Fixing Your Bond With Your Partner

All couples do have differences in certain extent and in different manners, but the differences between those that last and those that break apart is the ability to fixing the subsequent damage.

Couples are bonded by love but sundered by their weak skills at relationship maintenance. Love is a dynamic, fulfilling and spontaneous emotion and we don't need to learn how to love someone (not in the starting stage); it just comes out within you. But not many of us actually know how to manage and handle the ill feelings, emotional dis-engagement, resentment and cold wars coming from conflicts. Given ample time to accumulate and simmer, these insidious emotions could wreck any blissful couple.

Thta's why learning and applying the skills to fixing the damage done by quarrels are so important in a marriage. In life, we cannot avoid hurt but we can learn how to heal and move on from it.

Most of us go into relationships "blind", "dumb" and "deaf", which is, not fully understanding what's needed to build a fulfulling lasting bond. We're sometimes bounded by out follies; as we all have our bad days, stress from external sources or judging a scenerio poorly. Rather than ignoring the issue, or your partner or allowing the anger to seethe, trying repairing it.

If you feel that you have more clarity for the offender, don't hold onto it stubbornly. And if your partner is the more evidently at fault; don't sit on the high horse, be prepared to accept any apology or atonement. You know that it might not be easy to admit you are wrong, and if your partner does it sincerely, that demonstrates that he/she truly cares about you and wants to mend bridges.

Here are some steps you can start with to fix the damage resulting from a bad clash.

First; Apologise. A simple and heartfelt apology can sometimes do wonders and miracles for a relationship. Beware of overdoing it though; too many too often often feels insincere and can backfire on you.

Then, attempt to confiding your feelings. Very often, conflict and misunderstandings occurs because of deep insecurities, latent fears and assumed judgement. Your partner is more likely to emphathise with you if he/she knew these feelings. Obviously, they can't tell unless you share with them. For example, you may just be worried about him/her when you lost your cool. Express these concerns so as to build better understanding and bonding.

Managing Adversity

If you are in a challenging or uncomfortable scenerio, you have only 3 choices:

1. Wait for the event (scenerio) to change
2. Change the event
3. Change your response to the event

Let's start with the Option 1. You need to know if the scenerio is likely to change on itself. If not, this is clearly not an option for you. Some scenerios, no matter, how short term it may be, the answer may just be to wait them out. While you are waiting for the scenerio to change though, you might want to think about if you can go for option 2 - change the event.

The con with this solution is that even if you leave your current event and procee to the next one, you will still carry it with you. This is the time to wonder if you are perhaps part of the problem? Are you habitually trapping yourself in certain challenging scenerios? If relationships aren't working out for you, how much responsibility should you bear? Of course, most events are simply out of our control; there's nothing we can do to alter it.

Which by then, brings us to option 3, the most effective and self empowering option -Change the respone to the event. The advantage of this option is unlike the first two, this one is always open to you. You are the focal point. Strangely enough, when you focus on yourself, you have more influence on things outside you. On other words, when you choose to look at things in a different angle, the things you are looking at, change (or at least appear different) with your mindset.

We live in a culture which tends to lay blame on external factor for our woes - It's God, it's government, it's our superior, our co-worker, our parents, our siblings and perhaps even the climate. Anything it seems, except ourselves.

In order to stop blaming and start improving your life, you must change the meaning of the event, i.e change the response. Instead of seeing it as something that was 'done to you', you can choose to view it as a neutral event, nothing personal, or even a positive experience that you can learn something from. Change your language to reinforce this change of meaning. Instead of asking, " Why did this have to happen to me?" Ask yourself, "What lesson can I take away from this?"

By changing the context you give to the event and changing the words you use, you'll discover that you have the power to respond in any number of ways, and whatever way you choose you want it to conclude, not just the knee jerk reactions resulting from your past. You'll be able to choose new responses to old problems by breaking habitual patterns that have been limiting your growth and progress.

How to attract success

Each and everyone wants success.

Some of us spend their every waking moment chasing after it, to the detriment of everything else. On the other end of the spectrum are individuals who feel that success is hard to reach. They conclude that it is destined for a selected few only, while the rest of us in between are contented with whatever we have. We may desire greater success, but we believe somehow we are not 'fated' or 'destined' to achieve it.

