midlifejourney.com

Author: Mark Webb

What makes the Great great? They are willing to be different from those around them. Friends and family may tell you to give up or that you are trying too hard. They may suggest games that incite a sense of jealousy. Whatever the case may be, you must decide whose calling the shots. You have to live with the decisions and the actions that you make. Make sure that this is done to the best of your ability.

Direction comes a lot easier when you have a model of how you want to be. When I am not sure how to model myself as a great partner in a particular situation I like to ask the question, “How would the partner I’d like to be do the thing I want to do?” Often, I get an immediate answer and proceed from there. Where you are right now in life is the result of the kind of questions that you ask. Make sure that you ask questions that promote a positive direction not only for yourself but also especially for the future of your relationship. Another example is “What can I do to have a wonderful relationship?”

Greatness as a partner demands that you expand your ability to love. Growing a better relationship will be in direct proportion to your ability to love. Strive to consistently love in all that you do. Be consistent in love with the words that you speak and especially in the words that you do not speak. Love requires sacrifice. It means doing things that you do not feel like doing and listening to the same complaint over and over again. Partner focused relationships are synonymous with love. Only through these sacrifices of love will you ever achieve greatness.

Maturity takes time. Some skills are harder to learn than others. Keep this in mind as you are suffering with new concepts like listening techniques. Advancement comes through hard work. You would never go to your supervisor and say, “Give me a raise and I’ll work harder.” Instead, you would make sure that your performance is top notch and if it is, then you probably will not have to ask for the raise. Promotion will be inevitable. Always be willing to go the extra mile. Your partner deserves it.

Do not compare your efforts to those of others who complain. Those who whine and complain never achieve the mature levels of greatness. They end up divorced and alone. Fear will be your biggest obstacle on your path towards greatness. Fear creates countless reasons why you should forget you ever thought about being a Great partner. Perhaps you could save yourself the embarrassment of failure and rejection if you just pretend that you have never heard the difference between good partners and great ones. Maybe you could blend in with the others who exist in a dead end relationship. It is normal to doubt your ability to transform into a great partner but do not surrender to this fear. It is a lie. I have transformed. I have seen hundreds of men and women transform. You can too!
Commit yourself to be GREAT.

About the Author: Mark Webb is the author of How To Be a Great Partner and founder of Partner Focused Relationships. Sign up for Mark Webbs Relationship Strategies Ezine ($100 value). Just visit his website at http://www.powerfulrelationshipadvice.com or http://www.therelationshipspecialist.com.

Years ago, an Irish woman and I were out shopping. Suddenly she stopped me and said, “I must go spend a penny.” Puzzled, I asked her to explain. She leaned over and whispered, “I have to go to the bathroom,” and off she went to find the nearest rest room.

It turns out that in her home town back in Ireland, anytime you visited a public rest room you had to “spend a penny” – i.e. put money in the door lock of the stall in order to use the facility. Suddenly I remembered. When I was a kid, it was always a pain in the neck to use a public restroom. They had these door locks that required you to put in a dime in order to open the stall door. The reason was to pay for the “electric seat cleaning gizmo” that was installed on each toilet. After each use, the toilet seat retracted into this hole in the wall that was lined with bright blue neon lights. The idea was that the electricity, or heat, or light… whatever it was, would “sanitize” the seat for the next person. The dime in the door was to help defray the costs I guess.

The dilemma for a kid… do you pay the dime to get into a stall? Do you hold the door for the next person, so they don’t have to pay the dime? Do you wait and wait for the one free stall to open up so you wouldn’t have to pay at all? And if you used the free stall that didn’t have the electric blue seat, were you taking a big chance of catching some horrible disease???? These were major ethical dilemmas.

Anyone else have these issues?