How to empower your partner

Our relationships define our entire lives. This is not because we cannot think independently or because we lack a sense of self. It is because relationships with others either fuel the fire of our success or drain us of the will to achieve more.

When you learn to create a raving fan culture at home to empower your partner, you will find your efforts empowering to yourself, too. Here are other ways to empower your partner to bring out the best in both of you:

Use your emotional memories constructively

Think back to a time when your partner met your needs in a very satisfying way. Remember those feelings of energy and joy that your partner’s support gave you. Those energetic feelings made you feel like doing even more and becoming a better person.

These emotional memories are a powerful tool at your disposal because that relationship-based energy informs every aspect of your life. Allow yourself to focus on those powerful, emotional memories of relationship success and happiness. This kind of supportive energy improves our health outcomes, our work performance and our outlook at its most basic level.

Magnify positive emotions for your partner and yourself

Relationships magnify human emotion. This means that by sharing your joy, your love, your fear and any other emotion, you make more of it. Will you magnify support and kindness as you share those emotions with your partner? Or will you magnify doubt and criticism?

Your number one fan

Are you your partner’s number one fan? No relationship is perfect, and each of us can feel critical about our partner from time to time. However, you should always be your partner’s number one fan in a demonstrative, emphatic way. When you are truly your partner’s fan, they know it without a shred of doubt.

Do more than you thought possible

Too often we find ourselves trapped in the same patterns week after week and year after year. Unfortunately, complacency is the enemy of your relationship. Strive not to be a good or even a great partner; instead, be the best partner you can possibly be.

Each time you do more for your partner, you are rewarding yourself, too. That’s because your wonderful efforts create genuine love, loyalty and joy in your partner, which are then directed at you.

Understand what your partner needs

If someone asked you right now what your partner’s most important needs are, could you answer the question? Would you be guessing, or are you confident about knowing your partner’s needs?

Even if you feel sure of what your partner needs, keep having that conversation. The act of discussing emotional needs and wants builds intimacy and trust. Each discussion fortifies your relationship, helping both you and your partner feel secure and loved.

Move through the fire together

Every relationship undergoes stressful times. You have a choice when stress happens: Seize it as an opportunity for personal growth together or allow stress to weaken your bond. To use stress as a powerful tool for strengthening your relationship, put your partner’s needs first. When you meet this challenge, you improve your relationship and earn the support of your partner when it’s your turn to master stress.

Celebrate and reward each other

Don’t settle for the honeymoon being over. See your partner through the same eyes you did when you first met. Back then you were willing to cross oceans to earn their love, admiration and trust. It was that energetic commitment to them that won them over, so don’t lose it. Instead, prepare yourself and your partner for a lifetime of exciting “first dates.”

Adapt and improve

The emotional needs your partner has today may be very different from the needs they had when you met. Meeting those needs is still your job! Work to adapt to your partner’s changing needs, and improve your bond and behavior with each other every day.

In the end, you can’t control how your partner feels, but you have almost total control over your own actions and words. By seeing how much power your ability to choose better behavior gives you, you can ensure that you are pursuing a positive path alongside your partner.

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