How to juggle a relationship at the same time as goals

[alexanderwhyte]

Short version:

I?m in a relationship.
I?m pissed off because I?m not getting anywhere with my goals and haven?t been since the relationship took off.
I?ve always been able to achieve what I want when I?ve been single.
I?m overly thoughtful towards other people to the point that I end up loosing sight of what I want or able to make time and space for it.

My questions:

Has anyone else experienced this, first or second hand?
If you?re currently in a successful relationship and are still able to crack on with your own projects and life ? what are you doing? How are you able to compartmentalise your life so that it doesn?t all end up as 10 different voices in your head and nothing gets done.

Disclaimer:

?Are you sure it?s the relationship and not looking for an excuse?? - Yes I?m sure.
?Is this relationship something you want to work towards being something wonderful?? ? Yes I am.

I know I could get my things done if I was single again, but that?s not what I want. I want to learn to be able to manage both at once in a happy and stressfree day-to-day way.

[Clark]

This exact thing comes up in the work of Dr. John F. Demartini. To paraphrase, you are experiencing your values, just not in a form you recognize. What does the relationship bring that your goals didn't? What do your goals bring that the relationship doesn't?

He talks about a woman who had the same issue. Her work suffered when she entered a relationship... but when work was going wonderful, her sexuality was coming through in the designs she chose in her interior decorating work. She had though she was lacking something and sought a relationship, but in truth, she was already achieving her values without the relationship--just in a different form.

So the first question I would ask is, do you really know your values? What do you spend most of your time doing? Talking about? Money on? Review your life for the past year or two and see where your energy was invested. And what did it give you? What is your intention for having the relationship? Are they the same? Dig deep, I'm sure at some abstract level, your intentions for the relationship and meeting your goals are the same.

As for the multi-voice in the head, just be here now. Do what is on front of you. Don't be at home thinking of work, or at work thinking of home--both will suffer. Your values are in front of you, just learn to recognize their current form in your life.

Check out "The Breakthrough Experience" by Dr Demartini.

Hope that helps!

Clark

[alexanderwhyte]

Am I understanding you correctly - if there's an area that I fulfil my values in, I lose desire to meet those values by any other means?

I spend most of my time doing/thinking about very physical activities: gym, basketball, gymnastics, street running etc. This is also true for the last two years. These are definitely the areas I put my energy and time.

...And what did it give you?

It gives me great pleasure, I love anything that involves using my body and mind in creative ways. A real sense of freedom and in the moment. I'd say that most of my dreams are also about this.

What is your intention for having the relationship? Are they the same?

two people that love each other and bring our own take on life to help us having a combined life of greater love and happiness.

No. They don't feel like the same.


I've order that and a few other of his books.

So what's the next step and approach when using this tact?

[alexanderwhyte]

anyone else with suggestions or views still welcome.

[Jay Budzynski]

Hi  Alex

You have 168 hour in a week some of them hours you sleep- if we to say you do a healthy 8 hours a night sleeping that give you 112 hours- Now do you spend every second of them 112 hours with your girl friend? or the person your in a relationship with?

How many hours would you need to make small incremental steps to reaching just one goal at a time? and can you take the responsibility to do that?

Are you using the Relationship as an excuse?

Have you talked about your needs and goals with the person your in a relationship with?

As relationship are about mutual support- then the person you need to be taking to about this is the person your in a relationship with.

"Goals" being a plural meaning more than one- maybe you need to organize your goals into priorities- and focus just on one at a time- that way you get them done- and you are not over stretched.

What's the purpose of your relationship?

What do you what out of it?

Do you and the person share anything in common related to your goals?

or with we was to use the Michael's question set-

What do you what?

And

What stops you?

Jay


 

[alexanderwhyte]

I'm write my answers inbetween your text


Hi  Alex

You have 168 hour in a week some of them hours you sleep- if we to say you do a healthy 8 hours a night sleeping that give you 112 hours- Now do you spend every second of them 112 hours with your girl friend? or the person your in a relationship with?

we live together so end up spending, on average, 3-4 hours together each day. That is not 3-4 hours sat around together, more of the case that we're both in the house at the same time for those hours. A couple of times a week we'll use that time to do things together.


How many hours would you need to make small incremental steps to reaching just one goal at a time? and can you take the responsibility to do that?

if it was just one goal at a time then 6 hours per week for this one particular goal that i want to move forwards on.

ideal case would be:
career: 20 hours per week
fitness: 10 hours /week
basketball: 20 hrs / week
gymnastics: 8 hrs / week
trading: 10 hrs / week
time w/ g/f: 10 hrs / week
meditation: 7hrs / week
yoga: 6 hrs / week
friends: 10 hrs / week

so that's.... 101 hours

erm, should really factor work into this somewhere...

Are you using the Relationship as an excuse?

No. She puts next to no demads on me. I just find it really hard to juggle my stuff when I have someone else in my life because I feel like I always should be doing something else.

Have you talked about your needs and goals with the person your in a relationship with?

Yes, she wants me to get on with it too.

As relationship are about mutual support- then the person you need to be taking to about this is the person your in a relationship with.

we have talked about it. I don't currently have the resources in move forward in these areas at the same time as being in a r/ship. I figured outside help wasn't a bad place to start. She will support me in whatever I want to do.

"Goals" being a plural meaning more than one- maybe you need to organize your goals into priorities- and focus just on one at a time- that way you get them done- and you are not over stretched.

