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Maybe this past year wasn’t the best for your marriage. Or, maybe things have simply become a little bit stagnant and stale and you want to push “reboot” on your relationship.
First, focus on what is going well already. Be specific and write it down. Maybe its that you really enjoy going out to eat together, maybe its that you support your kids well, or that you organize your schedules nicely. It’s easy to focus on the negative and everything you wish were different. But this type of focus doesn’t change it. What will change it is focusing on what is going well, nourish it with love, gratitude and appreciation and allow those strengths to carry over to all the areas of your marriage.
I believe there are two energies present at all times: love and death.
Gratitude, appreciation, forgiveness, understanding, mercy, kindness and compassion all feed love.
Anger, bitterness, jealousy, fear and dishonesty all feed death.
Really ask yourself. Am I nourishing my marriage with love or am I feeding it death?
Second, get crystal-clear on 1-3 things you would really love to experience in your marriage this year. What would you love to improve? What would make your heart sing? What would allow you to rest easy at night?
Studies show only a small percentage of people actually write down their goals but those that do are much more likely to achieve them. So, write out what it is you want to experience this year in your marriage. To make this super easy for you, we created a free guided New Year’s Marriage Goal Sheet for you to follow and go deep on:
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Third, imagine that we waved a magic wand over your marriage and that those 1-3 things you wrote down instantly happened and transformed for you. So, if you wrote down that you would like to improve your communication, if we fixed your communication right now, how would you communicate differently in the morning? How would you communicate when you say goodbye? How would you help your spouse when they are hurting? How would it look like fixed? How would it feel like? What would it feel like and be like if this were healthy and ideal in your life?
Lastly, start to act like it. Act “as if” you are the partner you want to be in your marriage. Think, talk and move like that person. Respond to your spouse like that person would respond. This may seem like a silly make believe exercise, but neuroscience and psychology shows that the more we act in the way we want, the more it becomes part of us. You will very quickly become that person.
Just a quick true story to illustrate this. We recently had a client, Dave* (name changed for privacy) that viewed himself as “an impatient” person. He knew that his lack of patience had created a wedge between him and his wife and he really wanted to learn how to be more patience and develop more understanding toward her. But he had created a self-image of himself as impatient. As we worked with him, we helped to first, identify and clear that limiting belief so his mind could accept the new belief of who he was. Then, we asked him to really think what he “would do” as a patient person, how he would think, how his body would feel physically, how the tone of his words would sound, how the expression on his face would look like and feel.
After he got a clear picture of what they looked and felt like to him, we asked him to first begin imagining himself acting like that patient person and then acting it out in “real life.”
“I feel incredible!” he told us. “The neediness to control everything and make it happen right now is gone. Sure, I now talk and act with patience, but more than that, I actually feel the difference inside. I truly AM patient!”
So, start to act now like the person you want to become and notice how everything starts to change in a very short amount of time. Make this year the best one yet in your marriage!
With you every step of the way,
Heather Choate
High Thrive Coaching
Freebie: New Year’s Marriage Goal Sheet. Take your marriage to the next level this year!
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