Creating and keeping long-lasting relationships

Creating and keeping long-lasting relationships

“Whenever you conflict with someone, there is one factor that can make the difference between damaging your relationship and deepening it. That factor is attitude.”

‍— William James

How do you feel when you see people celebrating the silver or golden jubilee of their relationship? Well, it feels good and touching, as it also feels like an outstanding achievement. You can almost imagine how much history such relationships would have, their highs and lows, disputes, reconciliations, challenges, and so on, that the parties in the connection had to face. Yet they made it thus far.

What kind of relationship do we mean?

A relationship is a state in which the different parties involved have a mutual connection with each other. Without stating the obvious in terms of courtship or family, relationships can also exist as friendship, work colleagues, members of clubs or associations, business associates, etc.

So, how do you create one?

From the types of relationships given, we know that some relationships occur naturally. For example, once you are born, you are in an automatic connection with the family into which you were born. However, for those that aren’t by default, the method is similar for all of them. But a few modifications. The first thing that brings people together is a common ground. Having that thing that you can all agree on is the foundation on which people build any relationship. It could be that she likes what he likes for lovers, and they share similar ideas or views; hence, compatible. Also, business associates would have an understanding beneficial to individual businesses. Once you have established that connection and keep repeating what you do in that fashion, you form a relationship.

Maintaining your newly-built or already existing relationship involves; building trust. The majority of what we get from relationships have a similar foundation called trust. You feel that you have a group of people who have your back when it comes to a particular thing, usually for why they built the relationship, is a reassuring feeling. The building of that trust involves; taking and sharing responsibilities, ensuring that support of any kind is always available for those who need it, and still creating the avenue to settle disputes should they arise.

If you can build and maintain a healthy relationship with up to half the people you come across, you would have made the most significant resource you need to achieve any goal, but it won’t be easy; you too will have to give a lot.

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