Building Relationships, Commitment, And Love - P Is For...

We continue our series on how to build interpersonal relationships, whether with family, coworkers, friends, or that special someone. Commitment and love are important to all of us; they are worth fighting for; they are worth working for. You also should know that in spite of many promises there is no secret for success, no checklist of things to do, and just as importantly no checklist of things not to do. But we do have suggestions, now continuing with the letter P. We actually have a double series of articles for the letter P. The focus here is on participate, passion, and patience.

P is for participate. Make sure that you are part and parcel of what’s going on whether we are talking about your family, your job, or the other important and semi-important people in your life. Don’t look at all the action from the sidelines. Get in there and get your hands dirty. Just don’t wipe them on the tablecloth or the guest towels. And be ready for criticism, especially from those who aren’t part of what’s happening. Don’t worry about what they have to say. When they are part of the action they’ll have a less time to criticize. And then you should listen to what they have to say. After all, they may be right, in part. But until people participate they should restrain from excessive criticism. So you think you can do it better, go right ahead. Participate.

Were any of these kids lip-synching?

P is for passion. Passion is not only something for a loving couple. Bring your passion to everything you do. Don’t be half-hearted or even three quarters hearted. Be emotional and show that you really care. There’s a funny thing about passion: When you augment your passion for your family and your career you may just find that you have more passion for those special moments. And passion can be contagious. When you are passionate others may shun passing up the action.

Patience, a Gilbert and Sullivan opera.

P is for patience. Don’t expect miracles overnight. Rome wasn’t built in a day, or in several centuries for that matter. Of course you can’t wait centuries to see your projects come to life but an unrealistic time frame won’t speed matters at all. In fact being unrealistic will only make you more impatient. As you are waiting for your projects to progress don’t be passive. Take a closer look at your proposals and see how you can improve the prospects of their adoption.