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Whether you’ve been together for a while or your relationship is just getting started, having a steady partner doesn’t mean that you have to stop growing or engaging in personal development. If anything, a healthy relationship should help both people blossom and reach their full potential.
Working together on personal development is a great way to change for the better in your relationship. Taking up one or a few specific practices can encourage you to channel your energy into a designated place and help you both see that development from the ground up. It’s also an opportunity to connect on a deeper level over something you share.
If you’re looking for ideas on how to change for the better in a relationship, these are a few things that you can consider giving a try.
Starting a gratitude practice with your significant other doesn’t have to be all about them, though it can certainly include expressing gratitude to them for all that they do. Really, your gratitude practice can be about anything that moves you.
Setting aside time to journal together, sharing something you’re grateful for each morning or writing notes to each other often are all ways to practice gratitude with your partner. Intentional gratitude helps you feel more positive, uplifted and patient with the world. Through this, you may find that you are better partners to each other.
Meditation is known to help people feel calmer, more positive and more level-headed. Meditating with your partner can help you experience the many benefits of a meditation practice in addition to leading you to a feeling of deeper connection with your partner.
Meditating with a partner can bring you closer together by calming you down together, providing a designated space for quiet harmony and increasing your connection. You can even set realistic times and goals together to make sure you’re sticking to your practice and holding one another accountable.
Having a regular practice of self care is always beneficial, and sharing it with a partner has the potential to bring in unexpected effects. Just like anything you share, practicing self care together provides the opportunity to find something you both like and connect over it.
You can find connection over simple things like doing a chore together while having meaningful conversation, or you can use your mutual self care time as an opportunity to treat yourselves by ordering food you love and taking some much needed rest time together.
Often, people don’t make time for self care in their regular routines. Setting aside that time with someone else in mind increases accountability, which can lead you both to being more intentional about prioritizing self care.
Maybe there’s something you’ve always talked about doing together but have never had the time to start, or maybe you don’t have similar interests in your everyday life and want to make an effort to find something you both enjoy. No matter the reason, finding a hobby you can both enjoy is a great opportunity to grow and develop while spending quality time together.
Devoting yourself to learning something new is one of the more conventional ways to engage in self improvement, and doing it with a partner is a great way to strengthen your relationship by giving you both something new to pour over just for the fun of it. Depending on the hobby you choose, it can be an exercise in team building, healthy competition or patience with one another.
Self improvement and self betterment aren’t just practices that help you find a partner. One of the best ways to tell that someone is a good addition to your life is if they’re willing to grow with you and learn new things to improve as people together. Why not take every opportunity you can to grow in love?
