too, though… friends, family, work, spouse, and especially children can take all the time you have every day if you let them.

    Make sure that you take time for yourself, so that your mind can strengthen and you can evaluate choices that come your way clearly.  This can help you to avoid making bad decisions… like driving 45 MPH with your child on your lap in the driver's seat.

  2. Be Aware Of Others' Influence

    Other people always have an influence on you.  How much effect that influence has over your actions and choices, however, depends greatly on how aware of it you are.  The influence of others over your choices drops as your awareness of their influence rises.  Perhaps Britney could become more aware of the influence of the people she associates with, and choose NOT to wear a short dress without panties.

  3. Take Responsibility For Your Own Choices

    As long as you blame others for your choices, you can't begin to make the changes that you need in order to avoid repeating the problem in the future.  Taking responsibility for your choices, and your responses to the situations around you, can be difficult.  It means that there's something less than desirable about you, and it's YOU that needs to change to fix it.  Britney, if she were to read this, could perhaps take this advice and not blame her mother for associating with the father of her (Britney's mom) grandchildren.

  4. Know Who You Are

    This one is always difficult, when you first approach it.  You have to spend time and attention, focusing on determining what your core priorities are, what your purpose or calling in life may be.  One of my passions happens to be writing, which is why you're reading this right now.  I suspect that one of Britney's passions may be music, although that can (rarely) change as life goes on, and she may no longer have music as one of her core priorities.

  5. Be Who You Are

    This, of course, is the most difficult of all the advice in this article.  Once you have discovered who you are, and accept responsibility for your own choices, the next step is to give up the personas that you put on for other people and be yourself… all of the time.  Any choice that comes up, you should go with the one that reflects who you are the best.  This may not seem like the best advice, considering what seems to be who some people are, but, as I've written before, you are who you choose to be… so make your choice of who you are in some of the time you take for yourself.  Decide who you want to be, and then be that person (and I don't mean decide to be Lindsay Lohan, I mean choose how you will respond to different circumstances).  You can see that Britney needs help in this area by how wildly her behavior changes.

While it would certainly be pleasant to have Britney's money, it would not be worth the trade-off with the things going on in her life.  On the other hand, she can always take the steps listed above and change her life, becoming who she chooses to be, instead of letting others define her.  That would bring much needed stability and peace into her life.

So, now you know how to not be like Britney Spears… do you need to stop letting other people tell you who you are, too?

Author

October 3rd

Awareness, Expectations, Feed Your Mind, Free Will, Humor, Priorities

The Truth Behind Falling – And Being – In Love

Holding Hands

There is nothing like falling in love.  Your whole self, body, heart, and mind, yearns for the person you are in love with.  You want to be with them all the time, you wonder what they're doing or what they're thinking when you are not around them, and the whole world just seems like a better place.  There's only one problem.

You can't, and won't, be falling in love forever.  At some point, if you want to keep the relationship, you have to go from falling in love to being in love.  If you're already at that point, you might want to read The Secret Killer Of Relationships or The Very SImple Secret To A Happy Marriage.

Falling In Love

Falling in love is the beginning (and can sometimes re-occur later, but I'll get to that)… it's that place where the other person, your significant other, can do no wrong.  Everything about them is beautiful, fascinating, and you can't get enough of them.  Any time your focus is not fully on something specific, your thoughts drift to the newly significant other in your life.

At this point, everything is new… every day together brings new revelations, new learning, which make you feel like you're getting more and more "inside" the other person.  You let each other in deeper than the surface, and there is always a constant feeling of growing closer, an observable closing of the mental and emotional distance between the two of you.

That is a huge part of the greatness of falling in love… getting closer at a visible rate.  It's also part of why it can't last forever.  Eventually you are close enough that even as you grow closer, it's not as visible, and so it feels like you have stalled, or even like you are growing apart.  When you are (bad, but understandable, analogy coming up) a mile apart, and you get 10% closer, that's a huge distance.  When you are a foot apart, and you get 10% closer… that's a lot harder to see.

