Maybe your goal this year is to work towards becoming a happier, more confident, or successful version of yourself. Not only is that an amazing way for you to practice self-care and build a more fulfilling, satisfying life, but it can also help your romantic relationships too!
In this article, we’ll talk about where to start on your self-improvement journey to enjoy deep, meaningful relationships with romantic partners.
Step 1: Write out your personal goals
To get started, you’ll need to find a sense of direction. A road map that you can follow to start building the kind of life that you envision for yourself. The good news is: there is no template for this! Everyone should have their own unique goals that will make them feel like the best version of themself. For some people, this will mean figuring out a way to live off of their art. For others, it will mean starting a family. It doesn’t matter what the goals are, it only matters that you have some ideas on what you’d like to work towards.
And remember, your goals don’t necessarily have to be related to love! In fact, being driven by non-romantic endeavors can still accelerate your love life by making you a generally more interesting and confident person. But since we are thinking here in terms of self-improvement for romance, here are a few examples of love-related goals:
- I want to have a full and vibrant life aside from my romantic life.
- I want to find a partner who treats me with respect, care, and love.
- I want a career that gives me the independence I need to be able to date without the pressure to find a partner to help split the bills.
- I want to explore alternative relationship styles, such as polyamory or open relationships.
Once you have a few ideas on paper, then it will be time to put together an actual road map.
For instance, if you want to find a partner who treats you with love and respect, what are the specific steps you’ll need to follow to achieve that goal? This might entail going to speed dating events, signing up for a dating app, or being open to having your friends set you up. In order to ensure that you find a partner who treats you with respect and care, you’ll need to explore what that means to you and how to set up healthy boundaries to weed out anyone who doesn’t fit your criteria.
As you can see, this is the meaty part of the personal goal-planning process, so take your time and be as detailed as possible! In fact, you might even break down your goals into week-by-week tasks and mini goals to help you stay motivated and focused.
Step 2: Get back to the basics
If you’re looking for very simple ways to improve your life right now, the good news is that you probably already know what they are:
- Good quality sleep
- Healthy diet
- Some form of regular exercise
- Social connection
- Hobbies that teach you something new
Incorporating these habits into your life is going to give you energy, lower your stress, improve your mood, and boost your confidence. With such a stable base, you’ll be able to make additional improvements in your life, such as setting new career goals and working on your social skills.
Step 3: Reframe your flaws
It’s amazing how good we humans are at talking ourselves out of a better life because we feel like we don’t deserve it or are somehow too flawed to change. This stops now! By reframing your flaws, you can turn them into opportunities for growth. Here’s how:
- Identify a “flaw” you’d like to change. For instance, maybe you think that you’re too shy.
- Consider the positive aspects of that flaw. You might find that you are nervous speaking to large groups of people, but tend to make strong, meaningful connections with a handful of people in your life. So, is your shyness really a flaw, then? After all, not everyone is able to make those deeper connections!
- Make small steps to move the needle. Now that you’ve made the mental flip from flaw to forte, think about how you might make little changes in your everyday life to find the middle ground. For example, it probably won’t work to enter a large group setting and think “I’m going to make a heartfelt speech because I’m good at making deep connections with people” But, you might challenge yourself to find one, two, or even more individuals with whom you can get to know better. The more you practice this, the easier it will become and the less shy you’ll feel around new people.
You can use this process of reframing your flaws to work on getting better at characteristics that are useful in relationships, such as:
- Communication. Maybe you’re not going at verbal communication, but feel more comfortable with the written word. So, it might help to write out your feelings before talking to your partner.
- Active listening. Perhaps you have been accused in the past of not being a good listener, but it’s only because you tend to jump ahead with solutions. This level of investment and problem-solving is a strength, but you’ll want to make sure that it comes at the right time (i.e., after your partner has had the chance to say their piece and when they’ve requested your solutions).
If you’re not sure which “flaws” to start with, we’ll talk later on about asking for feedback from your loved ones!
Step 4: Replace your inner voice
Studies on the effects of inner monologues on task performance have shown that there are benefits to speaking positively to ourselves. For instance, having a motivational tone when walking yourself through a task can help to lower cognitive anxiety and improve your ability to complete tasks.
