I remember playing little league baseball in 5th grade. It was my first year to play organized baseball so I had a lot to learn. I wasn’t very good at catching and even worse at hitting. While I learned some valuable lessons that enabled me to play much better as an adult, at this point as a kid, I was pretty pathetic.
I wanted so badly to play well. I recall reading a book about Mickey Mantle. Inspired, I would head to the baseball field ready to hit a string of homeruns – only to strike out. With each discouraging performance, I would bear down and try harder. The more intently I tried, the worse I did. The first time I actually got a hit I almost didn’t know what to do next.
Similarly, I see couples who are struggling in their relationships. The natural thing to do is to turn their attention onto their relational issues – which they sometimes do with a vengeance. It frequently seems like the more they bear down, determined to fix the identified problems, the worse things get. So, they get more intense and the relationship appears to stumble to a crawl.
And yet, what can help relieve this pressure sometimes is to change the focus from an “us” to a “me.” Rather than focusing on what my partner needs to change in this relationship, I may need to attend with intentional focus to what I need to do to improve myself.
Today, as you examine the landscape of your significant relationship, I encourage you to focus solely on what action you alone can take that might improve you and in turn the relationship. And then . . . do it . . . and see what happens.