So does this mean that you have reached that point where you love each other, but you are no longer "in" love? 

No…  when you are growing closer at a very visible rate, that's the "falling" part of falling in love.  When you are already close, and moving closer by inches (or even fractions of an inch, eventually), that's when it changes to being in love.  It doesn't mean you're no longer in love, it just means that seeing results of your efforts, where you see the relationship grow, is not as easy, and so you need to find other sources of motivation as well.

Being In Love

Being in love is where it starts taking conscious involvement to keep the "in love" part without the falling.  Now, instead of falling in love, you need to start being in love.  You will have to go out of your way to keep yourself in your partner's thoughts (and make sure that they stay in yours!).  If you don't go out of your way, it won't mean anything.

What does it mean to "go out of your way"?  Going out of your way can mean different things to different people, but the important thing is that you are devoting the two things that you can't possibly acquire more of to them.  What two things?  Time and attention… you can't get more time and you have only a limited amount of attention to invest during the time you do have.  Giving time and attention, therefore, is the universally recognized way to convey someone's (or something's) importance to you.

When you are falling in love, and everything is new, it's easy to devote an enormous amount of attention (and with it time) to your significant other.  New things always have a draw on our attention… it's part of being human, and part of our survival instinct (you have to determine whether or not something new is a threat, after all).  That's why it's also easier to stick with a new diet, or a new workout, or why you may find you love a new dish or a new restaurant.  Once something (or in our case, someone) become familiar, however, it requires a conscious decision to dedicate mental energy (attention) to that thing (or, as I said, person).

When you combine that advantage of newness drawing our attention with the visibly growing closeness of the relationship, it makes giving more attention to the relationship a no-brainer.  It doesn't require much in the way of conscious effort, because not only is your subconscious driving you to make sure this "new" thing is not a threat, but the rewards are blindingly obvious. 

Once you get to the point of obviously diminishing returns, however, you start to notice that the same amount of effort doesn't move you the same amount closer.  At the same time, the subconscious drive to categorize anything new as "threat" or "non-threat" fades away, leaving you with much less "drive" to devote attention to the relationship.  Other things start to claim your attention, drawing it away from your significant other.

I mentioned earlier that your partner needs you to give two things in order to keep being in love, as opposed to just loving each other (the difference between soul mates and good friends).  One was time, the other attention.  Out of the two of these, time is the easiest to give, attention the most important.

Attention Is Money

Despite the phrase above, attention is far more important than money.  Attention is the currency by which you show how much you value something.  You've heard the saying "time is money" but time without attention means nothing.  Whatever it is that you do, it's highly unlikely that they truly pay you for your time… they really pay for your attention across time.  They pay you to write, to watch a security monitor, to serve burgers… whatever it is, they may pay you for the hours you do it, but if you don't "do it", whatever it is, you don't get paid.

This applies to relationships, too.  Giving time without attention is sort of like leaving a seventeen cent tip at a restaurant… it lets the other person know that you didn't forget, you just didn't think they were worthy of more.  It's insulting, whether done consciously, as with the tip, or subconsciously, as with spending time with your significant other without giving them your full attention.

When you give someone time, without attention, you are telling them that they are low on your priority list.  It doesn't matter whether you intend for them to be or not… you are showing them, with your actions, that they are.  You can show someone that they have your attention in many ways… communication is an extremely important one, but there is also buying them something (probably the least effective way), making them something (the more it reflects the fact that it is something YOU created, the better), or doing something with them (ie going out to dinner and/or a movie).

All of the ways listed above can show your attention, but if you don't show your mental involvement, show that you were thinking of them specifically, the value drops.  For instance, when you buy something for your significant other, if you don't take the time to buy something that they specifically like (for instance buying roses when your wife prefers tulips), it loses some of its value… that doesn't mean it has no value, just less.  The same goes for making them something… if you don't show that you were thinking about them when you made it, it loses some value.  If you do something with them, and keep taking phone calls, it takes away some of the value.

