Relationship hacks are ‘shortcuts’ that help us deepen our relationship with others as quickly as possible.
Are Your Relationships An Investment?
Think about all of the people in your life – your family, your friends, colleagues, social media connections and your local Starbucks Barista. Today, we have relationships with a great many people. Perhaps, that’s why a quick search of relationship hacks finds so much information.
I once heard that by the age of thirty, we’ve encountered a minimum of three thousand people. With social media, that number is likely quite a bit higher.
Yet, not all relationships are lasting. Some relationships are fleeting interactions. Others are in our lives for a season or more. On the other hand, some people remain close to their best friend from kindergarten. Contrastingly, there are people who grew up living in many places, not really creating long-standing friendships at all.
Relationship hacks help increase your relationship ROI
Regardless of the duration or intensity of your interpersonal interactions, one thing remains constant – each relationship has an ROI.
In business, Return On Investment (ROI) is used to determine whether an investment is worthwhile or not. If the return is high, then the investment is justified. If the return is negative, then you might want to reconsider before going any further.
The same should hold true for your relationships and how much you invest into them.
If you spend countless hours, money, and energy in a relationship only to become exhausted and deflated from your interactions, you might want to think again before investing a bunch more of your precious time.
On the other hand, those who leave you feeling uplifted, positive, and good about yourself (maybe even benefit your career or other part of your life) are a much better investment. The ROI of these relationships is, or could be, extremely positive.
Thus, spending your time, money, and energy on these people is justified and certainly recommended.
Relationship hacks enable us to give them more quicker and faster!
In your relationships, once you understand the value of your own time, this is a turning point. Forward, you want to ensure as many of your interactions as possible have a positive ROI for both of you. Consequently, this means resisting the urge to take negative actions against someone doing something you perceive to be negative against you.
If you are wasting time ruminating over negative people or spending time with them, you are neither valuing your time, nor being productive. Unfortunately, for some people this concept can be difficult to put into practice.
Often, the people in our lives who mean the most to us are the ones we tend to take for granted. Relationship hacks can help us to fix that faster.
As an example…
You love your spouse. However, after giving 150% at the office all day, you come home exhausted. You barely say, “Hello.” Then, you quickly pour yourself a glass of wine and retreat into the study.
You love your kids, but you barely see them because you are working so much.
Perhaps you have a great friend who is always there for you. Yet, you can’t remember the last time you asked him or her to go out and do something fun.
Life gets full. Consequently, the people we care about the most can end up neglected if we don’t make a concerted effort to invest in those relationships.
Conversely, there are those people in our lives we know we are spending too much time with because the relationships are draining. Here, relationship hacks would likely do no good.
Maybe your friend called complaining about her marriage for the fiftieth time. As a result of listening to her for an hour, you didn’t sit down to play with your daughter as planned.
Or maybe your colleague went on and on about your boss. As a result, you got behind at work, had to stay late, and missed date night with your partner.
Likewise, perhaps you spent an hour on the phone with a person in your business who was lamenting everything that was wrong in her life. Consequently, you missed your workout.
Spending too much time with people who have a negative ROI borrows from the time you could be investing to do the things that bring you joy.
You will be amazed at how powerful your associations can become when you make a concerted effort to invest more into the relationships with a high ROI. And less on those with a very low or negative ROI.
If you want a life of significance, balance, productivity and fulfillment, you need to learn to prioritize your relationships. Additionally, you discover how to utilize relationship hacks when possible.
If someone in your life is incredibly exhausting, ask yourself why you’re spending time with that person? If there is some mutual ROI, it makes sense. On the other hand, if the interaction is going to leave you feeling drained, angry, or frustrated, why would you invest time knowing you’re taking it away from someone you genuinely want to be with?
Whether scheduling specific time with the important ones in your life or creating special events for your top customers or clients, a little effort goes a long way. From remembering special occasions to sending a gratitude text, we should spend just five minutes a day reaching out to the people who contribute the most to our lives.
Life can get hectic. As a result, despite our best intentions, we can forget to let the people we are about, know how we truly feel. One of the things that has been a constant in my own daily method of operation, is to pour greatness into a minimum of three people every day who are important to me.
Whether it is a quick text, an email, a Facebook message, a handwritten note, or sending flowers, make daily contribution a part of your life – just like brushing your teeth or taking a shower. These little things are the epitome of relationship hacks.
These relationship hacks strengthen the relationship quickly and easily. Each of these things takes only about five minutes. Send these messages and you might be shocked how often you receive notes back saying, “You have no idea how much I needed this today.”
