Do you have a tough time in your relationships? Does it seem like regardless of how awesome things start out, they eventually end up in the same place?
Now, please understand that I'm not talking about your romantic relationship breaking up. It's not that bad. Your relationship is still intact. But it's not as full or as rich as you would've hoped. You have to understand that real relationships are mutually rewarding.
In other words, they challenge you to become a better person. You're not really looking to benefit the other person, per se. You're looking to become a better person because of the relationship. It helps you mature. It helps you commit. It helps you dedicate your life, your emotions and your resources to something bigger and better than you.
A lot of people don't understand this about relationships. But the ultimate truth about this type of interpersonal arrangement is the fact that you have to lie to yourself for the relationship to flourish. In other words, the relationship is not about you.
It's not about what you want. It's not about what you need. It's not about what makes you happy. It's not about the things that put a smile of your face. It's not about you. Instead, it's about your ability to commit to something bigger than you over a long period of time.
This commitment is easy to understand when things are going well. When you love your partner and she loves you back, it's very easy to see why people stay in the relationship. It is mutually rewarding.
But what if the love doesn't come back? What if, try as hard as you might, there's no mutuality there? Does that mean that the relationship has to go 6 feet under? Does that mean that you have to head for the door and call it quits?
Well, this is the choice you have. And unfortunately, if you don't have the powerful personal trait of self-discipline, it's very easy for your relationships to die at some level or other. As I've said early on in this blog post, even if your relationship is still intact, it may still suck.
Why? It's not very fulfilling. In fact, if you're completely honest about it, the relationship has, for lack of a better word, died a long time ago. You're just going through the motions.
Maybe you're afraid of having to go through the long process of meeting somebody new. Maybe you don't like rejection. Maybe there's just so many things out there that you're afraid of because you don't know what could go wrong so you stay in the relationship.
But for all intents and purposes, it's dead. Your relationship sucks. Why? You lack self-discipline. If you want your relationship to flourish, be self-disciplined. It's that simple!
This means you have to pay attention to the needs of the other person. This means that you have to put the relationship ahead of your needs. This means that you have to give everything that you have, regardless of how you feel, regardless of what other people are saying, so the relationship can flourish.
It's all about sacrifice. In other words, it's all about becoming an emotional adult. The problem is the more you think you're entitled to the relationship serving you or giving you something that you don't have, that's going to be a problem.
The longer you think that the other person has to somehow, someway, complete you instead of you maturing and stepping up, that's going to be a problem. The solution to this is self-discipline.
It takes self-discipline to put somebody else's needs first. It takes self-discipline to continue being patient with somebody as they get their emotional and mental act together. Make no mistake about it. In any relationship, there's either an adult, a child or 2 children or 2 adults. You know what the right answer is.
You have to both be adults and this requires discipline. If you need more self-discipline in your life, the other articles in this blog will show you how.
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