Communication is a special case.  By the very act of communicating, you are giving them some fraction of your attention.  Different forms of communication show different amounts of attention, and also show how much of your attention the other person has to different degrees.  Email, for instance, doesn't require much attention, or show how much attention the other person has, unless it's a long and involved email, which could STILL have been written across time, and thus be less of your attention.  Instant messaging, on the other hand, still doesn't require a lot of attention, but shows how much of your attention the other person has a little better, because they can see how long you take to respond.  Voice communication (ie a phone call) is better yet, as it requires more attention, and they can hear in your voice how much of your attention they have.  An in-person meeting provides them with the most attention, and lets them read your body language as well to determine how much of your current attention they have.

The Difference

What it boils down to, then, is that the difference between falling in love and being in love is that you can't fall forever.  Eventually you have to move from falling in love to being in love, from the easy part to the part which requires your conscious effort.  It IS worth that effort, though… being in love still moves you closer, and still builds your relationship and love higher.  It just exchanges speed for depth… it goes back and fills in all the little chinks that falling in love passed over.

You can also fall in love all over again.  This usually happens when you let your partner slide from your attention for too long, and then something wakes you up to that fact.  All of a sudden what was old and familiar is new and different.  You close the gap that opened up between you, and now have that momentum to keep you going once you move back to being in love once again.

Again, falling in love is absolutely wonderful.  It is an amazing experience, and one you will likely always remember.  Being in love, though, has depth and duration that falling in love is not capable of producing.

Falling in love gets you to the starting line.  Being in love is the rest of the race.  And when you win at being in love, you win big.

Author

September 26th

Awareness, Communication, Energy, Growth, Motivation, Perseverance, Priorities, Relationships

8 Ways To Put Procrastination Off Until Tomorrow

Notepad - List

Ah yes, the joys of procrastination… putting off all the hard or unpleasant work that you need to get done until later.  Then, when it all piles up until it's over your head, you feel overwhelmed, wondering how you managed to end up so deep in a mess and how to escape.

Some people seem to have a natural tendency toward procrastination, always putting off until tomorrow what could be done today.  Others don't seem to have that issue.  They don't seem to have any problem just getting right to work on something, even when it's very unpleasant to even think about.  Those of us who fall into the first category can, however, take steps to deal with our "problem".

So, since you have a tendency to procrastinate (otherwise, why are you reading this article?), why not put it to work against itself?  Here's some ways you can put off procrastinating until tomorrow.

  1. Write A Daily Task List (DTL)

    This one is relatively obvious, and you've probably heard it until you're sick of it… but any list of ways to help put off procrastination would be incomplete without it.  All this requires is that each night you make a short list of things that need done (or worked on) the next day.  Once you have your list, there are many other things that you can do with it.

  2. Prioritize Your DTL By Importance

    The first thing you can do is prioritize the list you created in #1 by importance.  That way you can be sure that you will at least get the most important things accomplished, and you are likely to find that you get more than the first few things done, because you feel like you've gotten the important stuff out of the way and gotten something accomplished for the day.  You may even find yourself on a roll, getting things done left and right.

  3. Prioritize Your DTL By Difficulty

    Your next choice is to prioritize your list by difficulty, putting the most difficult tasks first.  This makes it so that you have the hardest work out of the way early, so that when you are more tired later in the day, you have only the easier tasks left, thus decreasing the chances that you will put a task off until tomorrow because it's too hard to finish in the time that you have left.  Also, this particular method of prioritizing is even more likely to make you feel like you're "on a roll" than #2.

  4. Prioritize Your DTL By Unpleasantness

    This may be very heavily related to #3, as difficulty is a major factor in how unpleasant a task is… but it's not the ONLY factor.  This means of prioritization has the advantage that as you complete your tasks, the remaining tasks are more and more things that you actually want to do, not things that you have to do.  Also, like #3, you're less likely to have that really unpleasant task at the end of the day that you put off until the next day because you don't want to start it late.

