Tending Your Dreams Through Powerful Relationships

Whether you’re looking to start the career of your dreams, find love, or simply cultivate a better and more rewarding life, you will have to focus on relationships. What is your relationship with yourself—are you confident, doubtful, self-deprecating? How do you relate to others? Regardless of the area of growth you wish to focus on, understanding how to forge the best and healthiest relationships will help you achieve your goals and flourish as a passionate and driven individual.

Relationships, whether they include friends, family, partners, or just ourselves, have a significant bearing on how we go about our daily lives, and how we respond to challenges. Our relationships can have an impact on our career success and the fulfillment we get just from living life. Here are three of the ways relationships can help build up or tear down the life of your dreams.

Know Thyself

It may sound silly, but we all have relationships with ourselves. Arguably, this is the most important relationship in a person’s life. If you don’t have a strong grasp on your sense of self or identity, there’s no way you can ever hope to achieve a fulfilling life—since you don’t know what you really want or who you truly desire to be.

For some, this can be a grandiose concept or something smaller and more manageable. If you don’t have a strong grip on your passions or aspirations, you need to start there, and hone your vision. But in other cases, you may have a clear vision, just no idea of how to start the process of pursuing it. In either instance, your relationship with yourself needs to be studied and sharpened. You might be standing in your own way when it comes to success. Consider: what are your strengths and weaknesses? What skills and experience have you gained so far in your life? What experiences have helped you grow? All of these are valuable aspects of your identity, which will help you direct your journey.

Asking for Help

Once you know you can rely on and trust yourself, the next step is to consider your relationship with others. What is your support system like? Have there been times you asked for help, or did you not take action due to a lack of courage? Perhaps you’ve refused help and faltered after attempting to go it alone. Your ability to ask for and receive support will help you define and develop your lifescape much more quickly than you could by going it alone. We all need others to rely on and learn from, especially during times of personal inquiry or transformation.

No one achieves success completely on their own. What someone accomplishes is only made possible by the support they receive from others and themselves. Sometimes you won’t have all the answers, and reaching out to your support system can provide clarity as well as new opportunities. The relationships you have with those who help you be your best self are an essential component of achieving the life you dream about.

Networking

Whereas reaching out to a support system often has to do with personal close relationships, the notion of networking is career-based. Opportunities to grow can come from anywhere, and networking is the key to seeking the most valuable opportunities out there. To get started, sit down with your address book. Review your contacts to help you connect with people in the areas you are interested in investigating. Write their names down and what you believe they can connect you with, and then take action.

You will be surprised at the level of support you will receive from people in your life. Even those you know casually are often happy to make an introduction for you—some may even go out of their way to help. Regardless of the circumstances, networking is essential if you hope to make any strides forward in designing the life you dream of.

Even though, technically, you are pursuing your own future, there will always be others along the way who have an influence. Gaining an understanding of how you can relate to others and yourself will only provide more clarity to your journey, and help you get where you want to go faster.