BLOG: Four Steps to a Proactive Relationship

The Love Trifecta + The 4th P

Having lots of play, peace, and passion in your relationship is like winning the love jackpot (aka The Love Trifecta).

The catch is that it DOESN’T happen on its own. You don’t hit the love jackpot like a random lottery. You have to invest in intimacy and initiate action.

It’s FAR more effective AND energizing to LEAN into LOVE to take aim for what you DO want, rather than waiting for your relationship conflicts to creep in, draining your energy dealing with complaints, blaming, and all that you DON’T want.

Pro-Active Period

While we at For Better Love recommend couples create goals and play a 90 Day Game focusing on the three core Seasons of play (May 15 to Aug 14), peace (Sept 15 to Dec 14) and passion (Jan 15 to April 14), it’s foundational and restorative that we devote 30 days in between each of those goal-driven seasons to the Pro-Active Period.

Three times a year we LET GO of driving towards our relationship goals and we give ourselves and our relationship a month to celebrate what we accomplished recently, to rest and rejuvenate from the rigor of aiming for awesome for a while and finally to take some time to reflect on what’s been working or what could work better before you take aim by creating next-level goals for your love life.

• Celebrate – Acknowledge your efforts of the last season’s goals.
• Rest – Rejuvenate and restore your energy.
• Reflect – Look for the lessons of the last season’s goals.
• Aim – Turn the lessons into next level goals for the upcoming season.

Celebrate – Effort Acknowledgement is Affirming

In the first week of the Pro-Active Period, we celebrate!

Just the fact that we are leaning into love and setting relationship goals in the first place is a WIN. Even if you achieve 25% of your goals, it’s 25% better than it was before.

Taking time to acknowledge ourselves and each other for the efforts made and the impact it created is affirming and builds the inspiration for the next set of goals.

Rest – Endless Improvement is Exhausting

In the second week of the Pro-Active Period, we rest.

My husband and I really do thrive leaning into setting and reaching our goals. Still, it can be exhausting if goals are framed as an endless improvement.

Having a goal go on and on and on is NOT usually inspiring. We get bored, triggered, and let the goals go over time.

Now if we know we have just a countdown with a certain number of days or even minutes left to accomplish something, we tend to STRETCH even more with our goals.

But after stretching, we need a rest. A sense that this goal is finished and complete, freeing us up to start new again.

If you create a beginning, middle, and end of the goal, you can satisfy our core human desire for a sense of completion.

Reflect – Looking Back is Illuminating

In the third week of the Pro-Active Period we reflect.

While having a closed-loop gives us a sense of completion and while we recommend spending most of your time and energy focusing on the future rather than the past, it can be wildly helpful to reflect on the last goal season to inform the next one.

Look back at what worked and what could work even better next time you set relationship goals.

Pause to reflect on how your recent relationship past might inform your next relationship intentions and actions.

Don’t keep making the same mistakes or missing the same opportunities. Learn from your past and actively have it inform your future.

Take Aim – Intentional Aim is Empowering

In the fourth and final week of the Pro-Active Period, we take aim.

If you’re going to thrive in a long term committed relationship, you MUST grow together. We crave and NEED new experiences to stay inspired and even intimate.

One of the top proven practices for creating happiness is to pursue goals. So why not apply it to your romantic relationship and pursue goals together?

The couple that pursues goals together, not only stays together, they THRIVE.

A new 90 Day Game Season brings an opportunity to set goals and take aim for your next level in love.

If you build a relationship habit of investing your intention, attention, and action into your relationship, then the connection will only get better and better and better. What you water, grows.

If you fail to invest in intimacy and you let yourselves and your relationship slip into the day-to-day-default relationship, it can be disastrous.

Make It Your Own

Even if you don’t yet have a habit for setting relationship goals three times a year, you can find YOUR personal path for leaning into love from a proactive perspective.

Make the Proactive Period your own!

• How might you celebrate what you recently accomplished as a couple?
• How might you take some time to rest, rejuvenate, and release any striving for a bit?
• How and when will you reflect on what’s been working or what could work better?
• How will you take aim to create next-level goals for your love life?

Take a moment NOW to write down your thoughts, schedule the next steps, and pick your prompts to remind you to take action on what YOU say is important to you.

A wonderful relationship is awesome, but it doesn’t happen on its own. If you want play, peace and passion in your relationship, get pro-active about it TODAY.

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1. Set and enjoy a moment to CELEBRATE something you’ve accomplished as a couple. Or just the fact that you invest in intimacy at all. (Most don’t!) Give each other a high five, go on a special date, pop that special bottle. More ideas on CELEBRATE.
2. Next set and enjoy some time to REST. It can be together or apart. Let go of striving and embrace doing nothing.  More ideas on REST.
3. Then set and enjoy some time to REFLECT  More ideas on REFLECT.
4. Finally, set aside and enjoy time to set your goals for how you might Love Better next. More ideas on TAKE AIM.

Take a moment NOW to write down your thoughts, schedule the next steps, and pick your prompts to remind you to take action on what YOU say is important to you.

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Your Ally in Aiming for Awesome,