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Stuck In A Relationship Rut? 
Four Steps To Breaking Free!

By Doug Nielsen

Life’s greatest joys and sorrows come from relationships.

The quality of your life is based, to a large extent, on your ability to build quality relationships.

Today, I want to share with you some steps to help you improve all of your relationships, regardless of the shape they are in.

Can you think of a relationship that drives you nuts at times, but one that you would really like to improve? It could be a relationship with a family member, friend or someone at work.  Most likely, it is a relationship with someone you interact with on a regular basis.

Let me share with you one such relationship in my life.  Even though this relationship drove me nuts, I learned powerful, life-altering lessons from it.

When I was chief operating officer for a company offering services to Fortune 500 companies, one of my bosses, the senior vice president of the organization, drove me absolutely nuts.

I didn’t like the way he treated me which meant I did not like being around him.

More often than not, I would take those feelings of frustration home with me. It seemed the more I talked about my frustrations at home, the greater my frustrations became. 

In time, it was as though I was being held hostage by this relationship.

I took my frustrations with me to dinner, to the movies, on leisurely walks. Bottom line—I was wasting a lot of energy dealing with the frustrations brought into my life through my relationship with this man.

Do you think he ever had any idea of the impact he was having on me and my family?  Not on your life. Do you think he cared? Well, let’s not even go there!

I interacted with this man every day. Oh how I wished I could fire him. 

Eventually, I came to understand that I had handed this man the helm of my life and I needed to take it back now. But how? 

It is said that living a life of reaction is living a life of slavery.  Happiness is never found in allowing another person to control us.

Here are four valuable steps I learned from this experience that helped me break out of the relationship rut and regain control of the helm in my life.

1. Make Sure Your Motives are Pure

Before any relationship can improve, you must first have a heart felt desire to improve the relationship. Come to view improving this relationship as a vehicle to your own personal development.

The single most important factor in transforming a relationship is the condition of your heart and the emotions you harbor inside. Examine the feelings you have towards this person. Harboring negative feelings will attract more negative feelings into the relationship.

If you want to change this relationship, change your emotions towards this person. The result is that you will start to see opportunities to build on what is working in the relationship.

2. Develop Empathy:

Try to see this person as a human being with feelings, needs, and wants. Accept the fact that, after all, they are doing the best with what they know and understand. Very often, people with bad attitudes are afraid, overwhelmed, and harbor deep feelings of inferiority. Having the capacity to view them as a person instead of as a “dough head” is critical.

Empathy is the key to liberation.

3. Envision the Desired Outcomes:

Ask yourself what you really want in this relationship? Be specific. Make a list of what you can personally do to improve the relationship.     

(List only what you alone have the power to control.)

4. Execute the Plan:

Decide to take action no matter what.  It does not matter what the other personal does or does not do in response. Remain committed to your course of action. Stay on that course with patience and persistence. Over time, unless the other person is a psychopathic personality, you will claim victory for improving the relationship.

Following these four steps will help you break free from relationship ruts and regain the helm of your life.

This month’s invitation:

Identify one relationship you would like to work on.  Work on the four steps consistently for one month. At the end of the month identify your successes and celebrate them.

Until next time, smooth sailing, even in the storms and remember that I am pulling for you to take life by the helm.