“95 % of the joy in you life will come from your relationships. We are really made for community,” according to Dr. Stan Grenz, author of the book, Made for community. We are made to relate to each other. The supreme joy – the jewel of our lives – is our involvement in relationships.
Even when our greatest pleasure is to spend time alone the value of relationship will haunt us.
Consider the poem by W. H Auden
“ I praised the Frenchman, his remark was shrewd,
How sweet, how passing sweet is solitude,
But grant me still a friend in my retreat,
Whom I may whisper, solitude is sweet.”
No wonder Andrew Carnegie said that he would pay more for the ability to get along with people than for any other single skill.
One of the foundational keys that will support your ability to build and maintain good relationships, is the willingness and the capacity to give people who relate to you – lovers, family member, friends, coworkers, employees, professionals such as dentists and lawyers – what they really want.
I have been counseling people for over 20 years about removing stress from relationships and during this time I’ve observed 10 recurring things that my patients describe that they want from a relationship:
1. We all need understanding not advice. It feels good to know that our position is understood and remember that advice is better requested than volunteered.
2. We need reassurance. The test of a really gifted friend is that they can see beyond our faults and short- comings and give us the reassurance that we are ok as we are and not pounce on our faults and criticize us. Are you quick to criticize?
3. In a world where we all have to fend for ourselves it is good to realize that someone really cares. We need to get this feeling that someone cares about us. We need to matter in this world. Give this feeling to others. Act and talk to them as if they really matter.
4. We need to feel accepted as we are and not that we have to change to get the approval of our friend. A friend accepts you as you are.
5. We need others to share themselves and open up to us. It makes us feel trust worthy. Do you open up to your friend? That is how you render them worthy of your utmost trust.
6. We need to be listened to, not dictated to.
7. We need to be valued. Make the people you relate to feel valued, not for what they can do for you, but just for themselves.
8. We need to be recognized as special. Try and recognize the uniqueness is everyone. I like the definition of love that says, “Love is the gross exaggeration of the difference between you and anyone else in the whole wide world”. When you deal with a person with that acute recognition of their uniqueness, you are motivating them with the most powerful force in the world.
9. We need to be praised. Try as much as possible to catch people doing something right or even approximately right and compliment them.
10. We need to feel significant
Look through this list of 10 items and treat your family, friends and everyone else with these things in mind.