  5. Reward Yourself When You Complete Tasks Early

    People have known for thousands of years that you train people, including yourself, through rewards and punishment.  You reward behavior which you want to increase, and punish behavior you want to decrease.  Since most procrastination has punishments built right in (like putting off paying your bills… not good for your credit, people come and shut off power, etc.), you are free to concentrate on the rewards side of the equation.  The three easiest ways to do that are trewarding yourself for completing unusually difficult tasks, rewarding yourself for completing a longer-term task early (ie something that you expect to take a week and you finish in three days), and rewarding yourself for completing your DTL.  Don't make the rewards too easy, or out of proportion, though, or they won't help you to train yourself… you have to feel like you earned whatever it is.

  6. Post Your DTL Where You Will See It Regularly

    This is especially good if you cross tasks off as you go, since it allows you to see your progress.  It can be motivational to see a list of ten tasks with seven of them already crossed off, especially if it's still relatively early.  Even if you don't have anything crossed off yet, having the list in a place where you see it can remind you of what you decided to do for the day if you get distracted.

    Just as a note, the phrasing in that last sentence is important… always look at your list as what you decided to do, not what you "should" do.  What you "should" do takes the element, the feeling, of choice out of it, which can leave you feeling resentful even if you made the list yourself.  It's a list of tasks that you decided to do, not something forced on you by others.

  7. Be Accountable To Someone Else For Your DTL

    Just about everyone hates to feel stupid in front of someone else.  If you let someone else read your DTL, and share your progress on that list with them at the end of the day, it provides a little more pressure to actually get things done, so that you don't feel like you have to stand there in front of them and tell them that you screwed around all day and didn't get anything on your DTL done.  Don't let doing this make you feel like you have to put more things on your DTL just to impress them, though… the list is still for you, and you don't want to exhaust yourself trying to impress someone.

    If you're in a relationship, your significant other is probably a good choice for this.

  8. Do Things Instantly When Possible

    This is really simple, and the thing that has helped me the most with my natural tendency to procrastination.  This is completing tasks as soon as you can when you become aware that they need done.  For example, you can pay your bills as soon as you get them in the mail.  Or you can fix that chair with the wobbly leg NOW instead of waiting until the weekend (by which time you've probably become accustomed to procrastinating that task, which makes it easier and easier to continue doing so, while other tasks pile up behind it).

    Your mental list of what needs done (not the same as your DTL) can become overwhelming when things pile up, making you want to hide behind one distraction after another.  Completing tasks as soon as possible after you become aware of them keeps your mental list all cleared out, making you far less likely to feel overwhelmed, helping you to put off procrastinating.

Procrastination tendencies are incurable.  They will be with you for the rest of your life (at least from what I have observed in other, and felt personally).  Using the methods above, however, you can put procrastination off until tomorrow, and get things done today.

Author

September 18th

Goals, Motivation, Perseverance, Planning, Priorities, Timetables, Tips Tuesday

5 Little Ways To Show Your Love

Young Couple

One of the most important things in any relationship is to show the other person that they are special to you, worthy of your time, effort, and attention.  This can be done with huge, lavish gestures, like buying them a car, but in the long run, the little things that you do on a regular basis make more of a difference.

There are obviously a vast number of small things that you can do for your spouse (I'm going to say spouse, but this applies to any significant other, you don't have to be married), and some of these will mean more based on your past history.  For instance, I proposed to my wife by decorating a cake, writing "Will you marry me?" and having the engagement ring be the "o" in "you".  That meant more because we often look at the cakes when we go to the grocery store or a bakery and comment on which ones we like, and we had done a few together before (like a flag cake for the Fourth of July).  It might not mean much to your spouse, however, without that history behind it.

That being said, there are a few "categories" of things that you can do for your spouse that are pretty much universal, and I will list some of these.  You can then choose a specific thing that fits in that category that might mean something specifically in the context of you and your spouse.

By the way, I'm saving the best one for last.

  1. Suprise Them With A Small Gift

    This is shown in all the movies and TV shows, and is ingrained in our culture.  The stereotypical example is to bring flowers.  This category is far more effective if you do it for no reason… buying them a gift to say you're sorry has some effect, but buying them a gift just to say I love you means far more.

