Alright, for all my corporate readers, I probably just triggered a mini panic attack. Love it or hate it, feedback is a huge deal in the office, right? But here’s the thing, I honestly believe feedback should be just as important at home.
Hear me out!
My philosophy in the office is that a great leader will give continuous feedback about how things are going. That means you will always know where you stand and will not be surprised during your annual performance review with a long list of development opportunities that you had no idea were an issue.
The same is true with your partner. If you want a healthy relationship, you need to talk about what is going well and what isn’t on a regular basis. What do they do that makes you feel special? What do you need more or less of from them? How can you help them better achieve their goals? How can you best show them how important they are to you?
In the beginning of my marriage, I actually believed that telling Asher anything that might come across as “constructive criticism” meant that I was admitting to failure as a couple. So I bottled and bottled and bottled until we got in an argument and I listed the 5,382,576 things that I needed him to improve on. And trust me, no one wants to improve anything after you berate them with all the things that are wrong with them. (I should also note that the things on my list were not big things, but when you bottle up the fact that there is always at least one sock on the floor for long enough... you start to believe that the world will end if you see one more sock. Trust me.)
If your goal is the same as mine and you want to continue to love and understand your partner at a deeper level every day, you need to provide and accept feedback. None of us are perfect. But, the sooner we find a way to help each other improve, the better chance we have of growing (together) into something exceptional.
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Anyone else a champion emotion bottler? What tips do you have for communicating honestly?
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