Have you ever seen someone else’s relationship and thought, “I want that”? Whether it’s another couple’s look, the fun they have together, how they serve each other, the love they have for each other, etc., it’s easy to compare yourself and your relationship to what others have. It’s also easy to feel discouraged and think that your relationship will never get to that point.
Knowing what you want in a relationship is an important part of finding a good match for you, as well as creating your dream relationship. However, making positive change requires more than just knowing what you want. Being willing to WORK for what you want is just as critical to molding your relationship into everything that you and your significant other want it to be. The good news is, each of us has the power to work on our relationships and help them move in a forward and upward direction.
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In 2020, we at The Healthy Humans Project want to challenge you to make your relationships a priority. Regardless of what your relationship looks like now, you have the power to make some #relationshipgoals that will help you work on connecting with those you love! Here are a few different types of goals you can include as part of your New Year’s Resolutions to work on your relationships!
P.S. These specific goals are written in a way that applies specifically to romantic relationships, but each of them can be modified to fit any important relationship in your life!
#1 – Create A Couple Motto
An important part of relationships is creating a shared identity and defining who you want to be as a couple (Maniaci, 2009). Working together with your significant other to write a motto (“a short sentence or phrase chosen as encapsulating the beliefs or ideals guiding an individual, family, or institution”) can help you identify what is important to you, and what you are working towards creating together! Your motto could just be for this year, or it could be for your relationship as a whole – you get to decide! Be sure to write down your motto and display it somewhere where you and your partner will both see it.
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#2 – Set a Healthy Boundary
Healthy boundaries are critical for healthy relationships (Strong, 2019). Ensuring that your romantic relationship is a safe space (emotionally, physically, mentally, etc.) both for you and for your significant other can be a determining factor in achieving your #relationshipgoals. Consider sitting down with your significant other and discussing boundaries in your relationship. How can you increase physical, emotional, or mental safety for one another? What other outside relationships affect the safety in your relationship, and what changes need to be made to increase that safety? How can you work to protect each other and put each other first? When you work on defining and setting healthy boundaries together, it shows your commitment, love, and respect for one another.
#3 – Sweat the Small Stuff
While large gestures of love and commitment are nice, the quality of your relationship is primarily defined by the small things you do every day to re-commit to each other. Sit down with your partner, and write down a few things you can do every day to check-in and connect. Having a meaningful routine or simple ritual when you part ways in the morning and reunite in the evening can natural times to fit in moments of connection (Gottman, 2015). Physical touch like kisses or hugs and verbal check-ins are examples of small and simple things you can do every day to let your partner know that they matter to you.
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#4 – Dream Together
Research has shown that dreaming about your future together strengthens the chances that you actually WILL have a future together (PREP Inc., 2015). If you want to protect your relationship from falling apart, dream together about what you want to be! What do you want your life together to look like in five, ten, or twenty years? What dreams do you each have as individuals, and how can you support each other in those dreams? What hopes do you have for your family and the life you create together? Set goals for things you can do NOW to help those dreams come to pass.
A final note:
Remember that relationships are two-way efforts! The most effective way to improve your relationship is to work on things together as a couple. If that is not possible for you at this moment, take comfort in knowing that you have power over yourself, and you CAN choose to work on your relationship as an individual.
Choose a goal that you would like to incorporate into your New Year’s Resolutions that focuses specifically on improving one of your relationships!
Maniaci, M. (2009). Couple identity. In H. T. Reis & S. Sprecher (Eds.), Encyclopedia of human relationships(pp. 336-337). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc. https://doi/10.4135/9781412958479.n111
Prep Inc.. (2015). PREP 8.0 Leader Guide, Version 1.3. Greenwood Village, CO: Author.
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Rian Nicole Gordon is from Orem, Utah, and graduated from Brigham Young University with a Bachelor of Science in Family Life and Human Development. She has been married to her best friend Mark for five years, and they have two beautiful children, one boy and one girl. Apart from her full-time job as a stay-at-home mom, she works for The Dibble Institute, which specializes in relationship education for youth.
Do you ever find yourself feeling unsatisfied with where you are at?
Do you sometimes get overwhelmed by the struggles and problems you are facing?
Is there something you are currently working towards or hoping for, that you feel like would fix it all if you just had it now?
Many of us struggle at times with feeling like the grass is greener on the other side, or that our lives would be so much better if we just had another life accomplishment checked off our list. It doesn’t help that we are constantly being bombarded with everyone else’s life accomplishments and edited-to-perfection realities (thanks, social media). Seeing how everyone else’s lives are being made better (or so it would seem) by all of these events can cause us to get the wrong idea about what will bring improvement in our own lives.
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In a world where everyone’s steps forward through life are constantly on display for all to see, it can be easy to fall prey to the idea that, “If I just find a boyfriend…”, “If I just get married…”, “If I just get my degree…”, “If I just get pregnant…etc etc…everything will be better!” This is a very dangerous thought process that causes a lot more harm than help to us and to our relationships.
Research has shown that taking a big life step in order to “fix” a problem actually does the opposite. Researcher Brené Brown calls this The Magnification Principle. “Through the research process, I have come to believe that whatever problems you take into a life event will become instantly magnified the moment the hoopla surrounding that life event comes to a close…Whatever problems you and your partner take into a marriage get magnified. The same thing applies to having children. Not only are the issues staying, they’re going to get more complicated and complex.” (Brown, 210)
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When we look at our lives and expect that our problems will be fixed by an unknown future, we set ourselves up for a whole lot of heartache. The problem is in the unrealistic expectation. When our expectations are flawed by nature, we are automatically setting ourselves up for failure and disappointment. When our issues are magnified rather than miraculously healed by a life event, we feel let down, frustrated, and maybe even hopeless. Having realistic expectations, on the other hand, can help us to face our problems with more intentionality, and come up with strategies that will actually help us heal rather than magnify our issues.