But there are two caveats here. One is that too much confidence in your inner voice can lead to bias (assuming that you’re going to succeed and making mistakes as a result). Two, negative self-talk can actually increase focus and motivation.
So, what does that mean for your self-improvement plan? Well, our recommendation is that you land on an inner voice that is firm but supportive. After all, being too negative can give you paralysis, while being too positive can make you careless. Here are a few examples of an inner voice that can help you grow as a person:
- “Okay, what you just did there isn’t aligned with your personal goals. What can you do differently next time?”
- “You’re trying, and sometimes that will mean that you get it wrong.”
- “You’re on the right track.”
- “You’re doing a great job, and you can do even better.”
Step 5: Ask for feedback (from the right places!)
When trying to change your life, it can be beneficial to ask for advice from the right people. For instance, if you’re looking to advance your career, you would want to seek out mentors in your field who can give you feedback on how to reach your goals.
It can be trickier to know who to turn to in terms of relationship advice. After all, your single friends might have plenty of advice, but it could be clouded by their own experiences or in conflict with your personality or lifestyle. The internet is another example of an endless well of dating advice, but not all of it is going to be applicable or worth considering (remember that influencers are after likes and views, not necessarily your best interest).
So, who should you turn to for dating feedback? Here are a few possible ideas:
- A licensed therapist.
- A close loved one or friend who you know always gives thoughtful, sound advice.
- A select few influencers, authors, or philosophers whose ideas around romance are well-grounded, empowering, and applicable to your life.
If that list seems small, that’s because it is! Being very selective about who you ask for advice, not only on romance but other areas of your life, can be one of the best self-improvement relationship hacks.
Step 6: Get a better filter (figuratively)
At the same time that you become more selective about who you seek advice from, you’ll also need to put in a barrier that can protect you from unsolicited, unhelpful advice. That’s because if you allow everyone’s opinions about your self-improvement journey to affect you, you may start to question yourself, feel overwhelmed, or try to stretch yourself in too many different directions. Here are a few ways that you can get a better filter (i.e., better boundaries!):
- Change your social media algorithm. You can teach your algorithm to stop sending you dating advice, funny videos about dating woes, and other noise that could cloud your own self-improvement journey.
- Remember that most people’s opinions have nothing to do with you. Especially when it comes to love, people tend to give opinions and advice from a place of personal experience rather than rational judgement. So, if you’re hearing comments that make you doubt yourself or feel hopeless about being able to change your life, remember that their past experiences don’t have to dictate your future.
- Don’t feel the need to be an open book with everyone. In the next section, we’ll talk about the benefit of buddying up in order to achieve your self-improvement goals, but there’s also something to be said about being protective over your own stories. In other words, changing your self-improvement relationship is a deeply personal experience, and you don’t have to put it on display for anyone who asks. Instead, get comfortable with saying, “I appreciate you asking, but I don’t think I want to talk about that.”
Step 7: Don’t go it alone
Accountability coaches, group chats, and the buddy system are all ways that you can stick with your self-improvement goals and make them into lifelong habits.
Like every other tip on this list, having a clear plan is what will make this really effective. For example, when you check in with your accountability partner, make sure that you have clear deliverables to show and plans for next steps. These might look like:
“Over the last week, I went to bed on time four nights and then very late three nights, swiping on dating apps. I felt too tired the next day to even talk to the people I matched with. Next week, I will try to go to bed on time every night by putting my phone in the other room.”
Your accountability partnership can include elements that work for you. You might want this person to be your cheerleader, only, or you might want them to take on a bigger role of problem-solving.
Step 8: Use a progress tracker
This could be a journal, a calendar, an app, or a bulletin board on your wall. It doesn’t matter what your progress tracker looks like; what’s important is that you have a system in place to keep track of your goals.
For romance-related goals, we would recommend some kind of journaling process in which you can write down your thoughts, feelings, triggers, and experiences. This will help you to gain self-awareness and clarity when making changes that are less noticeable than making gains at the gym or using less screen time.
The time to start your self-improvement relationship journey is right now!
We hope that one of the takeaways of this article is to show that you don’t need to make drastic changes in your life to start enjoying the benefits of self-improvement in your relationships. So, start! And start with small steps. You’re on your path to enjoying better connections with colleagues, friends, romantic partners, and most importantly, yourself!