What's the purpose of your relationship?

a medium to express and share all the love and fun we have to give

What do you what out of it?

same as purpose

Do you and the person share anything in common related to your goals?

both really into health, nutrition, personal-development, spirituality, cooking, similar career goals but from different angels in different fields.

or with we was to use the Michael's question set-

What do you what?

a clear mind, able to prioritise my goals and ambition and move forward in them. without my mind jumping all over the place and this feeling I get of constantly 'what should i be doing in this realtionship

And

What stops you?

find it near impossible to keep a clear focus when im in a relationship. everything else slides. This isn't because im spending so much time with the other person - its like an intangible, self created force that i'm constantly trying to factor into every day and end up getting little-to-nothing done

Jay

[Tomwalked]

.

I guess, my only advice is to rejoice. be happy.
is this a new relationship? if so honor the fact that there are times in relationships that you spend a lot of time with the person and you spend a lot of time away from the person in fits and starts.

and I guess I would also point out... with the following caveat - the way we use words in e-mails and in the cyber-forum-e-format, may not be as precise and exacting as we do when carrying on a "in-person-conversation", and given the fact that voice and mannerisms and body language varies the intent and meaning of what we say...
but to say, that the general timbre of your way of describing your frustration, your lack of time and your relationship... seems to make it sound like this relationship is somehow compromising who YOU are, and that you don't feel like you are getting out of it what you want.
Almost like, you are trying to find fault in the relationship.
and we know... that given the right mindset we can find fault with endlessly everything and anything... and with a slight skewing of that mindset... we can find (almost) anything to be the most wonderful and glorious thing to have ever happened for us.

Again... this is only impression of the way I am reading what you are writing... through the veil of my perspective and interpretation. Not a fault-finding or accusation-pointing on my part.

I guess my question would be...
do you really want this relationship? are you getting out of it what you want?
and this is a hard and deep question that takes great inner courage to observe.

because for me... when I am in a good, supportive, loving relationship, there doesn't seem to be a question of "juggling". For me, during those periods where I only have a little bit of time together - I tend to value what little time I have more fully.
"when I am with you I am fully and completely with you.".
and when I am distracted, and my partner sees this, or I see this in a partner, it means that they have somewhere else they need to be - and that is honest and real to honor. It's not personal... it is just a fact.


just my perspective...
hope it is helpful...

Tom

[alexanderwhyte]

thanks, I like what you've written.

I really do want to restate that;

• This IS a relationship I'm passionate about making even more wonderful
• There is NOTHING wrong with the relationship - I know this is completely something that goes on inside my head that effects how i function whilst i'm in a relationship.
• The relationship is a great mirror and benchmark for me that has made me notice how i am not being as present as I can be. This is because of this hurdle I have with my time and priority management.

I know I can get my goals done when I'm single, I've just always had a problem with getting them done when i'm in a r/ship. But I don't want to have to go back to that just to move on a few areas of my life: I want to be able to be present, loving and passionate in the r/ship at the same time as moving forwards in the rest of my life.
[/list]

[Tomwalked]

I think you stated it best... this is a question of time management...
personally... not my highest and bestest skill, but remember seeing a pretty extensive thread here somewhere that talks about it.

but, I do think there is something in the way you are describing the juggling...
you can see it that way or you can choose to not. and my caution here is we don't want to make a relationship shrouded in difficulty/struggle... because given that we are all human here... we may tend to take out our frustration on our partner.

(I don't know how well this is gonna go over... a bit too personal perhaps?)

but just looking at all that you are trying to fit in a week is wiping me out!
put some ease around yourself...
lighten up and be more generous with yourself.
you appear to be pretty amazingly driven - and I'm not saying that is a bad thing...
but as far as I know we only get one go round here on the ole' great blue ball...

think of the things that fulfill you the most and make those your priority...
not what you think you should be doing... but what you really - at your core - want to be doing.

and just to say I respect and appreciate your courage at sharing this with us here...
I hope that nothing I say is seen as criticism, we obviously all have different ways of seeing and talking about things...
and this is just my perspective... my point of view...
and as always...
I am completely open to the possibility (and eventuality?) that I am completely wrong!

[alexanderwhyte]

Hey Tom and followers on this thread.

What I've found most interesting from putting my question on here is the effect it has on bringing your mind to new solutions rather than going over and over on the problem. I'm read and rereading what you've all kindly taken the time to say and seeing which bits excite me into wanting to try.

After my reply to you, Tom, last night; I got really enthused from looking at all the things I wanted to do written down. I hadn't looked at them from this point of view of how much time would I like to give each one before.

I then went about writing down much smaller, mini goals in each of these areas. Things that were do-able in the next 1-3 months and weren't really going to take a massive amount of effort or more time than I'm already putting in.

By putting down small achievable goals in these areas over the next couple of months, I feel like a lot of the weight and confusion about what I should be doing with my time has lifted.

I doubt this works for everyone - as you say you got wiped out just reading it - but to me the simple goal of say 'improving my standing-vertical leap by 3 inches in 2 months' excites me and I know that's only going to take 10 minutes every other day to do. My brain feels more compartmentalised from putting it down in the most basic form.

Next step is going to be how to manage my time now that I have inspiring next steps....
...not sure how I'm going to do that, but for now I feel good about just re-listening to MN's show on effortless time management again with some questions in my head as I do.

[alexanderwhyte]

On a side note: it's been a great experience to put myself on the other side of the 'coaching couch' and see how it feels to be given different advice.

The changes and shifts don't happen so much as I read replies, but rather in the time away as my mind digest and puts possibilities in place to see how they feel as a concept in my head first. Then come back and formulate a plan as I write my own reply.

[Tomwalked]

AMAZING to hear!

glad to hear that things seem to be shifting for you.

good luck