What are you doing to strengthen the relationships in your life?

Workout: Think about your relationships and list ways you can strengthen them.

Muscles don’t grow accidentally.  They get stronger when they’re used.  You don’t get strong sitting on the couch.  Squats, bench press, deadlifts, pushups and pullups all work to increase a specific muscle group’s capacity to work – to move, to lift, to carry.  An exercise like the squat will improve  a large muscle group (I’ve heard that it works more muscles collectively than any other exercise.).  The bicep curl will target a very specific area.  In fact, if I do a variation called the “concentration curl” I can, theoretically, apply more focus and targeted stress to that muscle. Then when I go to the beach…

Now, think about what activities or exercises you will do to strengthen your relationships.  If you want to grow your leg muscles you would ______.  If you want to grow the relationship with your spouse you would __________

Take the following “muscles” and make a list of ways to strengthen them. 

• Family: Consider your family relationships, your spouse, children, parents, siblings, uncles, cousins, etc.

• Friends: Not all 724 of your Facebook friends but those who you know you can count on, who have been there and will be there for you .

• ?? – Shucks.  I was going for three categories but can’t think of relationships outside of my family and friends should be at this level of prioritization.  If you have some I missed put them in the comments below.

I do have one other muscle that you should work on that will, like the squat, affect ALL your other relationships and it’s called YOU.

If you improve the personal, emotional, physical and spiritual YOU ALL your relationships, all of them, will improve; I firmly believe this.  As you grow in maturity you are no longer fickle, blown here and there or whimsical.  YOU are stronger.  This type of development requires an exercise like the squat that makes your whole body develop.  Attending church, prayer, or meditation would fall into this type of exercise.  Also, deliberately and consciously “being in the Presence,” regardless of where you are (walking, exercising, working) will contribute to overall YOU development.  One way to start is to look at obvious areas of improvement.  It is often easier to address physical weaknesses or health areas than emotional ones.  I do think, though, that the things you learn in the gym are transferable to other areas of your life.

People sometimes criticize this approach as being too humanistic or Robbin-ist (Tony Robbins-like, i.e. self-help) but where the ends are the same – personal transformation – the means are distinctly different.  How you get there really does matter.