One of the best ways to meaningfully show up in relationships of any kind is having a grasp on where the relationship stands at the moment. You may wonder anxiously about where things are or you may not have given it a second thought, but if you desire to move forward in a meaningful way at work, home, or anywhere in between here is how to begin checking the status of any relationship with this quick check-up.
Three main ways we communicate in relationships
If someone followed you around and was evaluating how you communicate with the people in your life, they would most likely boil down each interaction into one of these three categories: Directing, Correcting, or Connecting.
Directing is when we are asking someone to do something.
Correcting is when we are asking someone to redo something again, better, more often.
Connecting is when we interact with someone without asking them to do anything.
Finding your relationship pattern
It’s surprising how consistently we tend to interact with the people around us. To get an idea about how you typically interact with others and start checking the status of any relationship, pick a moment of time and replay in your thoughts how you interacted. I recommend taking a 30-minute to 1-hour time slot because longer than that is hard to recollect.
Here are a few places to consider:
- From when you wake up your child(ren) until they get to school
- A one-hour time slot with a co-worker during the workday
- The first 30 minutes with your spouse when you get home from work
You could use a chart like this one and make a tally mark in the appropriate column as you consider the purpose of each interaction. Remember this isn’t about how sweet or sassy the interaction was, it is considering the purpose behind it.
Understanding what you find
We have to be careful when checking the status of any relationship because they should all be unique to the person and there is no right or wrong pattern. You just want to ensure the ways you communicate with the people in your life match what you need and the purpose of the relationship. For example, though a work relationship needs to have plenty of connecting interactions, they most likely won’t be to the same level as what you should have at home or with friendships.
Looking at this set of interactions it appears that I’m only showing up when telling someone what to do or what they are doing wrong. I wouldn’t necessarily enjoy this relationship and it may not be the most effective in the workplace and definitely not at home. I’m not saying you won’t need to give directions and corrections where relevant, it’s just that those ways of relating cannot be the only way you interact. Simply put, if this is me…then people would try to limit time with me.
Here we see that it is only connecting. It could be a great time of hanging out and not asking anyone to do anything or it could also be complete chaos where I’m fearful of asking anyone to do anything or to do something different. This extreme isn’t the best experience for anyone either and it may indicate that I’m unable to express my needs in this personal/professional relationship or that I’m trying to do it all on my own without anyone’s help.
Make any necessary adjustments
You just want to avoid being all one thing. Any healthy relationship should allow you to make requests and to ask for someone to do something differently, but it shouldn’t be all requests. Similarly, if you never make requests of any kind with someone then you might not be allowing your needs to be met in a way that is most needed. There’s not completely right or completely wrong way that this is done. Taking the time to understand how you and others show up in the relationship allows you to have all the information you need to determine if it meets your needs or if small shifts need to be made.
Photo by Paola Aguilar
