Habit #6: How To Dream Together
Setting Goals With Your Partner
This Habit is one of the 10 Habits of Happy Couples Tina and Michael LeBlanc write about in their blog and in their book released in Fall 2022. To check out the other Habits, check the index. To really use these Habits to work on your relationship, you can access their book – The 10 Habits of Happy Couples – which gives you complete examples of each Habit and exercises that you can do with your partner to develop these Habits in your relationship.
About the Authors
Tina and Michael LeBlanc are, co-founders of Better Yourself 365, Licensed Counselling Therapists, Authors of relationship books, and a happily married couple. All of their services are tailored to busy, overstretched couples. Tina and Michael help couples work efficiently as a team by teaching them the essential habits to create a strong, loving connection.
Nothing connects a couple more as a team than when they can have deep conversations about their hopes and dreams for their own or their family’s future. It bonds them as a team, it gives them hope and a feeling that they are moving in the same direction as a couple.
However, they also need to create space for individual needs and aspirations. Part of being in a strong relationship is having room as an individual in the relationship and having your own interests, hobbies, friends and support network. It is a sign of respect to see your partner as an individual separate from you. It actually increases the trust and connection in the relationship when each individual can also have space from each other when it doesn’t result in insecurities.
Bottom line, it’s important to have our individual and couples’ goals and dreams. And it is so important to be able to talk openly about both and support both.
Sharing our thoughts with our partners on bigger life issues usually doesn’t just happen on its own. You have to make room for it. If you and your partner only talk about the daily grind, then you might not let yourself share at this deeper level.
Go ahead and book these conversations into your schedule. Once a year, have a “goals and dreams” talk. Discuss how you feel about where you are personally & as a couple. Where do you want to be next year? In five years? Discuss you, your partner, and your family and see how you can make it all fit together and support one another.
And then schedule something more regular – weekly or monthly. These will be shorter conversations—check in on those dreams and goals you and your partner set and see how things progress. Celebrate successes & troubleshoot challenges. Support each other.
Did we mention how support is key?
Remember this important piece of information: When we commit to someone, we have no idea who they will be in 5 years, 10 years or 20 years. But one thing for sure is that they won’t be the same person they are today. And if you haven’t taken the time to grow with them on their journey, it might be shocking and might even destroy you to realize that you don’t recognize your partner someday.
Our work is to keep falling in love with the new parts of our partner as they keep changing and growing. If you succeed in doing this, it again deepens the bond.
Psychologist Carol Dweck introduced the concept of a Growth Mindset, which is the ability to bounce back from setbacks and view mistakes as opportunities for learning. We believe this concept can also be applied to and improve your relationships.
This includes being firm when necessary, setting boundaries as an act of self-care. These elements, when combined, form the foundation of a strong, resilient relationship.
Individuals have preferred ways of connecting with their partners, such as physical touch or deep conversations. We stress the importance of understanding and accommodating each other’s styles through open communication, fostering mutual respect and harmony.
Understanding and openly sharing core emotions like sadness, fear, shame, loneliness, hurt, surprise, and joy can lead to deeper connections in your relationships.
Attachment, a term often used by researchers to describe the emotional bonds we form with significant others, is the foundation for how relationships function. In this blog post, we explain the intricate dynamics of adult attachment styles, and how they shape the way we feel and act in our relationships.
Better Yourself First refers to how stronger individuals lead to a stronger couple. A healthy relationship needs two healthy individuals. This is a core belief for us here at BetterYourself365. Our whole philosophy as a company is based on this.