    The secret here is to do something that shows that you went out of your way for them… the most effective small gifts are ones that show that you know them, like getting them their favorite food, or something in their favorite color, or maybe the new CD from their favorite artist.

  2. Do Something They Normally Do For Them

    This involves doing something for them that they normally find unpleasant.  Examples include washing dishes, taking out the trash, and changing the baby's diaper but it could be anything that they do that they dislike.  I think my wif'e's favorite is when I do the dishes.

    Oh, and this has to be without them asking, and not in exchange for anything… ie not "I'll do the dishes today so I can hang out with the guys and watch the game on Sunday.".  It has to be "I'll do the dishes so you don't have to do so.".

  3. Schedule Some Time Specifically For Them

    Schedule some time just for them, and do it in advance.  That is, don't just go "There's nothing happening right now, let's go do something", although that, too, can be effective.  Plan some time at least a week ahead of time that is theirs, where there are no distractions, to the best of your ability.  That means no checking email, no cell phones (you may have to make an exception if you have children… emergencies DO come up), none of the daily clutter of life.  That time is their time, and theirs alone.

    It can help if you plan what to do ahead, too, but you should always stay open if you can, so that if what you had planned no longer sounds appealing at the start of their time, you can go do something else that DOES sound pleasant.  The key here is to let them choose whether to go ahead with previous plans or change them for something else.

  4. Turn Down Something Fun To Spend Time With Them

    This does require that they know about it, but also that you don't rub it in their face.  In other words, don't tell them "I turned down something else to do this with you" like you expect them to make it worth it.  It's far more effective to let them overhear you turn down the other thing, or simply let them know ahead of time, saying something along the lines of "Joe invited me to do such and such, but I told him that I was busy spending time with you".

    This one is particularly dangerous to do too much.  First, if they feel like you are trying to spend ALL of your time with them, they may feel smothered (or they may not… it depends on your relationship).  Secondly, though, they start expecting it… they start to rate your own time as less important, and start getting resentful when you DO say yes to an invitation to do something that they don't enjoy.  Essentially, they get used to the addtional attention, and it becomes the level of attention they expect, so they feel like you are "stealing" it from them when they don't get it.

    So make sure that doing this is unusual and special.

  5. Create Something For Them

    This is the most effective category of them all.  It involves investing part of yourself, part of who you are, into them, not just a little bit of time or money.  When you create something, it is a partial reflection of who you are… and the amount of you that is reflected is in direct proportion to the amount of effort you have invested.

    My wife's favorite gift that I've given her is the jewelry box I made for her.  It's certainly not perfect, and I've seen much more beautiful jewelry boxes… but I spent my time and effort creating it for her.  She also loves a bracelet that I had custom made for her… it's not the expense, it's the time and attention and creativity that I invested into making it.  That increases the value of the gift far more than cost alone, and that holds true for all but the most empty of relationships.

Again, all of these things are "categories" of things you can do for them.  Each one of them represents time, effort, and attention that you are spending on them.  These things show that you find the other person special, and that is important to any relationship.

It helps if you don't always use the same item from above.  For instance, if you always buy them small gifts, they will become accustomed to it, and it will start to lose its meaning.  If you take over a chore from them, then eventually it becomes "your" chore, and again, loses its meaning.  The last category is more resistant to this than the others, but is NOT immune to it, especially if you're always creating the same type of thing, like always writing them a poem.

One more thing:  The things listed above only work when done because you want to do them.  Your spouse WILL be able to tell if you are doing them because you're "supposed to", if you are doing it against your will.  Your action will lose almost all power at that point.

So, if you want to show your spouse that you appreciate them, start doing something from the list above, but again, only if you actually want to do it (not necessarily the specific act, but really want to show them that you love them), or you're wasting your time 

Author

September 11th

Communication, Planning, Priorities, Relationships, Tips Tuesday

The Very Simple Secret To A Happy Marriage

Wedding Rings

There are tons of books, websites, and other resources out there that take pages and pages to tell you the fourteen step process to having a happy marriage.  They are making something very simple and making it complex.

