Editor’s note: The following is a guest post by Tim Murphy at Renegade Dad.
Many of us talk about prioritizing as it relates to our work but it’s also important to prioritize other areas of our life, like our relationship with our spouse.
Four years ago my wife and I were blessed with our amazing little girl. It’s been the most incredible, fascinating, mind boggling experience but it’s also been one of the most challenging experiences as well.
All of the sudden, our focus had to shift. We were no longer only responsible for ourselves and our own relationship. We were now responsible for raising another human being.
As I’m sure many parents can relate, we quickly assumed the busy role of parenthood which left little time for “us”.
Then recently my wife and I realized we had let parenthood take over our lives and we needed to do a better job prioritizing our relationship with each other.
Since this was new territory for us, we weren’t quite sure how to make this happen so I thought, “Why not use the principles that I’ve applied to my health program?” If it works forfitness, why can’t it work for relationships?
The thing I love about principles is that they can be applied to just about any area of life to help you improve.
They’ve helped me to improve my health and they are working like a charm to strengthen our marriage so I am confident they are principles that can help to improve just about any area of life. Give them a shot and let me know what you think!
Here they are…
Accept
There are always going to be challenges and issues in health, relationships, work etc. First, accept the fact that they exist. Be honest. The goal is to improve. What is the root issue? Try to identify what is the core roadblock to making things better.
Brainstorm
Once you’ve identified the core issue and got it out in the open, start brainstorming some possible fixes or solutions. Don’t complain or blame. The goal here is to think about any possible way to help the root issue get better.
The solutions don’t have to be perfect. Any attempt to improve will help. Even if you try
something and it doesn’t seem to help, you will gain clarity on what types of things will help which will keep you moving in the right direction.
Commit
OK now that you’ve come up with some ideas on how to fix the issue, each person needs to commit to what they are going to do. Without a commitment, you just have ideas. It needs to be clear what steps each person is taking to help the situation. Plus, this step will help you feel like a unified team in attacking the problem which will bring you closer together.
Draw
Now it’s time to put that plan into concrete form. Draw up a written version of what you each decided to do, not just in your head but on paper, computer or stone tablet. Whatever floats your boat.
Again, this doesn’t have to be perfect, just jot down what you each said you would do and then put it somewhere where you can keep track of it.
If you said you would have a date night once a week, make a note of it and then find a way to track to make sure you are both keeping your commitment. I like Excel. Yeah it’s geeky but it works!
I know it sounds ridiculous to measure personal matters like “date nights” but in order to make sure your relationship becomes a priority over the other things in your life you need some way to keep track of what you are doing to work on it. Plus it keeps your efforts front of mind so your relationship will naturally become a priority.
Evaluate
Set a reminder in your calendars for two to four weeks out to evaluate the results. Is the plan you created working? If yes, great keep doing it. If not, why not?
Remember not to blame each other or complain. Just figure out what’s not working and why and decide what needs to tweaked, added or removed in order to make progress. Then, make a reminder to check back again in two to four weeks.
I know life as a parent is insanely busy and doing this type of stuff sounds too time consuming to fit into our busy schedules. But if we let ourselves get too consumed with “the other things in life”, we may lose our connection with one another and that’s not what we want for our marriage or our children.
So if we want our children to see their parents happy, we need to be happy as a couple. And the way to make sure that happens is to dedicate a little bit of time each month on us so we make us a priority. Is that really such a bad thing? Sounds like an investment worth its weight in gold don’t ya think?