Relationship Goals: Building Healthy Relationships and Respectful Behavior
One thing stands above all else in terms of managing your mental health and livelihood as a human being: relationships. Staying connected to those around you and being in touch with others can help pull you out of a bad mental space, make you feel more fulfilled and happier, and ultimately, help you engage with life to the absolute fullest.
But how do you maintain relationships and establish strong, healthy relationship goals so that you’re set up to live a fulfilling life? It may sound simple, but it’s not always easy. Getting in touch with others and being a good friend takes work. It’s easy to lose connections with others and de-prioritize people because of a busy day-to-day schedule and the regularities of life. Let’s go through the different ways to prioritize your relationships, maintain and nurture them, give back to the other person, and make sure that it’s worthwhile and healthy.
Relationships are the ultimate way to live a fulfilling life, so taking care of them is akin to taking care of yourself. Don’t let them fall by the wayside—you never know when you’ll want someone to be there for you and when you’ll have to be there for them. Being close with others is one of the best parts of life and the human experience. Value them and work on them—it makes everything worth it.
The Value Of Relationships And Trust Building
While we commonly don’t think about the value of relationships and why we want them, they provide tremendous happiness to our lives and improve our overall health and wellbeing.
Connections with other humans, both romantic and platonic, are essential to living a fulfilling and healthy lifestyle. Here are some of the benefits of relationships, both physically and mentally, to help you be your best self.
Benefits of Having Respect In Relationships
Here’s how healthy relationships help your wellbeing:
Improved Self-confidence And Worth: Feeling good about who you are is one of the best ways to improve your mental health. Practicing self-affirming habits and being kind to yourself is the ultimate way to feel good. Being with others and developing connections is a great way to build confidence.
Develops A Sense Of Belonging: Feeling connected to others is perhaps the most important way to improve your mental health. Feeling alone and left to face the world by yourself is incredibly detrimental to your own health and can quickly degrade your mental health and put you in a bad headspace. Healthy relationships add to your sense of connections and community.
Stress Relief And Relaxation: Being around others can help you decrease stress and make it easier for you to relax. This leads to multiple physical and mental health benefits and allows you to approach life in a healthier and calmer manner. When you can take a step back and solve problems without heightened stress levels, it makes you not only feel better, but it helps you arrive at stronger solutions and lets you succeed.
Increased Physical Health And Happiness: When you feel less stressed and connected to others, it actually improves your physical health as well. A study showed that when examining 309,000 people, those that lacked strong social connections and support were 50% more likely to die prematurely from all causes. This is equivalent of smoking 15 cigarettes every day and is even more impactful than obesity and a sedentary, inactive lifestyle.
Strong Relationships Add Meaning And Happiness To Life: Being close with others and connected emotionally with them can help you find fulfillment and meaning in your life. That sounds simple, but waking up every day with intention and drive makes a world of difference between having a negative outlook on the world, and in turn, your mental state, and a positive one.
Now that we’ve looked at the benefits of social relationships, let’s examine the ways to maintain and prioritize them.
Maintaining Your Relationship Goals: How To Prioritize Your Social Connections And The Skills To Use
Since relationships are one of the best social-health medicines available, maintaining them and giving them the attention they need is crucial. Here’s how to prioritize your relationships and make sure you care for them.
Caring For Your Relationships And Prioritizing The Right People In Your Life
Healthy Communication: Talking with others and sharing your feelings is one of the best ways to avoid conflict and make sure you’re on the same page. Listening to someone and making your thoughts known to them helps build connection, lets them know they’re important to you, helps you discover common interests, makes both of you more comfortable, and teaches both of you to listen. These are all crucial elements of a successful relationship.
Mutual Respect And Trust: Above all, nothing else will work in a relationship if there isn’t shared trust and mutual respect. This is paramount. If you don’t respect each other, a relationship simply cannot exist.