Now, I am NOT saying that you should always postpone a life step because of issues that you are currently facing. We all have things that we are working through, and by no means should we refuse to make a move towards progress because we don’t feel that we are perfectly ready. Most likely, you will never actually be “perfectly” ready for a major life event! However, as you approach these life-changing steps forward, it is important to evaluate your personal issues, and take steps for addressing them. Learning to face problems where you are at now rather than expecting that they will be fixed later on will help you be more prepared as you move forward in life. Work to communicate, set healthy boundaries, and utilize the resources that you have at your disposal to help you. Furthermore, if you are facing more serious problems such as mental health issues, serious financial problems, marital or relationship discord or domestic abuse, etc., it might be a very good idea to put things on pause, and get help now rather than assuming things will straighten themselves out after your next big life step.
Think about the next life accomplishment that you are working towards (ie. committing to a relationship, graduating with your degree, buying a home, having a child, etc.). What struggles are you facing right now that you would like to address before taking that next step? Write down one thing that you can do this week to help yourself move towards addressing those struggles.
Rian Nicole Gordon is from Orem, Utah, and graduated from Brigham Young University with a Bachelor of Science in Family Life and Human Development. She has been married to her best friend Mark for five years, and they have two beautiful children, one boy and one girl. Apart from her full-time job as a stay-at-home mom, she works for The Dibble Institute, which specializes in relationship education for youth.
Have you ever made a New Year’s Resolution? How long did you stick with it before life got in the way?
It happens to all of us. We have grand plans of things we are going to accomplish, but then something happens, and we never reach our goal. Why not?
Often, it is because the actual goal we set was lacking in some way. Research shows that there are attributes of goal setting that make us more likely to achieve our goals. That is why SMART goals have become so popular in recent years. Originally based on the goal setting theory of Locke and Latham, SMART is a convenient acronym for some of the attributes that goals should have if we want to actually achieve them. While there is not complete uniformity in the words different organizations use to fit to the acronym, I have chosen those words that research best supports.
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S – Specific: Making a goal specific is the first, and potentially most important, factor in effective goal setting. Research shows that specific goals lead to higher performance than vague, abstract, or no goals. So, while goals like, “be more grateful for what I have” are well-intentioned, they need to be more specific to actually make them happen. For example: Every evening, I will write down 3 things I am grateful for from that day. That is a goal where you can actually see a way to follow through.
M – Motivation: If you don’t have a reason behind your goal that means something to you, why are you setting the goal? You need to have some form of motivation if you are going to achieve your goal, and motivation typically comes from some kind of reward. That can be an external reward, such as a something given to you, or an internal reward, such as a meaningful purpose, an intellectual challenge, or a sense of accomplishment. The most powerful motivations usually include a combination of internal and external rewards. Pick a reward for achieving your goal that is meaningful to you – make sure it is something that will be motivating even when your goal seems most challenging.
A – Accountable: If you are setting good goals, but you’re struggling to stick with them, you may need someone to hold you accountable. Accountability has been found to result in significantly higher goals being reached than when there is no accountability. It is also important to pick an accountability partner who won’t let you make excuses. While there can be valid reasons for not achieving your goal, you need an accountability partner who sets the bar high for what counts or doesn’t count as valid.
R – Realistic & Relevant: I couldn’t pick just one word for the R, because both realistic goals and relevant goals are very important. Realistic goals are challenging, yet achievable given your current circumstances. If there’s no hope of success, motivation is hard to find — so set goals you can realistically succeed at. Relevant goals also help with motivation to stick with your goals. Relevant goals are sub-goals to larger, overarching goals you have in your life. While doing something just for the sake of accomplishment can be fun, motivation to stick with a goal is often found when succeeding at the goal will be useful to you in the future. Reading all the books on the New York Times Top 10 list may be a fun way to read things you might otherwise not, but making your own list of books to read that have information useful for your personal life is more relevant and gives you more reason to actually read them.
T – Time-bound: Give yourself a deadline. It gives you motivation to get it done, and when you’ve succeeded, you can set a new SMART goal relevant to one of your overarching life goals.
Set a SMART goal for the New Year, for any area of your life! Write it down and decide now what you are going to do to achieve your goal. And remember, your deadline doesn’t have to be the end of the year. You can do a smaller goal each month that adds up to something big.
Bonus Challenge:Set a SMART goal that relates specifically to improving one of your personal relationships. Keep an eye out for our monthly calendars over the next few months for ideas for what you can do each day to make your relationships more meaningful!
References
Frink, D. D. & Ferris, G. R. (1998). Accountability, impression management, and goal setting in the performance evaluation process. Human Relations, 51(10), 1259-1283.
Locke, E. A. & Latham, G. P. (1990). A theory of goal setting and task performance. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Locke, E., & Latham, G. P. (2019). Reply to commentaries on “The development of goal setting theory: A half century retrospective.” Motivation Science, 5(2), 114–115. https://doi-org.erl.lib.byu.edu/10.1037/mot0000145
MacLeod, L. (2012, March-April). Making SMART goals smarter. Physician Executive, 38(2), 68+.
Mariah Ramage was born and raised in Bellevue, Washington with two older brothers. She graduated from Brigham Young University with a Bachelor of Science in Family Life and Human Development, and she is currently living in the Seattle area. Mariah is currently experiencing the joys of being a nanny to three-year-old boy-girl twins while she prepares to pursue graduate work in Human Development and Family Studies. She is passionate about mental health, abuse recovery, purposeful parenting, and healthy media usage.
Choose a goal that you would like to incorporate into your New Year’s Resolutions that focuses specifically on improving one of your relationships!
