This is the 3rd installment of the “Getting Your House in Order” Series…
If you haven’t had a chance to check them out, here are the previous posts:
Why It is Important to Get Your House in Order… NOW!! (Part 1)
Why It is Important to Get Your House in Order… NOW!! (Part 2)
In the last post, there were 4 key areas that we needed to focus on in order to get our house in order. The first one area was relationships. In this post I am going to break down some ideas to get our house in order with regards to our relationships.
When we look at our relationships, it is often the source of our greatest joys and our greatest sorrows. There are good times and there are bad times, so how do we handle these ups and downs and make sure that we are steady in the way we deal with the people around us. These ideas work in every relationship that we can have, from our family relationships to our work relationships.
1. Be Honest – The truth is always the most important thing that we have. There are times when we may have to shield our kids from certain things but that is the only time that I would say is ok to bend certain things, other then that the truth is the only way to deal with anyone over the age of 14. When we are honest about things and how we feel and people know this about us, then there are no secrets that can come out and bite us. And as people get to know us as honest, we will develop a great reputation.
2. Don’t Gossip – When we engage in gossip, we are opening ourselves up to fracturing a lot of relationships. People will become skeptical of us and if we gossip with one about another, that person can only assume that you will gossip about them to another. What us gossip anyway?
Is it a way to elevate yourself above another?
Do you feel better about yourself when you talk about the problems of another?
Gossip is nothing but a way of lifting yourself up, the problem is that you are building it on a base of another persons problems. As a rule, people end up solving their problems, so that it is a weak foundation to build yourself up on .
3. Forgive fast and often – Here is a fact, people will hurt us and we will hurt others. The key is to make sure that you forgive AND forget. If you don’t forget, it will always end up being a wedge at some point in the future when things go awry and they will. To forget means that you have completely forgiven not conditionally forgiven.
When you get to the end of your life, you will end up reviewing the relationships that you have had in your life and the quality of those relationships. The ones that will make you sad are the ones that have unsettled issues, this is why it is important to settle the issues as quickly as possible.
As Always, Here’s to Your LifetoSuccess,
God Bless You,
John Clark