How Tony & Sage Robbins Create a Strong Relationship
A fulfilling, healthy relationship is something nearly every human being desires. We are wired to give and receive love – it’s one of our universal Six Human Needs. We deeply desire connection and belonging. But while the world is overflowing with advice and opinions, building strong relationships isn’t always easy. How do you know what’s right for YOU and your relationship? It’s true that every partnership is different – but there are certain principles you can follow to learn how to make your relationship stronger.
Tony and Sage Robbins have been married since 2001 and are still passionately in love. Here are five things they do differently that can help you make your own relationship stronger and accelerate your personal growth, too.
1. Treat your relationship as a place you go to GIVE, not to GET
This is the number one tip from Tony and Sage Robbins on relationships: You must look at your relationship as a place that you go to give, not a place that you go to get. This means you are always looking to fulfill your partner’s relationship needs ahead of your own. You only want to make your partner happy.
Everyone shares Six Human Needs that drive everything we do, and the way we fulfill them determines the decisions we make and the path we take. Your relationship can fulfill all six of these needs for both you and your partner – certainty, significance, variety, love and connection, growth and contribution – but you must both commit to putting the other person first.
You don’t need to just support your partner. You must absolutely live to light them up. This is how you can be a better partner and a better person. When you exist in this state, energy, vitality and passion come naturally – and your relationship reaches a whole new level.
2. Take 100% responsibility for your relationship
All of Tony’s strong relationship tips are based on a single principle: You are responsible for the quality of your life. You cannot control what happens to you, but you can control how you react to it. You cannot control the behavior of others, but you can control your own emotions. This is the essence of Results Coaching: You can commit to CANI in your relationship just as you do in your career and your personal growth.
Here’s a Tony and Sage relationship tip that may surprise you: Love is a choice. Maybe not at first – when we’re in the throes of falling in love, the passion and connection are undeniable. But relationship stressors are inevitable: We have families, or money is tight, or we face health issues. Passion fades, and while what’s left may be a nice, comfortable friendship, it’s not what it used to be.
No matter what happens, Tony and Sage take 100% responsibility for their relationship. They choose to focus on the good, to make decisions that put their partner first and to always remember that they are a team. They intentionally reignite the passion and have fun together. Because they know that the quality of your relationship depends on what you put into it.
3. Don’t allow expectations to destroy your relationship
It’s easier than ever to compare your relationship to others, but if you want to know how to keep a relationship strong and happy, you must resist. This doesn’t mean you don’t need standards. Standards are what you will accept right now: The way your partner treats you and others in the present moment. Standards like having similar values can be vital to successful relationships, and raising your standards can bring you greater fulfillment.
Expectations are the ways we want our partner to behave in the future. They’re informed by our past experiences of the way things “should” be, and when they’re not met, we feel massive disappointment that can turn into frustration and anger. Yet we’re not really upset with the other person. We are upset that they broke our “rules” – rules that they may not even know exist.
What if instead of expecting our partner to read our minds or holding them to impossible standards, we made the decision to appreciate them? Both Tony and Sage would agree: “Trade your expectations for appreciation and the world changes instantly.” Building strong relationships depends on it.
4. Foster and cultivate polarity
Do you know a couple who can’t seem to keep their hands off each other? They’re crazy in love – even after years or decades. They make each other laugh and defuse arguments with humor. Chances are that like Tony and Sage, they know how to keep a relationship strong and happy by leveraging polarity.
Polarity is a natural energy that is either feminine or masculine. It isn’t dependent on gender, but rather on how we experience the world. The feminine energy is open, free-spirited and intuitive, made to give and receive love. The masculine energy is focused, decisive and strong, made to achieve goals and fulfill a purpose.
At the beginning of a relationship, polarity is what creates that undeniable pull of attraction. Over the long-term, that spark can fade, but when you embrace your energy and the energy of your partner, you can cultivate polarity and discover how to make your relationship stronger than ever.
5. Establish daily rituals to create moments of joy
Planning your relationship sounds like the opposite of romance, right? Yet the truth is that if you wait until you’re “in the mood,” the moment may never come. That’s why one of the best tips for how to make your relationship stronger is to establish daily rituals. It’s one of the ten cardinal rules of love: reinforce your sense of connection through positive anchors.
These daily rituals don’t have to be intimate – although scheduling sex is also one of the top strong relationship tips. It’s more important that they provide certainty and connection, two of the basic relationship needs. They are traditions that remind you to fully experience life with your partner and your family – and to harness the ultimate power of presence.
Want to master building strong relationships?
Take a deeper dive into Tony and Sage’s relationship rules and learn how to make them work for you with Results Coaching.