However, these assumptions couldn't be further from the truth. When one strive for success with the wrong assumptions, one will never reach it. It's similar to one trying to reach a destination with the wrong map.

Success can't be hurried, be caught or found it by chance. It can't be inherited, gate-crashed, or taken it from someone else. Success is something you must work hard and long to earn, for yourself. It has a price, sometimes a very high one. And most people aren't really and truly ready to pay that price, to do what success demands and requires.

To achieve success, first you must know that success is a process empowered with a right attitude and positive mindset. It requires time and patience. There are no short cuts while anything else is just a temporary illusion. Success that will remain with you and bring you joy rather than sorrow, requires a learning process, a time to grow out of grow habits and into new ones, a time to learn what works and unlearn what doesn't. So don't rush or be in a hurry.

In order to attain success, traits and skills must be acquired to attract it. What is your defination of success? What kind of traits or skill sets will you need to achieve your goal? Come out with plans to acquire the needed traits and skill sets. Learn to do what you need to do, to get where you want to go. Develop your own success principles. Find two or three people who have what you want. Jot down the habits and their success principles that have made them successful and resolve to digest it into your own context.

Once you've made up your mind to achieve success, you must be ready to travel the road to success oftentimes alone. Author Les Brown once said, "At some point in time, the pursuit of your goals becomes secondary and what you have become in the process is what is most important" When infants reach for the toy that their parents have placed some distance away, it's not the toy that's the prize; it's simply the motivation for the child to learn something more important, something more lasting, and that is to learn to crawl and of course, to finally walk and run!!. It's to strengthen their muscles so that they can reach for other goals in life.

Anyone can succeed, but not every one will. Success will differs for each individual. It's your definition, decision and attitude that determines what success is to you!!

Attitude of Success

When we're new to the game, conventional wisdom may instruct us to start small and act modest, charge less and compromise ourselves to meet the client's demands.

And many continue like this for years. We think that we will get more gigs because we're "nice", we're "flexible" or we're "inexpensive". But are these simply euphemisms for being "timid", "easily bullied" and "cheap"?

Many of us are not making the leap from novice to professional or from mediocre to iconic simply because we keep selling ourselves short. All indicators may suggest a high level of competence, knowledge and experience on your part, but because you don't take yourself seriously, you think that others don't take you seriously either.

As a result, you take on client you can get, agree to work when you'd really rather not, reduce your fees and your terms just to please your client, and offer freebies and so on when the clients doesn't seem immediately interested.

You may think that this will make you "easier", "less expensive" and therefore more popular option, but the message that you're really sending out is that you're desperate. By continually offering discounts, you're also suggesting to people that your quality is not good enough.

If your client is not paying you your full fee todays, it's unlikely that he'll pay you your full fee in future. Nor is he likely to recommend you to others. The message of mediocrity that you send out via your attitude and rates will doom you to a lifetime of insignificant returns.

So chuck out the "mediocre" mentality today and start behaving successful. Whether you're really "successful" or not, start behaving that way! It's the attitude, the way you carry yourself, and how much you yourself value yourself that will catch on with your clients and others.

Just think about it, if you really were successful and in high demand, then you would be charging more for your precious time, wouldn't you? Your clients would gladly fir themselves around your schedule because they want the best. The best is in high demand and is therefore not easily available.

All the big brands have always known this philosophy of "behaving successful". They are able to charge a premium simply because they walk and talk like they're worth it. Of course, real substance counts too, but in this world where competition is fiercer every passing day and the field is being increasingly levelled, how you sell yourself is what sets you apart from the rest.

Visualising Creatively

Creative Visualisation is a tried and true technique that helps you create the things you want in life. Creative Visualisation is the art of sending an image to your subconscious mind. Your subconscious mind then creates your reality based on the messages that you send to it.

The key to understanding how creative visualisation works is to first understand that your subconscious mind does not know what is real and what is fiction. It simply creates your reality based on the image that you visualise.

