Table of Contents
6 Ways to Strengthen Your Relationship in 2023
- 7 MIN READ
In his book Junky, author William S. Burroughs declared:
“When you stop growing, you start dying.”
Burroughs’ book fictionalized his experiences using and peddling heroin and other drugs in the 1950s. The infamous quote was attributed to the life of an addict. Someone recovering from any type of addiction must maintain a growth posture, or they begin to die.
Have you ever wondered how that principle applies to your relationship with your partner?
Are relationships something that needs to be nurtured and strengthened?
Here at Evimero Couples, the answer is a resounding yes!
And we believe the beginning of the year is a great time to take inventory of your relationship and determine how you can grow as individuals, and as a couple.
So how does one begin to embrace the idea of developing their relationship? This article will provide you with the 6 ways to strengthen your relationship in 2023 and get you started.
1. Embrace a Growth Mindset
The first step may be apparent. When we are kids, the very nature of our existence is to grow. Whether emotionally, academically, or by defining our life’s direction, we wake up every day with the intent of growing into adulthood.
Then we become adults, something flips in us, and we stop growing. We settle into our careers, roles in life, and, most importantly, relationships. We see ourselves and those around us as fixed. We lose sight of the opportunity we have to learn new things and change the DNA of who we are.
The good news – we don’t need to stay fixed. We can rekindle the desire and passion we had as kids and continue to become the adult we want to be.
The even better news – we can apply this to our relationship. When couples embrace the growth mindset, they can make their relationship whatever they want. This process begins with you as an individual, and then a growth plan for your relationship emerges.
If the idea of a growth mindset is new to you, or you need a tune-up, Carol Dweck’s Mindset is our #1 recommended resource to develop a growth mindset.
2. Decide Where to Focus Your Growth
Once you establish a growth mindset, the next step is determining where you want to strengthen your relationship. Any journey needs a map to guide you to your destination. Our relationship is no different. Yet far too often, people coast through life without a relationship map, which leads to frustration and hopelessness.
If your relationship is having challenges, how do you know where the problem is (despite the fact you think it is him or her)? You can go to a counselor, but that can make you feel like you are spinning as you repeatedly talk about the same things. Or you can pick up a book, but how do you know it is the right book for what you need?
Or maybe your relationship isn’t having challenges, but you want more from it. Your connection is solid, and you wonder if there is a greater purpose for your lives. Something you want to accomplish – together!
These challenges are why we created the Evimero Couples Framework. A roadmap to help you and your partner identify where you are, determine where you want to go, and, more importantly, give you tools to get there.
The Framework will help you hone in on what is most important when embarking on your growth journey.
Download the FREE
How to Strengthen Your Relationship Workbook
Questions for you and your partner to foster conversation
Guidance for where to focus your relationship growth
3. Educate yourself on healthy
Once you’ve established a growth mindset and identified where you want to strengthen your relationship, your next step is understanding the definition of healthy. Because let’s be honest, if you knew what it looked like, you’d probably already be there.
Part of this education requires you to go back to your roots. Ideally, this begins with the relationship between your parents. They were the ones that created your initial understanding of relationships. If your parents had a healthy relationship, you can build from that firm foundation. If they had an unhealthy relationship, you will have some work to do.
Next, you need to reflect on your previous relationships. Each one tells you a bit about yourself and the types of people you’ve been attracted to. You will begin to see patterns that will formulate your definition of healthy in a relationship. If you had the opportunity, would you be with your previous partners again? Or has what you want in your relationship grown and evolved?
Now you are ready to address your current relationship. It is time to develop a new language around where you want to grow. This step may be the most essential part of the process. When a couple struggles to strengthen their relationship, it is often because they don’t have the language to communicate what they need or want.
Developing this language can usually be done by observing other couples. If you want to strengthen your relationship by becoming better parents (Context area of the Framework), find couples you admire a few years ahead of you. Spend time with them to learn from their successes and their failures. Listen to the language they use to describe how they approach this area of their relationship. Interview or spend time with as many couples as you can.
The right resources are another place to develop a language for growth. Books, online courses, podcasts, workshops, or blogs can give you a language to grow together as a couple. They will educate you by painting a picture of what healthy looks like and, more importantly, where you may be off.
If you are looking for the right resources for your growth journey, The Evimero Couples Thrive Catalog is the place for you. We’ve aggregated the best growth resources from across the internet into one place.