Yes, there are a ton of different issues that can make a marriage better or worse, like arguing over finances.  But, assuming that you picked someone you are actually compatible with as your spouse, the core of what you need for a happy marriage is much simpler.

I've been married nearly four years.  I know that's not a terribly long time, as marriages go, but it's enough for me to have learned what the difference is between when things are great and when there is the occasional friction.  That friction doesn't happen very often, but when it does, I can look back and see the same thing, every time.

So, without further ado, the very simple secret to a happy marriage is to remember these three things:

  1. Spend Quality Time Alone Together

    Quality time, not quantity time… spending time together of low quality can actually make things worse, causing you to feel like your relationship is going sour ("We're not as close as we used to be"), possibly resentful, and eventually even sick of each other.  Put the emphasis on quality… and then put the emphasis on alone.  You can get some medium quality time with your spouse when the kids are around, but the kind of quality time you need to have a great marriage only comes when you are alone, and don't have to worry about being interrupted.

    This one is not so hard when you don't have children, unless one spouse is absent a lot or you work different shifts.  Once you have children, though, it can really be difficult to get away together.  Whether you have children or not, though, don't forget to go on dates with each other… after all, you were dating when you fell in love, right?  Make the dates quality time together… dinner out, a movie, flowers, whatever you both enjoy.

  2. Put Your Spouse At The Top Of Your Priority List

    This one can be very hard to notice when it's you doing it to your spouse, but it usually isn't hard at all to identify when they are doing it to you, though there is some natural tendency to not address it directly.  That is, you get hurt by, and sometimes resentful of, your spouse because you feel like you're not important to them, but you don't want to admit that "weakness", so you displace it onto some other, smaller issue, like not taking out the garbage, or not keeping up with the laundry, or whatever else… anything that doesn't show that you are "weak" because not getting enough attention hurts you.

    This particular issue seems, in my experience, to come up the most when you find a new project that you are passionate about doing.  For instance, I know that when I started this site, I was investing so much of my passion and attention into it that I was taking it away from my wife.  She didn't complain, but after a little while I noticed what I was doing.  So if you're starting something new that you are passionate about doing, make sure you step away from it every once in a while to make sure you're not letting your spouse slip down the priority list.

  3. Take Care Of Each Other

    "Take care of each other" can mean a ton of different things to different people, but the essence of it can be boiled down to this:  Spend the time and effort to do little things for your partner to show them how much they mean to you.  You can buy your wife (or husband, if they're into it) flowers for no reason.  You can stop what you're doing, drop everything, and go spend a couple minutes hugging and kissing, even if you then go back to what you were doing.  You can give them a spontaneous foot rub, assuming you're in private, and they aren't TOO ticklish.  You can even simply call them from work for no other purpose than to tell them that you were thinking about them and you love them.

    The specifics aren't important… what's important is that your spouse sees that you feel that they are worthy of your time and effort.  One of the most effective things that I've seen is to make them something.  I made my wife a jewelry box, and a charm link bracelet, and they are some of her favorite things she has ever received.  She made me a card and a plaque (she burned (woodburning) her wedding vows onto it… I read it any time I feel negative emotions, almost always fixes it) that are two of the very few things I'd run into a burning building to retrieve.  These things didn't take much money, or even a whole lot of time, to make… but they DID require that we REALLY invest our SELVES into the creation, which is what makes it so special.

If you remember those three things you will very seldom have any serious problems.  It's when you forget one, and let your partner slip down your priority list, or just get quantity time together instead of quality (or you don't do it alone… ie you bring the kids), that's when you'll see problems start to creep into your marriage.

And do you want to know the really annoying thing about it?  It's usually quite hard to trace the problems that come up back to those three things… unless you are already aware that they cause, or more accurately the lack of them causes,  the vast majority of relationship problems.  You just use smaller issues to poke around the edges of those bigger issues.

