How Small Changes Can Transform Your Relationship
Uncover how small acts of connection can bring joy to your relationship. Learn how investing a little time, even in simple gestures, can unlock intimacy and strengthen your bond. Reimagine how time plays a role in your love life and discover practical ways to nourish your relationship. Because every moment counts, and it's the little things that can make the biggest difference. (Edited Live Class Recording)
Transcript
And we're talking about relationship habits.
And like I said,
When I start something new,
Maybe exercise,
Maybe meditation or whatever it is,
The idea in our brain is,
Oh,
The bigger,
The better.
So when we do it with relationship,
We think,
Oh,
We have to invest a lot of time.
We have to spend an hour a week.
We have to spend an hour a day.
Or when you start exercising,
You'd make this plan,
Like half an hour a day to see results.
When you start meditating,
You think half an hour,
That's what I need to do.
And you start it.
And what happens quite often is that it doesn't work out.
You do it maybe for a week,
You might do it for two weeks.
And then you see that you don't have the time,
You can't fit it in your day.
And then you let go of it and don't do it at all.
Because our brain tells us,
The bigger,
The better.
The more time we invest,
The better,
The bigger,
The result,
The bigger,
The change.
And I read a book,
You might know it,
It's called Atomic Habits by James Clear.
And there is this one sentence,
And I love this sentence,
Because he says,
In order to improve a process,
You need to establish the process first.
And that means you start small.
And you might think like,
Oh,
But small things,
What can they do?
And they do a lot because they add up.
So when we talk about meditation,
Start with two minutes,
See how you can put these two minutes in your day regularly.
And if you find out like after two weeks,
Two minutes a day,
Amazing,
I can do this,
I love it.
Can you do five minutes a day?
And with that,
Over time,
You increase the time you put in,
But it also fits into your day.
It's not like this big disruption of your day.
It's just a little bit.
And the same goes for relationship habits.
I remember when I started,
I felt a bit uncomfortable,
I was missing my partner because I wanted to spend more time with him.
And I said to him,
I want to have a dinner date every week.
And he said,
I can't do this.
And I said,
What do you mean you can't do this?
It's just dinner date with me,
Hey,
I'm your favorite person.
Why can't you put in one or two hours a week to spend the time with me?
But for him,
It was a big disruption.
Of his day,
He had to come back from work and I luckily I work from home.
So for me,
It was easier to handle it,
But for him,
It was a big thing.
And we talked about it,
Said,
What can we do to sustain that habit,
To continue it,
Not just for now,
But over the month,
Over the years.
And we talked about it and I asked,
So when would it work for you?
What could you put in?
How can you make it fixed so we can have that dinner date?
And he said,
Well,
I could do every other week.
So I said,
Okay,
I said,
Am I comfortable with that?
Is it okay for me to have that dinner date every other week?
And I thought,
Yes,
Yes,
Because then I have something to look forward to.
So after the dinner date is before the dinner date,
I have two weeks to look forward to the next dinner date.
And I loved the idea.
And we're keeping it up now for the last,
I think three years or four years,
That every other week we meet up and go for dinner.
And what was important to me was to have it in the diary,
To have that date or that time,
To know on a Friday at seven-ish,
We're going to have that dinner date.
And it's not just this random thing of,
Oh,
We might do it on the weekend.
But if you want to put it into big and small,
This is a big commitment because it's two hours.
So I had this client and she said,
Well,
My partner,
Every couple of months they have this,
That her partner has some work commitment and he has to work 13 days in a row,
Has one day off and then another 13 days.
And that goes on for,
I think,
Six weeks.
And she said,
You know,
During that time,
Usually our relationship is disrupted.
We don't have time for each other.
There is not much love between us.
We don't talk much.
And it feels like our relationship,
We're growing apart during this time.
And she said,
I don't know what to do.
So we worked on it.
I said,
So what are the little things?
And when I talk about little,
I mean very,
Very,
Very little,
Things that you can implement.
And one of the things is gratitude.
I don't know if you know about the five love languages.
They mean that every one of us has a different preference,
How they feel loved.
It can be with quality time,
It can be with gifts,
Can be with words of affirmation,
With physical touch or with acts of service.
And because her and I,
We worked together for a while now,
So we knew that her partner,
He,
One of his love languages is words of affirmation.
And I said,
So as we know this,
What could you do and want to give to give him the feeling that he's loved?
And she said,
Well,
I could tell him that I'm happy that he's home.
I said,
Yes,
That's literally half a minute a day when he comes home.
Hey,
It's good to have you back.
Nice to see you.
Or when you wake up in the morning,
Oh,
I love waking up next to you.
It's a very,
Very little time commitment.
It's not much to be prepared for,
But it has a huge effect,
Particularly if it's on a continuous basis.
And I don't mean it's on a daily basis,
But every now and again,
Say,
Hey,
I'm happy that you're here.
Glad that you're with me.
It's good to have you here.
I love your company.
I enjoy your company.
And another client of mine,
She told me that they used to have these,
They have a list with 12 questions,
Reflective questions for couples.
And they used to do these 12 questions every other week on a Sunday afternoon for three to four hours.