4. Create a new vision
Next, you need to create a vision for where you want your relationship to go. Having done the work to educate yourself on what healthy looks like, you now get to create a vision for your relationship.
This process begins with defining your “why.” Ask any behavioral change expert, and they will all tell you the same thing – any change begins with your “why.” Defining your “why” motivates you to keep going when things get tough. And trust us, it’s going to get tough. Life gets in the way. It is hard to build new habits. Identifying your “why” will help you stay focused and motivated on your growth journey. This needs to be done as individuals and as a couple.
From there, the sky is the limit. And this part usually scares people. Especially if it has been a long time since you’ve experienced positivity in your relationship. Remember all those Facebook and Instagram posts where you said, “I wish we were like them.” Now you get to define your version of “them.”
Some couples may hesitate to take this step. They don’t want to set themselves up for failure. Or they tried something before, and it didn’t work. If that is you, refer back to step #1. That is a fixed mindset speaking. If you are both committed to the growth process for your relationship, your vision is limited by you and only you.
One word of caution. While it is good to observe other couples to be inspired by what could be, at the end of the day you and your partner should be the ones that define the vision for your relationship. You need to align on where you want to go. If you aren’t aligned, go slow and value your differences along the way.
5. Develop a growth plan
Now you are ready to get your hands dirty. With your vision in front of you, it is time to develop a growth plan. This has two components.
First, what are the resources you are going to use to grow? As previously mentioned, resources give you a new language to navigate growth. Good resources also give you tools to support your growth. Finding the right resources to help you and your partner is critical to success.
When selecting the resources, be honest about what will work for you. There is no universal answer. If this is your first time consuming a resource together, start small. Possibly with a blog or podcast. If one of you struggles with reading, maybe select a video portal or a YouTube channel. If you can get away for a weekend, jump into a workshop.
Pick resources that tie back to your area of focus and your vision. If you want to develop a deeper connection and aren’t sure where to start – Sue Johnson’s Love Sense may be perfect. Her Hold Me Tight online course may be better if you want something more involved.
The second component of developing your plan is to find the right techniques and strategies. Most people with a growth mindset naturally know how to consume a resource by themselves. They read the book, take notes, possibly journal on what is most important, and then implement the steps to change. But when couples are encouraged to do this together, they can often struggle.
A few things to consider:
- When will you dedicate time to your growth plan?
- Will you work on things together? Or work individually and then come together?
- How will you document what you are learning and share it?
- How will you hold yourselves accountable if and when things go off track?
- What roadblocks do you need to consider (hello kids!) and how will you overcome them?
Asking these questions on the front end will significantly increase your chances of success.
6. Execute the growth plan
Finally, it is time to execute your plan. It will be uncomfortable if you’ve never done this with your partner. That is normal. A few things that we can recommend to increase your success.
First, be patient and give yourself grace. In the book The Power of Habit, Charles Duhigg claims that the Golden Rule of Habit Change focuses on changing our routine. He argues that we can’t simply get rid of bad habits and replace them with good habits. Instead, we need to change the routine that leads to our habits. We need to replace the patterns from our bad habits with new routines that create new habits. This idea is the foundation of any 12-step program. One does not just stop smoking. They need to replace the act of smoking with something new, which then creates a new habit.
When executing your growth plan, consider your routines that need replacing. If your normal after-dinner routine is to sit down and watch TV together, maybe your new routine is to spend 30 minutes with your growth resource first. This will then create the new habit of growing together.
Second, find accountability through a community. One of our favorite authors, John C Maxwell, says, “Few things prompt a person to follow through like accountability. One of the ways you can do that is to make your goals public. When you tell others about what you intend to do, it puts pressure on you to keep working. You can request that a specific individual ask you about your progress. It’s similar to having a deadline to keep you moving. You can even write things down as a form of accountability.”
Having other people committed to your growth is one of the most significant ways to increase your chances of success. Can you keep each other accountable for your individual development? Do you have a couple that you can share your goals with? It is easy to overlook this step due to the discomfort. We encourage you to embrace it. It will pay huge dividends down the road.
Developing an intentional growth plan for your relationship may be a foreign concept. If it is, we at Evimero Couples are here to help.
We’ve developed a workbook for this purpose. It will guide you with a series of questions that with help foster a conversation with your partner. Download it below!
Download the FREE
How to Strengthen Your Relationship Workbook
Questions for you and your partner to foster conversation
Guidance for where to focus your relationship growth