It can be really difficult to admit that you haven't been doing one of the things above… it means admitting that you've been neglecting your spouse, that you've been taking the attention you should be giving them and spending it elsewhere.  It means admitting that you've been doing something, or not doing something, that hurts your spouse and your relationship.  That hurts when you truly love each other.

So… any time you notice that your marriage, your relationship, is starting to have friction, look back and see if one of you has been neglecting one of the three points above, and dow what you can to remedy the situation. 

Other Articles You Might Be Interested In:

8 Ways To Show Your Husband You Love Him

Author

September 5th

Awareness, Communication, Priorities, Relationships

8 Ways To Show Your Husband You Love Him

8 Ways To Show Your Husband You Love Him

Men and women experience love in very different ways.  Most people are not conscious of this as they go through their lives, and so they attempt to show their love to people of the other sex in the same way they want it shown to them, in the same way they think of it naturally, without considering how the other person views it.

There are certain things that are necessary to feel loved that are shared among nearly all people, regardless of gender.  This includes things like time together, touching, communicating, and other things of this nature.  This type of thing is worth of its own article, so for this article, I’m sticking with things that are either specific with regards to wives with their husbands, or at least more emphasized.

Women, if you’re reading this, realize that just like you, a man doesn’t feel loved just because you say “I love you”.  That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t say it (you should), but you can’t just leave it at that… and most men won’t tell you that they don’t feel loved.  Many of them don’t even realize that is what is bothering them, they just know they aren’t happy, and possibly that it has to do with their relationship, but not be able to put it into a solid concept that they don’t feel loved.

I’m a man.  I know that most of the things I need to feel loved, when they are boiled down to basics, are the same for most other men.  There may be a few here and there that one of the things below do not apply to, or a few here and there where there is another essential addition.  If you are one of those men, and reading this, please add them in the comments.  For the vast majority, however, I think this list covers the basics.

So, with no further ado, ladies, here are some basic ways you can show your husband you love him.

  1. Respect Him

    The most effective way to make a man feel unloved is to disrespect him, especially in front of others.  If you have any desire at all to take good care of your husband, and make him feel loved, do not ridicule him, overrule him, or dismiss him in front of someone else.  It’s bad enough to do it in private (you really do NOT need to use these methods… find another way to convey your message), but in public you might as well slap his face.

  2. Admire Him

    This is related to the first, but from the other side.  Respecting him is more about avoiding disrespect than in overt display of respect.  Admiring him, on the other hand is explicitly about conveying to him, by words or gestures, what it is that you like about him.  This can be body language, like giving him “elevator eyes” when he’s watching, if you like his body, or it can be words, like telling him that you love his sense of humor.  You should always make sure that you use something appropriate to the circumstances, however… telling him you love his sense of humor while you’re at his father’s funeral together might not be a good idea.

    You also need to vary this, finding new (or infrequently used) little things to tell him you like on a fairly regular basis.  If you have trouble coming up with stuff on your own (are you sure you’re with the right guy for you?), then just instantly tell him when he takes an action you like… if he comes around and opens you car door for you, and you like it, tell him so.  Always hearing the same thing, like “I love your sense of humor”, makes it lose its power for this.  It gets to the point where he won’t really believe you, thinking you’re just saying it to manipulate him.

  3. Let Him “Overhear” You Praise Him

    This works wonders, but has to be used infrequently, and with caution.  It doesn’t work, and can feel manipulative, if you pretend like you don’t know he’s there, but he can tell that you do.  It’s much better, and safer, to ACTUALLY praise him to others, and occassionally he’ll be nearby when you do so, and overhear it.  This technique actually works if you do it outright, too, as long as you don’t over do it.  That is, you can flat out say to someone “My husband is great, he does X for me”, with him sitting beside you, and it will make him feel like you respect and admire him (see above).

  4. Drop Everything

    This is a little thing that has major effects.  One of the most effective ways of showing someone you love them is to make them top priority, to the point where you stop everything you’re doing, whatever it is, to focus on them.  That is, you step away from the computer, let the baby play by herself, turn off the TV, stop cooking dinner, whatever it is you’re doing, and go to that person and specifically show them that they are your central focus RIGHT THEN.  This is particularly effective when you first see them after a separation (ie when you or they get home from work, etc.).

