“You can’t coast uphill,
the only direction you can coast is down.
”
“If you’re with the right person, your relationship should be easy.”
Oh the stories we tell. The stories we tell ourselves. The stories we tell others. Fairy-tale romances promise happily-ever-after endings, but no one ever shows us how to make that happen.
It’s actually pretty straight forward. We fully understand that if we want a successful career, we have to work hard. We have to develop the necessary skills and continuously work toward cultivating our craft. We understand that if we want to be fit, we must constantly push ourselves, challenging our strength, our endurance, and our willpower. But for some reason, love is supposed to be different. Somehow, love is just supposed to happen. Once we find our “true love” we get to live “happily ever after” (translated as lazily ever after).
The truth is that love isn’t something that happens to you. Love is something you create. Love is something you cultivate. Love is something you nourish and build over time.
The part of “happily ever after” nobody talks about is the work. So many times in life we dedicate ourselves toward the pursuit of something we’re passionate about. However, when we finally obtain it, we relax. We stop all effort and believe that we will forever enjoy the fruits of our short lived, but intense labor. We coast.
Of course, the problem with coasting is that you can only coast downhill. In other words, once you stop working, your relationship stops growing, and once your relationship stops growing, it starts dying. When we believe that we’ve arrived, we often stop doing the things that got us to where we are.
In a healthy relationship, there is no coasting. You have to put in the work. You have to make the time. Every day. You have to find the joy and purpose in continuing to peddling up the hill, rather than getting lost in the deceptive comfort of coasting down it.
“You can always tell when you’re on the road to success. It’s uphill all the way.”
-Paul Harvey
Relationships get off track when we take them for granted and neglect to nurture them with fondness and admiration, enjoyable activities, and ongoing communication about what’s working well and what isn’t feeling so good. When you become too comfortable, you run the risk of coasting off a relational cliff.
If you realize you’re coasting. Here are three tips to get you back moving in the right direction.
3 Tips to Combat Coasting in your Relationship
Identify your Goals
The tragedy of life doesn’t lie in not reaching goals. The tragedy lies in having no goals to reach. Successful couples set goals. However, the true purpose of their goals is to inform the process they will use to achieve them. What drives success is a clear process, fueled by vision, passion, and long-term perseverance.
Sit down with your partner and discuss these questions: Why are we together? What did we come together to build? What do we want to work toward that’s bigger than us, that we need each other to get to?
Prioritize Your Relationship
When asked, almost everyone says their family is the most important thing in their life. I don’t believe them. It’s been said, “Tell me how you spend your time and I’ll tell you what you value most.” There’s more truth in that statement than we’re often willing to admit.
Priority is defined as: the fact or condition of being regarded or treated as more important. Want a quick reality check? Go to the people you think you prioritize and ask them if they feel like a priority in your life. When (just kidding), I mean if they say no, ask what can you do to make them feel like more of a priority in your life. Remember, you don’t get to determine what makes your loved ones feel prioritized. They do. So while you may be doing things that you think show you prioritize your relationship, if they aren’t the things that make them feel that way, you need to make some changes.
Try
As I mentioned in a previous post, I see my roles in my family as a job. That’s not a bad thing. I see my role as a psychologist as a job too and I love every minute of it. However, I don’t coast at work. I show up. I work hard. I do my best to get the job done.
Are you showing up? Are you working hard? Are you doing your best to get the job done? Or, are you coasting?
“How did we fall out of love?” she asked.
“The same way ashes are made,” I replied.
“We never fed our flames.
-Pierre Alex Jeanty
Come back every Monday for my latest post.
Have a topic you’d like to hear about? Email me at Drjblair@gmail.com