Can you hear opportunity knocking?
After the flurry of Christmas and the endless conversations about whether you’ve “finished your shopping”, it’s a great relief to have a new conversation topic – New Year Resolutions.
The concept of setting goals/resolutions/intentions often appeals to something in our human core. It engages that inner voice which murmurs to us, disturbing us. We become connected to our thinly-papered disenchantments, disillusionments, and dissatisfactions. After hearing that ghostly inner voice, a New Year Resolution can seem like “just the go” to calm our doubts, fears, or guilt.
Some people love to talk about Resolutions, sometimes bragging about the array of good behaviour we’ll notice from them in the New Year.
Others quietly sneak away to the bar for another drink when the conversation turns to matters “Resolution”. The mere thought of New Year Resolutions gives them a feeling of horror.
There are those who don’t believe in them and will tell you so bluntly. (I personally admire that – at least they’re honest!)
Some do the talk on December 31, but don’t walk their talk from January 1 (or maybe January 11) onwards.
But the reality is that no-one will see significant differences in their lives until the pain of their current choices outweighs the risks and fears associated with changing.
That’s what makes a Resolution into a Reality. The timing is of no consequence!
All that the New Year invites us to do is look at the opportunities to reflect, review, evaluate, and generally connect with our sense of personal satisfaction.
Most life coaches will tell you that the people they see early in the year are those who are taking very positive and active steps to make a change – sometimes as a result of their New Year Resolutions.
Sadly, that doesn’t seem to be what couples do. Why doesn’t it occur to couples to reflect, review, evaluate, and gauge satisfaction?
Shining a light onto our couple life on an annual basis is something I do with my beloved SweetP.
We see it as a chance to understand our individual hopes and dreams, as well as our disappointments. For our relationship to run smoothly we need regular doses of insight. During the year they’ll be shared over a meal or a glass of wine, during a walk or as we sit in the sun.
But at this time of year we devote several hours, a couple of whiteboards, and several pages of butcher’s paper to digging deep. It’s an opportunity.
It’s an opportunity to celebrate what we’ve done, what battles we’ve shared and what battles have divided us. We both find personal victories and achievements that we need to get the other to view through our eyes.
We also find hurt spots in our selves and in the other that we didn’t realise were there. Bumping into that pain and hurt can be stressful and, in the moment, can seem FAR from an opportunity.
In fact, the squirmy feeling we get with those discoveries means it’s tempting to say “Ohhh, I’m sick of this, let’s watch TV.”
But what works better is putting down the whiteboard pens and hugging each other, and even more – asking questions and digging deeper. Yeah it’s scary! And it might mean a niggling of shame or guilt at our own failings. But if both of us understand and accept that loving someone comes with those hurts as the flipside of the blissful romantic coin, then you can listen, squirm, blush and be forgiven. It’s an opportunity for intimacy and connection like no other we know!
So have you ever sat down together and reviewed your relationship?
Have you ever sat down alone and reviewed your relationship?
What score out of 10 would you give to your overall satisfaction with your relationship?
When could you make time to sit and talk about how you’d like to see your relationship develop? (You do that for your career, why wouldn’t you do it for your relationship?)
And if you have a partner who you think would snort in ridicule at the suggestion then that may give you your first insights for your own review of the relationship.
Of course, the snort may actually never come, and if you asked you might get a big surprise. But even if you do get the snort then that’s a sign to start your own review.
But how?
That’s easy. We start it with a pleasant interlude like going out together for breakfast or a coffee, or even just going for a walk somewhere we both appreciate – beside the creek, across the paddock, along the beach.
We start talking about the positives and move on to the disappointments.
We allow ourselves to be infected by the others zest for a project or enthusiasm for an achievement. We let those s-o-o-a-k in deep into our souls.
We also have a deadline for finishing. If it’s getting close to finish time we know it’s time to spell out our intentions. We never finish without making the plans for the first step to achieving the first intention.
Finally there is ALWAYS a pleasant reward for our hard work! Do I need to give you examples? There’s always a dinner date, or a foot massage or a bath or shower together or …
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Chris, thank you, this is great. My hubbie and I have just finished our budget review for 2008 - what a way to see in 2008! There were some squirmy feelings there too but we got through it. Now I know what I’ll be doing after dinner - a walk or swim together to review our couplehood and set some goals for the year ahead. I know we have a starting point already. As we kissed at midnight to see in the New Year, we promised a year for us. Now the next step is clear.
Thanks Angela. As one who’s not so flash on budgets I forgot that budget discussions are quite normal for some couples!
So your comment reminds us all that a review of couple life is just a step after the budget review.
In some houses proposing a budget review as the preliminary to a couple life review may just win the heart and mind of an ambivalent partner. Thanks
Thanks Chris, you reminded me that even though I am not currently in a relationship with anyone, I am always in a ‘relationship’ with myself - and that needs evaluating too! And I can’t wait for that walk, dinner date, foot massage - with MYSELF!
Ah but Marjorie there’s always facials, pedicures, manicures and all other methods of indulgence.
Come on I dare you to write back and tell us which reward you’ve chosen!
Brilliant Chris - couldn’t agree more!
Glad you liked it Annie!!!