Now,
Lately for the last,
I think,
Year,
They didn't have the time to do that.
They got the second child and they don't do it anymore.
And she said,
I miss it because we don't check in.
We don't talk about it because we don't do the questions.
We don't have the three to four hours every week.
And I said to her,
What would happen if you choose one question a day?
And her first instinct was like,
Well,
What does one question do?
I mean,
That's just five minutes.
And I said,
Exactly.
But those five minutes,
You probably have.
You probably have those five minutes in the morning,
In the evening,
Before you go to bed.
It's easier to find those five minutes to check in.
And it's like this,
Today a question,
Tomorrow a question,
Maybe the day after tomorrow,
Maybe two days later.
But it's this emotional intimacy that you feel,
That you check in,
You show that I'm interested.
How are you?
Those little habits,
When you find the time,
When you establish that process of,
Yeah,
Five minutes a day,
I can do that.
Maybe in a week,
In two weeks,
In a month,
We find half an hour to do it.
Maybe not,
But at least you do something,
A little bit.
And another client of mine,
She loved presents.
And she said,
You know,
My partner,
I don't get presents only for my birthday or Christmas.
And that was her love language.
She felt loved by getting presents.
So I asked her,
I said,
What does presents mean?
How does it look like?
Does it have to be a big,
Bold,
Expensive present?
And she said,
No,
It's just this feeling that he thought of me.
I said,
Would like a picked flower be a present to you?
And she said,
Yes,
Yes,
That would be amazing.
Because then I know he thought of me,
He picked the flower and he gave it to me.
I said,
So why don't you talk to your partner?
Why don't you explain to him you miss it?
And these little gifts mean so much to you.
Explain to him what it looks like to you so that he has an idea.
Because everyone has a different idea.
When I talk about presents,
It can mean one thing to me,
It can mean a whole different thing to you.
And it's important to know that your brain doesn't go into overdrive because when you put these big goals into your head,
They can feel overwhelming.
And as we know,
When we're overwhelmed,
We want to be safe again,
We want to be comfortable again.
We step back and we just look.
It's like,
No,
It's too much,
Can't do it.
And you don't do it.
But with these little things,
With this gratitude,
With these little acts of service,
That's not overwhelming,
That's doable,
Isn't it?
When you think about it,
What is your love language?
What is your partner's love language?
What are these little things a day?
Or not even a day,
Once a week.
It's amazing to give.
We feel happy when we give.
And if the other person enjoys it,
They feel loved as well.
So it's a giving and a taking.
Now,
What often happens when we do that,
We expect something back because we do it.
So our partner should do it as well.
And that's a bit of a downfall because in your brain,
You thought about it.
You probably have thought how you can improve your relationship.
What can you do to make it better?
What can you do to reconnect,
To become closer?
What can you do to make it better?
And in your brain,
You thought about it.
You've been going through it for days,
Months,
Even years maybe,
But your partner might not have done the same.
So to them,
It might be,
I remember I was in a relationship where I thought,
Oh my God,
Our relationship is on a breakdown.
We're not talking anymore.
We don't hug each other anymore.
For me,
It was drama in my head.
And when I talked to my partner,
He said,
What do you want?
I feel fine.
So they might not be on the same page.
For them,
Everything might be fine.
They haven't thought about it.
They might not miss anything.
For them,
It might be just,
This is normal.
This is okay to me.
So when you have the feeling that there is something missing,
Talk to your partner in a curious way.
Say,
How do you see it?
What's going on for you?
Do you miss anything?
Is there something that you wished I would do?
Is there something that I could do?
And then they might come up with something.
Now here,
Don't get offended because it's a negotiation.
It always starts with,
They say something and then you step back and say,
Okay,
What can I do to give this to my partner?
What am I willing to do?
What am I happy to give?
And how can I fit it in my day?
It's,
We often think it's a black and white thing.
They say something.
Now we have to do it exactly like that,
But it's not.
It's just like a suggestion.
And then you sit back and go through it like,
How can I do it?
And then you give it back.
So if I would do it this way,
Would that be enough for you?
Would that give you the feeling that I love you?
And then they might think,
Would it?
Wouldn't it?
And maybe it would,
Maybe it wouldn't.
And then you negotiate further.
It's in a relationship.
As soon as you are in a relationship,
In any relationship,
Not just the romantic relationship,
It's always a negotiation.
And that's important to remember.
It's nothing is black and white.
It's always 50 shades of gray in a different sense than in the book,
But it's always 50 shades of gray.
There's always a middle way,
Something that you are willing to give that is enough for the other person to receive and feel loved.
And it's the little things.
We have a saying in Germany that,
Steter Tropfen,
Höher den Stein.
Translated,
It means little drops form the stone.
And that's what it is.
The little drops,
The little acts of service,
The little time spent together.
That can just mean your partner comes home,
You sit down and say,
How was your day?
Oh,
It was good.
Oh,
Thank you.
It's good to hear.
Is there anything I can do for you?
No?
Fine.
You spend two minutes,
You showed interest,
You are interested,
You both feel fine.