So if you visualise yourself struggling, poor, unhappy, alone or depressed, then this is the reality that your subconscious mind creates. There have been many books written on creative visualisation all of which tell you that if you visualise you will create the things you want. Some people view this with suspicion. Some give it a try, but are disappointed that it doesn't yield results immediately.

Well, like most other life-affirming practices, like adopting an attitude of gratitude or journaling, visualisation requires commitment, time, and faith to produce any discernible benefits. In order to get the most out of visualisation, all your other messages to your subconscious mind have to be in agreement with what you visualise. In other words, there is no room for skepticism. Once you've decided to visualise creatively to improve your life, be sure to give it your full dedication.

Think of it this way. You're in a boat and there are a number of people rowing this boat for you. You tell one of them to row in a certain way so that you go in a certain direction. But if all the other people rowing for you are going in the opposite direction - that one person rowing will have little or no impact. The boat will never go the way you want.

When you work with Creative Visualisation, tap into all your powers to send a tidal wave of positive energy to your subconscious mind. Begin to see yourself living the life you want - happy, healthy, positive, loving, energized, productive, and successful.

Happy visualizing!

Choices And Decisions

We're always making choices. How we will use our time, how we're going to get to our destination, what we're going to have for lunch, what colours should be used for our logo, what proposal should be dumped and which one should be taken up. Every step that we take presents us with an option of "Yes" or "No".

All these decisions, or in the case of some of us, in-decision, affects our happiness. How consciously do we make our choices? What happens when we can't make a definite "Yes" or "No" is that we become stuck in the wilderness of "Maybe" land. When we spend too much time in this place, we allow others to decide how our lives should be led. Here we have no hope for fulfillment because when things go well, we can't take the credit. And when things go awry, we blame ourselves for trusting the judgement of another.

Imagine that your partner or friend prefers to watch a particular movie and you'd really like to see another but you don't say anything. You give your partner or friend a weak "maybe", "it doesn't matter" or a reluctant "oh ok?" Later, you feel resentful and angry because this always seems to happen and you "never get to see the movie that you want to see."

Sometimes we justify this by believing that we don't assert ourselves because we are easy-going or generous. If this is the case, then why do we subsequently feel lousy and on the losing end?

Now, asserting yourself doesn't mean being demanding or unreasonable. By all means, empower yourself by expressing your feelings clearly, but be ready to negotiate or occasionally give in or come to a compromise. The important thing is simply to make your feelings known. Hiding behind a mask of indifference creates a lot of inner tension which may explode in the future.

It's very important to empower yourself to make conscious choices to create the relationships and life that you want. A lot of people feel anger and resentment toward others but what they're actually feeling is resentment towards themselves for not having the courage to go for what they really want.

Whenever you're faced with a decision, take the time to go within yourself and ask yourself what you really want. Is it true that it doesn't matter? Is it something you can take lightly? Or something you feel strongly about? When you evaluate your options consciously and express your feelings clearly, you'll feel more empowered, and as a result, move confidently toward creating the kind of relationships and life that you want.

Saint Valentine's Wish

Today, millions of people around the world celebrate one of the most profound blessings that life has to offer - mutual love. And as you honour that love today, here are some things I wish all couples remember always?

"I love you" is easily spoken, but waking up an hour earlier to prepare breakfast for you is something else!

When you're in love, you never question the meaning of life.

The greatest gift is one's time.

If you truly love someone, you can never grow old.

Don't just focus on the action? try to understand the spirit behind the action.

To keep the loving cup full, give a sincere compliment each day.

When you're giving everything, you've got nothing to lose.

Though much ugliness, violence, darkness and hatred is possible in this world, someone is holding your hand.

Money can always be earned, but a beautiful moment, once past, will never return.

The most wonderful thing you can do with someone you love? is absolutely nothing!

The next time you're moved to anger, think about how you'd feel if this person were no longer in your life.

Don't save anything for a special day or occasion. If you have something good to do, say or give, do it now.

It's easy to love someone for his/her strengths, but it takes true courage to love someone for his/her weaknesses.

Each time you part, there's a possibility you might never see each other again, so part in love.

And finally, remember? that despite not being linked by blood, you have found someone who will love, live, laugh, and cry with you... and that itself is a miraculous thing.