Healthy Relationships

What does a healthy relationship look like to you?  Is it a relationship that embodies mutual respect for all parties involved, honesty and fairness, along with good communication? If not, then it's time to re-evaluate the relationships that you're in.

There are four sets of important relationships one has in their life: the relationship you have with yourself, the relationship you have with your peers, the relationship you have with family members and lastly the relationship you have with your significant other. Now they are in no particular order  but I believe the most important relationship is the one you have with yourself because it sets the tone for all the other relationships in your life.

Let's start with the relationship you have with yourself. There is a really nice quote that I like by Henry David Thoreau that really speaks to the relationship one has with his/herself. It states "It is what a man thinks of himself that really determines his fate". A healthy relationship starts with how you think and feel about yourself, do you speak positively to yourself i.e positive affirmations? I am a huge advocate of positive affirmations, how you speak to yourself will determine how you feel and what you feel you can achieve. Your relationship with self is the most important and crucial relationship in your life. Your career, your personal relationships, your home life and health are all a direct result of the quality of your relationship with you. Going forward make sure that you make positives changes when it comes to the relationship you have with yourself. Your attitude about yourself determines your outcome; your goal should be to have an authentic and positive relationship with yourself. This is the key to living an effective, successful, happy life.

Your relationship with your peers is also a very important relationship in your life. How do you want to be perceived by your boss and your peers? Competent, Reliable, Honest, Responsible, Self-Disciplined and Operates in Integrity. With friends, you want to be perceived as Trustworthy, Loyal, Compassionate, Forgiving, Generous, Kind, Loving and Reliable. These are positive attributes that you want to encompass in order to build healthy and successful relationships in your work environment. At the end of the day you have to know what is important to you by determining your values for your professional and personal life. This is determined by the company you keep, your perception of them and their perception of you. You want that relationship to be a positive, a transparent one, a relationship that will bear fruit and always keep you moving forward.

The relationship you have with your spouse or significant other is also an important relationship that should be based on Trust, Honesty, Support, Loyalty and Good Communication. All of these things take work. Each relationship is most likely a combination of both healthy and unhealthy characteristics. Relationships need to be maintained and healthy relationships take work.
I recall years ago talking t a friend that was separated from his wife, they were going through some things regarding their marriage and I made a comment stating that what he was going through was too much work. I also stated that I felt like that marriage should not be that much work.......boy was I wrong. Later in life once I got married my tune changed dramatically. I learned that anything worth having requires work on both parts. A healthy relationship should bring more happiness than stress into your life. Every relationship will have stress at times, but you want to prevent prolonged mental stress on either person in the relationship. Below are some points to keep in mind when pursuing a healthy relationship.

• Take care of yourself and have good self-esteem independent of your relationship
• Maintain and respect each others individuality
• Maintain relationships with friends and family
• Have activities apart from one another
• Express yourselves to one another without fear of consequence
• A feeling of comfort and security
• Take interest in one another's activities
• Trust and be honest with one another

Above all, your relationship with you comes first. Make sure that you nurture it and give it all the attention is deserves. The positive relationship you have with yourself will set the tone for the relationships proceeding it. 

#PERSONALDEVELOPMENT