For you to achieve extraordinary results, the people surrounding you and your physical surroundings must support your goals. – The ONE Thing

According to Shawn Achor, in The Happiness Advantage, the biggest predictor of success through hard times is the support you have around you. Achor was looking at the workplace and hard projects, but the same thing applies at home.

A while back I shared about some of the dark times I’ve had. I talked about the thoughts of suicide I’ve struggled with. It took a while, but I did realize the faulty logic in thinking that my family would be better of without me because they’d have the financial portion taken care of.

Talking about it helped me build more support systems. It brought people that I’ve never met out of the woodwork to tell me they valued me and that they were there if I ever needed to talk about anything.

Negotiate with your spouse

Far to many people I talk to head off on some business quest without talking to their spouse or partner. One person in particular was frustrated by the time they talked to me. Actually, they were downright angry that their spouse wasn’t standing behind them like a cheerleader.

There is always something deeper though and in this case the deeper thing was that my client had tried a bunch of business ideas over the years and failed at them. He had spent through their savings. At one point he quit his job and faked going to work so he could pursue some crazy scheme.

No wonder he didn’t have any support at home. He had acted like an idiot. He was receiving the exact amount of trust that he had earned.

None!!

Planning Together

You’re not the king or queen who rules with absolute authority. If you think that then get ready for no spouse in the future.

You and your partner need to sit down and decide what time will look like over the next 3 months (a season as I call it). Will you be out Saturday mornings working extra writing that book you want to write?

Then when your season is up, you sit down and figure out what the next bit looks like.

I was a terrible runner

Last summer was my first year really running. I was training for a 50km race through the mountains and my wife bought in to that. I had to earn the trust first though.

Just like my coaching client, I had bought new running shoes many times over the years. I had barely used them though. My passion for running would fizzle out after a week or two, or I’d injure myself.

When I first told my wife I wanted to run an Ultramarathon she was gracious enough not to laugh but she said that we weren’t spending money on that. This time, I broke out the year old barely used running shoes and started running three days a week. Then four days a week.

Once I was running 20km at a time regularly I brought up the race again, and my wife said go for it. The difference with the second time was that I had proven that I would wait until she was ready. The second time, I had proved that this was more than a two or three week fad.

I was bought in and had built some trust with her about it because I didn’t just spend our money on the race without asking her.

If you’re not bringing your spouse into the planning and execution of your goals, it’s much less likely you’re going to achieve them. If you’re not respecting their opinion and waiting on their timing, you’re more likely to fail.

Fighting a battle at home and at work is almost never going to win.

In my book The Art of Focus I spend an entire chapter talking about what it means to plan with your spouse. I walk you through building out your plans apart, and then together.

If you’re ready to start tackling problems together, make sure you get on the email list so you can get a copy of The Art of Focus free on August 28th when it launches.

Photo by: markraymonduk