Let Each Other Know That You Appreciate And Value Each Other: It’s not always easy to tell when someone appreciates you (especially in male friendships), so making it clear that you value your relationship with someone can only make your bond stronger. You can do this by complimenting each other, giving them a gift, sharing quality time, or simply expressing gratitude and thanks for their dedication and support.
Make A Point To Reach Out: It can be difficult to find the time to reach out to others nowadays, especially as people get busy and struggle to keep up with their own schedules. But making time for one another and reaching out is crucial for maintaining relationships. Luckily, technology makes this a little bit easier nowadays. Find time to set up phone calls or video chats to catch up and stay in each other's lives.
Forget About Judgment—Be There For One Another No Matter What: One of the easiest ways to help a friend and nurture relationships is to eliminate all judgment between the two of you. Being a friend and helping them no matter what can bring you closer together and help them feel heard and appreciated. One day, you’ll probably need their help too, so it’s always good to be there for others.
Non-Confrontational Communication: Tips For Young Men To Stick To Healthy Friendship Practices
Now that we’ve covered different ways to help maintain friendships, let’s go through the personality and character traits young men can work on to help put those into practice.
Managing Emotions And Emphasizing Non-Confrontational Communication: Being able to handle yourself when things don’t go your way is a major part of growing up and being an adult. Young men can preserve more friendships and romantic relationships by being calm, collected, and rational when going through conflicts or difficult situations.
The Importance Of Healthy Masculinity And Positive Male Role Models: When young men have positive role models, especially positive male role models, it makes it easier for them to adopt and envision good behavior and relationships. When you see the benefit of this behavior and how to put it to use, you not only know how to follow it, but you get the benefit as well.
Seeing The Value Of Compassion And Kindness: Recognizing that being kind seems easy, but it’s not always practiced the right way. Be compassionate with others and know that everyone is trying their best and not out to get you. If young men can allow themselves to take the time to care for others, everything else will fall into place accordingly and make them, and their relationships with others, much happier.
The Importance Of Apology And Forgiveness: It’s inevitable that everyone will mess up sometimes. Showing young men the value of an apology and practicing forgiveness (both for themselves and others), goes a long way towards maintaining healthy relationships. It can be difficult to forgive someone, but it makes their lives much easier and enjoyable.
With that, it’s also inevitable that young men themselves will mess up too. They need to be able to forgive themselves and recognize that life goes on when they make a mistake. Moving past it and using it as a learning experience to get better is one of the best things they can do.
Practicing Empathy And Understanding: Progressing forward as an adult requires young men to practice empathy and understand the feelings of others. This is one of the biggest character and emotional traits of healthy, well-adjusted adults. Being positive and recognizing that everyone is going through something makes a major difference in how people interact with the world around them.
Respectful Behavior And Being Okay With Respectful Disagreement: Know that it’s okay to disagree with those you love is important for maintaining mature adult relationships. It’s inevitable that people will disagree occasionally, it’s how you handle it that counts. When you can have a differing view from somebody and respectfully disagree with them is important for carrying on healthy relationships.
The Carpenter Shed Can Help Young Men Nurture Social Skills To Carry On Healthy, Respectful Relationships
At The Carpenter Shed, we specialize in helping our young boys develop a sense of purpose, meaning, and connection. Our staff of positive role models helps them see how to maintain healthy relationships while remaining respectful of other people. Contact us if you know a young man in your life that could benefit from our program.
Sources:
https://www.healthdirect.gov.au/building-and-maintaining-healthy-relationships
https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/the-health-benefits-of-strong-relationships
https://acendahealth.org/4-benefits-of-healthy-relationships/
https://portal.ct.gov/advocatescorner/life-tips/your-choices/healthy-friendships-and-relationships
https://portal.ct.gov/advocatescorner/life-tips/your-choices/healthy-friendships-and-relationships
https://www.nystromcounseling.com/relationships/how-to-maintain-friendships/
