If you want to have a great relationship – a great marriage, a great love – then your intention must be greatness; you must seek to personally be great in that relationship, to make the other person feel great, and to build a great life together.
Here’s three steps to being great in relationships, to amplifying the love for you and your partner:
1. Give More ATTENTION to Those You Love
If you’re going to improve any relationship, all of the improvement will come from a greater degree of attention and presence gifted to the person you care for in the moment.
You must learn to be vitally there, to be fully present with your loved ones again. Learn to have an entire dinner without looking at your phone. Learn to look people in the eye again and acknowledge what they’re saying and feeling even if it’s not your perspective.
All the ills of relationships come from inattention. You can’t show respect to somebody unless you give them attention. You can’t pick up on their non-verbal cues. You can’t guess or feel or sense or mirror their emotions or energetic level. You don’t know if someone is down or up unless you’re attentive to them. So all ills in relationship begin to heal when you give more present and vital attention to the person that you love.
2. Give More APPRECIATION to Those You Love
The appreciation of the totality of the person— that’s what is magical in relationships. You must show appreciation for what someone does for you, yes, but you must go beyond that. If the only things you appreciate in a relationship are the things that somebody is doing for you, then what you’re doing is you’re appreciating the fact that you have a servant.
Love is the appreciation of the totality of a person, to appreciate their challenges, struggles, dark sides, the frustrations they have in their lives, the stupid things that they do, the things that drive you crazy. You have to appreciate their soul. You have to appreciate who they are as a human being and have so such extraordinary respect and appreciation for them that they feel it completely in their heart.
3. Give More ADORATION to Your Loved Ones
You have to adore people, to take great joy in who they are and to shower them with that joy and love. When you adore someone you’ll do more for them and you’ll be more for them. Real adoration isn’t just doting on somebody with flowers and gifts, though you should do that too. It’s about wanting to support their bigger life goals and dreams. When you truly adore somebody you want so desperately to see them happy, passionate, engaged and living their own fully charged life. When you really adore someone you go out of your way to brag about them in front of other people. You seek to celebrate them and support them and you are proud of them… and they can feel that.
* Source: Brendon Burchard – Be Great in Relationships