Think about the very first thing you do in the morning. If you're like the vast majority of people (let's stick with in the United States), then you probably reach to your nightstand and check your phone. I'm assuming you check for social media updates, personal and work email, and maybe the news. Am I guessing right?
We've all been there. There's that one person who just gets under our skin, who we can't understand, and who operates in a way that makes little to no sense to us.
Let's get clear on a few things before I start getting into this. First of all, when I say difficult people, I don't mean 'people who are intentionally difficult.' I simply mean people who we experience as difficult. That's key here. Secondly, difficult people can include those people who we just don't click with.
There are three basic things you can do to make sure that your relationship is in a good place. Granted, I can't make you (or your partner or partners) do any of these things, but I can let you know what these basic things are in the hopes that you'll start to implement them.
Let's get clear on one quick thing. These things are simple, yes. Although they aren't necessarily easy.
Of course not, right?
I'm just going to come out and say it. Life can be boring, mundane, and monotonous. There. It's out in the open. Can't take it back.
It seems that so many people strive for this "perfect" life, but don't realize that striving for something that doesn't exist without embracing this basic sort of fact (that's clearly a personal bias) that life can be boring at times leads to feeling dissatisfied and unhappy. It's not that I don't want people to strive for better or more or more content or happier, but I want people to be realistic about their strivings.
I'm sure I've read something similar to this somewhere - most things I reflect on come from things I read or hear (probably not alone in that). SO, it was this notion that the best predictors for where you're going to be tomorrow and then the next day and then the next week and so on is not where you are today, but what you're doing.
Basically, the best predictor of future actions are current actions. I'm not going to go so far as to say that nobody can 'move' in their life. I don't think that's true. What I do think is true, however, is that people only move when they put in the effort, intention, and focus on moving. And I think that getting to the point where you're putting all that time and energy into something you don't see results for right away is, well, pretty disheartening. So then we say "eff it" and go back to what we were doing right before.
