4 Pillars of Communication For Winning Life Long Relationships

Do you know someone who has grown significantly over time? Perhaps an ex-colleague or a college batch-mate?

While in comparison your growth over the years seems rather slow or even stagnant...

What is the difference??

The polarity lies in how they focused on their personal growth and on building a stronger network of relationships.

Your network is your Networth!

No matter the size of your team or your organisation, building quality relationships both personal and professional is incredibly important for you to grow and prosper.

Humans are social beings and a lot of our deep relationships are based on a connection that exchanges something for something else.?The ability to understand what motivates others, relate in a positive manner and to develop strong bonds with others at home or at workplace. Inevitably makes those with higher people skills the most fulfilled and the most successful.

If you want to achieve anything significant in this life you must learn to work effectively with all kinds of people. And guess what?

It all starts with self-awareness.

See, we all have a negativity bias, or tendency to magnify the bad experiences of life.

This often makes us more critical of our relationships than we should be.?

In order to handle the massive quantum of information we’re constantly bombarded with, our brains have developed shortcuts, or ‘Cognitive Biases’.?

These biases help us filter information, make quick decisions, helping us concentrate on what?the brain believes matters most.

So, what’s the problem here? Well for one, we don’t control our biases. They filter without your consent. Meaning they may ignore information that’s relevant to the choices you are trying to make.

Example; Say, your performance evaluation at work comes in and it’s glowing! However, there’s one area that is marked “needs improvement.”? Days later, which part do you think about? The negative, of course.?

A part of you already knows that it’s ridiculous to let that one thing bother you. After all, there’s a lot more good in your appraisal than there is bad, but you can’t seem to let go.

Unfortunately, we do the same thing across our relationships!

Our brains have evolved to make life easier for us. But when you're making opinions, judgements and decisions, you don’t want to take the easy route.?

You want the best one!?

Over time in our relationships, both personal and professional. We begin to take the good for granted and become under-appreciative. Though the problems?

Well, they stand out!

Our partner’s insensitive comments, moods, and lack of competence or discipline begin to very regularly capture our full attention. And when you spend your time worrying about the wrong things, you won’t have time to appreciate what’s going right.

Here are the four pillars of communication both internal and external that can help you win and maintain strong relationships that last a lifetime.

1. Be Emotionally Intelligent

If there is one emotion that seems to dominate human relationships, both personal and professional, it’s the emotion of hurt. Feelings of hurt are usually generated by a sense of loss.

But what we really need, is to understand the real meaning that hurt gives us. Because why you feel hurt is not a result of what is happening in your life-it is your interpretation of what is happening.?

The message that hurt signals is, that an expectation has not been met and so you now experience a lack of trust with the person who hurt you.?

The solution here though is simple. To start with understand, that in reality you may not have lost anything. And what you really need to lose is the false perception that this person is trying to wound you on purpose. It could be that they do not realise the impact of their actions on you.?

Take a moment and re-evaluate the situation, Ask yourself “I am I really loss here?” Or “Am I just judging the situation too harshly?”?

Simply by changing your internal communication and understanding what’s really going on, you will often find that hurt can disappear within a matter of moments.

2. What Is The Purpose of Your Relationships?

So what’s the purpose of a relationship? Any relationship??Is there a universal purpose? I mean so often in life we want things but we forget what we want them for.?

Some people might say to communicate, some other people might say to learn, to share... you know, to understand or experience things.?And all those answers are accurate but the real purpose of a relationship, the purpose that feeds out of the things we just described, is one simple thing.?

"The purpose of a relationship is to magnify the human experience."?

Think about it, how do you feel when you experience something on your own and it could be phenomenal, but why is it that the first thing you want to do is share it??

Because by sharing not only do you get to experience it again but there is a magnification, isn’t it??When the other person gets excited, you get even more excited.?

Success is worthless unless you have someone to share it with.

In reality the only way a relationship will last is when you see your relationship as a place where you go to give, to share and to magnify your experiences of life.?

3. Value Yourself

The only way to make any relationship great is to first create a great relationship with yourself. You’ve got to value yourself first.

So many years of education, yet nobody ever taught us how to love ourselves and why it is so important. Self-love means taking care of yourself the same way you’d take care of someone you love.?

Instead of watching the 10th episode of that mindless Netflix show, try reading a chapter in a book you started months ago. Instead of forcing yourself to a Saturday night out with friends, sometimes just take yourself out for a dinner date to your favourite restaurant alone. Instead of waiting for someone to buy you flowers, go ahead and buy some roses for yourself.

Appreciate your Hard-work, not your results!?

Decide that you are going to be the hero you have been waiting for to come save you. Be your own hero, be your own saviour.?Because that is the only way you will ever be a hero to the world.

If you're going into a relationship to get that value, instead of giving that value first, then you’re basically going to be two people who are starving trying to steal each others food.?

And you know that’s going to be hell!

You've got to take responsibility for your own happiness. Value yourself first so you can value what's other's bring into your life,?instead seeking that external validation.?

4. Discover Psychological Needs

Just like humans need food, air and water to survive. We also have a set of psychological needs that must be fulfilled for us to feel safe, secure and important. Each of us has the same set of psychological needs but we all placed these in a different order of preference - in accordance with our core values and experiences in life.?

Once you discover which needs matter the most to the people in your life (personal and professional), you can learn to communicate in a way that satisfies and fulfils them.

There are two most important psychological needs that any human seeks from a relationship. The number one is the need for Significance and number two is the need for connection.

Significance: We all need to feel unique and important. Communication is key to this particular desire because people need to know that you need them, that they are important, that their presence matters and is valued.

Connection: The second psychological need is of connection. Every human needs to feel connected with others, especially in their intimate relationships.

Effective communication in relationships lets us know that we matter and are cared for. It can make us feel most alive, but absence of connection can cause pain and trouble like nothing else can.

What you really need is to build a deeper connection with the people in your life, to open up, be vulnerable, ask more and share more.

Lastly...

Remember, debates and even arguments are an integral part of any relationship. And without them a relationship would never evolve.

Only through disagreements come out new ideas and possibilities. And when you’ve got people with different values, different ways of looking at life, different rules, you are bound to have conflicts, it's just a matter of time.

Learning how to improve the quality of your relationship is all about self awareness and mastering how you show up to deal with the inevitable challenges that show up in any relationship, personal or professional.

How would you rate the success of your relationships both personal and professional on a scale of 1-10 over the last decade? (10 being the highest)

If it's lower than 6 then it's time you seek professional help to master your mindset and turn your relationships around.

“Investing in yourself is the best investment you will ever make. It will not only improve your life, it will improve the lives of all those around you.”