5 Essential Communication Skills For A Happier Marriage

Communication is vitally important because we’re so dang bad at reading our partner’s mind (until we’ve been married for many years, that is). The best marriages have a great deal of communication; the worst have little or none. But every aspect of a marriage requires communication in some form. When our emotions get fired up, we are quick to make assumptions based almost entirely on our own unrealistic thoughts about the situation. Most of the time, these assumptions are partially, if not completely, wrong.

Because thoughts shape behavior, communication skills shape how you interact with your partner. Authentic communication takes practice and more practice. But simply talking is not the same as communicating. True communication in a great marriage is a tw0-way conversation. Therefore, it takes practice from both people. However, you can only do your practicing and encourage your partner to do the same. It can be tricky when a partner doesn’t want to communicate, but that doesn’t mean the partner doesn’t want to solve the issue. It takes time, patience, and even great care to develop solid communication skills; it’s always a work in progress. But you can’t master something you’re not practicing, so how do you practice communication? The following five skills are essential for a happier marriage.

30-Day Challenge: Declutter Your Life

When you look all around you, do you see stacks of mail that need to be processed? Perhaps you’ve got books laying around along with a million miscellaneous scraps of paper with scribbled notes on them. Remember that thing you were going to fix that you put aside until you had more time…and now you’re tripping over it every day?  Whether you want to be more disciplined, more organized, or just plain happier, clearing out the clutter and freshening up your environment will make a huge difference. In fact, you may not realize how much your psyche is affected by clutter and how different you can feel until it’s all gone.

Well, now is a great time to get a fresh start by trying this 30-Day Challenge. Thirty days from today, you could finally have your office cleaned up, or that space in your attic. Perhaps you’ll finally tame that monster hiding in your garage and have room to, once again, park your car. I feel like clutter is a type of psychic cancer, eating away at your creativity, your energy levels, your inspiration and totally draining your motivation even before it gets started. Well, it’s time to change that. It’s time to rediscover your inspiration, your creativity and your floor! Here’s how:

FYI: Happiness Set Point

Happiness Set Point is your overall happiness average. Imagine a graph that looks like a roller coaster; a line moves across the page dipping down and swinging back up, then dropping again. The high points are when you’re happiest. Obviously, the low points represent when you’re a bit depressed or just not really all that happy.

As with graphs that chart trends, your happiness set point sometimes trends upward, trends downward, or may stay mostly the same over time.

We all face challenging lives. Sometimes we’re in a good mood, other times, we’re not feeling so cheery. But somewhere between your wonderful highs and your depressing lows, you’ll find your average level of happiness or happiness set point. In spite of all the highs and lows of life, your happiness set point tends to stay relatively stable. But that doesn’t mean you’re happy on average. It only represents your average mood, or how happy you tend to be, overall. So if you don’t feel very happy most of the time, your happiness set point might be lower.

The happiness set point is like a groove. You’ve practiced it so much that it’s easy to fall back into it no matter how high or how low your mood goes. The good news is that your happiness set point can be raised over time, by making a conscious effort to spend more time doing things that cause your happiness to go up and stay there longer. Want to raise your happiness set point? Try out these simple strategies:

What Do You Do When You’re Unmotivated and Bored?

QUESTION:

Scott, I’m feeling more than a little unmotivated to do just about anything today. Suggestions? I’m bored, but I just can’t make myself get started on anything. Weird day. What do you do when/if you find yourself in a similar situation?

Thanks,

Lili

ANSWER:

Lili, I’ve observed that a lack of motivation is often really a lack of focus or lack of inspiration. For example, you need to do the dishes and wash some clothes. So you’ve got focus but doing those things are not very inspiring. A lot of people have trouble getting inspired to vacuum, clean the bathroom, or do housework in general, but seeing everything that needs to be cleaned helps you stay focused on what needs to be done.

On the other hand, if you’re excited about your upcoming trip to Hawaii, you may not know what to pack for the trip (lack of focus) so your suitcase isn’t getting any fatter, but you’re very inspired to drive to the bank to get your spending money and stop off at the store to buy your swimwear.  No problem.

For Sale: Happiness

If happiness were for sale, how much would you be willing to pay for it? I’m not talking about a pill. Imagine buying a box, and when you open it, you would have instant lifelong happiness. Good deal? Maybe…

Suppose it was really expensive, say $500…maybe $1,000, or even $10,000, would you pay it?

How much you’re willing to pay might be determined by how unhappy you are to begin with. If you’re desperately miserable, you might pay anything for some relief.

What if you took the box of happiness to the checkout register and found out that it was free? All you have to do is practice happiness for 12 hours every day for the next 12 months. That means you would have to constantly practice being happy. Don’t know how? Well, that’s why they call it practice. Just do the best you can. Right?

But wait, there’s an owner’s manual with this box of happiness. It says the following:

Change Your Behavior With A 30-Day Challenge

All of us, at one time or another, have a specific behavior we want to adopt or to change. One of the best ways to do this in a short amount of time is with a 30-Day Challenge. You’ve probably heard of the concept of a 30-day challenge and maybe you’ve even tried one. The 30-day challenge is the kind of tool that everyone should have in their toolbox. If you haven’t heard of it or need a refresher, here’s an introduction and some suggestions for using them effectively.

30-Day Challenge Basic Concept:

  • Choose a behavior, habit, routine or even a mental pattern that you would like to change, remove or adjust.
  • Determine the way in which you want it to change.
  • For 30 days, exercise or practice the change that you would like to make permanent or simply try out.

Rules, Structure, and Fudge-Factor

Some challenges will be pretty simple and won’t really require any detailed rules or rigmarole to follow.  For instance if you started a challenge where you would only drink water for 30 days, it’s clear enough what to do and what not to do. You drink only water for 30 days. If you drink anything but water, you broke the challenge and have to start over.

“I Have No Real Love or Passion For Anything”

QUESTION:

Hi Scott. I have been reading through all of your posts and your content is really excellent! I do have an issue though. You see, I have no real love or passion for anything. I want to do things in my life. I have always wanted to go and maybe even move to the U.S.A. even though I have never even been there. :) I also want money and I know this is a big factor in many people’s motivation but I want to use the money to get to America and live “The Dream”. My problem is I just can’t keep motivation for anything, I think I NEED to do this because it will enable me to make my American dream possible but the idea of the dream just isn’t enough to keep me going.

I always have these ideas of ways to make money, sell on eBay, start an online business, affiliate marketing. You see, I have a cousin who started off like me, middle class and by no means “rich” but he is now making 10′s of thousands of dollars per week, this is after 4 years of hard work. I tried to follow his advice but he says I really need to want the money to make it like he did but nothing keeps me working and going.

Thanks,

John, 17, England

ANSWER:

John, thank you for the complement and for your question. There are two kinds of motivation that people commonly try to find–motivation to do something you don’t want to do, and motivation do so something you want to do. In the first case, it’s understandable that you may need to use strategies, tricks, or leverage of some kind to really put the heat on and make you do it. Deadlines, penalties, embarrassment, demotions or getting fired from a job, social accountability…all of these do a nice job of compelling people to take action even when their goal is imposed upon them by a boss, parent, spouse, peers, etc.

About
Hi, I'm Scott and I have a passion for helping people change how they see things. Few people really understand how thinking and behavior affects their lives and motivation. That's where I come in. I help people make that connection. I'd like to show you how simple adjustments in your thinking can make your life better.
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