  5. Notice His Strengths

    This is similar to admiring him, but specific to his strengths.  That is, if it’s hard for you to get the lid off the jar, and you know he can, go ask him, telling him something like “I’m not strong enough to open this.  Can you do it for me?”.  If his strength is math, ask him to calculate the price per ounce of something (or a similar feat of arithmetic), telling him it’s too hard for you.  Don’t lie in this… he’ll know.  Just make a point of asking him to help anywhere that you know is a strength of his that complements a weakness of yours.  As noted, this can be physical or mental… “Can you move this for me, I can’t do it?” or “Can you help me figure out how to word this?”.  Just like admiring him, though, overuse of this in one area tends to lower its effectiveness, eventually becoming more annoying than complementary.

  6. Forgive His Weaknesses

    Your husband has his weaknesses.  All men do, and all women, too, for that matter.  Do NOT use his weaknesses against him.  If you use them to try to manipulate him, if you bring them up any time it’s not absolutely necessary, he will start feeling like you don’t respect him in that area.  This applies to showing off areas where you are noticeably stronger than him, too, unless it’s somewhere he feels he doesn’t need to (or can’t) compete, which is generally areas that are not considered masculine, or areas where it is widely acknowledged that special talent is required, like singing.

  7. No Comparisons

    One of the worst things a wife can do is compare her husband to an ex, whether husband or boyfriend.  Doing so is bad even if you are saying that your husband is better in some way.  Men understand that they were not necessarily the first person you were with, the first person you loved, but that doesn’t mean they want it brought into their conscious awareness.  And if you compare your husband poorly, as in he’s not as good at this or that, then this is multiplied.  You are disrespecting him, pointing out his weaknesses, AND reminding him that you were with other men before him.  That’s just asking to bring up negative emotions and associate them with you.

  8. No Guilt Trips

    It’s a classic, portrayed in uncountable movies and television shows… the wife gives her husband a guilt trip until he does what she wants.  Manipulating someone is a bad idea.  Clumsily manipulating them is even worse, but manipulating them at all is bad.  This has two sides, in that it’s bad for both the person being manipulated and the one doing it.

    The person being manipulated, by definition, feels like he is having his power of choice taken from him.  If you feel that it’s still completely your choice, then you are not being manipulated.  That doesn’t mean that someone isn’t TRYING to do so, but if you still feel like it’s entirely your choice, then they are not succeeding.  Now, for someone who DOES feel like their choice is being taken from them, they will resent this strongly.  One of the most powerful motivating factors in a human life is the desire to be free, to prove that you can make your own decisions, and that those decisions matter.  Messing with this desire is playing with fire… if the person you are manipulating notices it, even later on, after the fact, they will resent it.  Since, in this case, we are talking about your spouse, that means that resentment is likely to be there, even if it eventually fades, as a factor when he thinks about you for the rest of your lives together.  It may be small, maybe even so small that he’s not consciously aware of it, but it will, none the less, be there.

    Manipulating someone is bad for the person doing the manipulation, also.  When you attempt to manipulate someone, you attempt to take some of their humanity from them.  They will, as mentioned above, resent this, generally resenting even an unsuccessful attempt.  But it’s just as bad for the person doing it, especially if they are doing it to their spouse, because it takes away from your concept of the person you’re trying to manipulate as a person, an individual, and instead turns them into more of an object.  Objects can be generally counted on to have the same output when given the same input.  Thinking of people in this way robs them of their humanity, their power of individual choice, making you respect, and love, them less.  Presumably, if you’re reading this article, that’s not exactly what you have in mind.

So there you have it, 8 ways to show your husband that you love him.  Some are things to actively do, some are things to actively make sure you DON’T do, but when they are all put together, and included with the things that all people need to feel loved, your husband will know, and feel, that you love him.

Author

August 15th

Awareness, Communication, Priorities, Relationships