Unleash Your Potential #26 - Building Better Relationships

Douglas: Welcome to the Unleash Your Potential Blog, what question can I answer for you today?

LifeLadder: What strategies can help me build better relationships? 

Douglas: Relationship building is a fundamental part of who we are as human beings. From the research that has been done, human beings are, at their core, social animals. As someone who has spent most of his life displaying introverted characteristics, this topic is difficult for me. However, in recent months,  I have been working to minimize my introverted tendencies and draw out more extroverted tendencies. I have had some great successes and some setbacks. I share all of this to acknowledge, I don’t have it all figured out just yet. I will share with you what I have figured out in the hopes that it can help you in your journey as well.

To build better relationships you first have to start from within. Relationships, well healthy relationships anyway, require that both people be willing to be vulnerable. You have to be okay sharing intimate parts of yourself that you typically don’t share. To share those parts of you, you have to believe that those parts are worth sharing with others. Building up your self-image will be an important step here. Relationships are all about trust and you first have to trust and believe in yourself.

Relationships are also about mutual benefit. In a healthy relationship, we give to the other person some of ourselves and we get from some of who they are. When you believe you have nothing to offer, that can weaken the relationship. At the same time, if you believe they have nothing to offer, it can also weaken the relationship. When you believe that someone offers nothing to you in your relationship, that can create negative feelings, and eventually the other person will notice that and begin to question the value of the relationship. In a healthy relationship what you give of yourself helps someone else and what you get in return helps you. When this happens, both members of the relationship feel fulfilled. Without this, over time one person in the relationship will begin to feel taken advantage of.

You might be tempted to think, “Is this only for personal relationships, what about business relationships?” It is true for both. Even in the corporate setting, a healthy relationship should be about what you bring and what they bring. If you engage in relationships only because of what the other person can do for you (e.g. knowing this person will help you get ahead in the company), then eventually the people you engage with will recognize that and start to feel used. Even if you are engaging with the president of your company, a healthy relationship starts from acknowledging what you can bring to enrich the other person. I dare say that you need to lead with that in a relationship. This is what I bring to you. In the corporate world, it is thinking about how you can solve the other person’s pain point.

Relationships take work and to have better relationships you need to be willing to do the work it takes to maintain them. Communication is key to this process. I admit that this part of the equation is the one I have the most trouble with. I have not developed an effective system of keeping open lines of communication with my relationships (personal and professional). I tend to get mired in doing things that I neglect to reach out and connect with people. If relationships are going to remain healthy, communication and connection are what feed them. If you want better relationships, you need to communicate often. They don’t have to be long communications. Quick notes, a short phone call, a text, or a social media note. These are all ways to check in and maintain those relationships. Reaching out tells the other person that you value the relationship enough to make time in your day to feed it. When we care about a plant and want it to grow, we take time to feed it. Our relationships (personal AND professional) are no different. If you only feed the relationship when you need something, then the other person may feel used. And when you aren’t communicating, the relationship isn’t growing, so it may not be able to support your needs anyway.

I hope my answer sheds some light on your question. If you want to dig into this concept further, I encourage you to reach out and set up a conversation. In the meantime, check back tomorrow for the next question in the Unleash Your Potential Series!

Be Well!

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