The importance of dreaming together

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Post written by dates and romance columnist Sean Marshall of Family Rocketship.

Picture a couple in their mid-twenties on their very first date. They’re standing in line for the Splash Mountain ride at Disneyland.

If you get in a little closer, you’ll hear the guy telling the girl all about one of his most cherished dreams that he wants to accomplish in the future. He’s rambling on and on about all of the specific details of his dream. If you look at the girl, you’ll see she’s listening to every word, and somehow, deep down, wants to be part of that dream.

That couple was me and my (future) wife. Somehow, my dream resonated strongly with her. She’s told me that it was at that moment, on our very first date, that she knew there was something more to us than just a fun first date.

What Does it Mean to Dream?

I’m not referring to the dreams you have while sleeping. I’m referring the dreams that you share together as a couple. You could also call them aspirations, goals, plans, even desires.

These dreams are often shared with each other even before you get married. In many cases (like mine) it’s what helps to “woo” each other as you realize you have many common goals.

After marriage, these dreams provide the glue that keeps you working together. They give you a purpose to your everyday activities. Where you live, your job, how you spend your free time, and so forth are all determined by these dreams.

For example, let’s say you create a dream together to one day move to Hawaii and live the island life. If this is your deepest desire, then everything you do will keep you focused on that dream.

You might start looking for ways to downsize your stuff to make the move easier. You might start looking for a job or other source of income in Hawaii. You might spend time on real estate websites looking at properties on the beach. You might even trim back some of your expenses to start saving for the move.

7 Key Ways to Dream Together

  1. Become dream partners – take time to bounce ideas off of each other.
  2. Make sure they line up with your common values – this will cement in your resolve to attain them.
  3. Be supportive of each other’s dreams – no dream is too big or small, practical or absurd.
  4. Go to an inspirational place – get outside, go to a park, or even some place with a vista.
  5. Make your dream strong and vivid – it must engage you both at your core and get your emotions stirring.
  6. Write them down – put them up in a visible place where you can see them every day.
  7. Think about them daily – make sure your daily activities are in line with actually living your dream!

Dreaming together as a couple (and family) is powerful. It’s important to note that this dreaming process only works when it’s carried out through daily action. To dream is the start. To live the dream is the payoff.

In case you’re wondering, the dream I shared with my to-be wife was all about an amazing beach party still in our future. It’s evolved now to be our common dream we’re going to live 7 years from now. I’ll spare you the complete details, but it has to do with our 40th birthday party (we’re both the same age).

It involves an evening at a day’s end of playing in the ocean. Imagine a white sandy beach, warm tropical breeze, reggae music, lights on strings, and an entire party of friends and family all dancing and relaxing together. It’s something that moves us and we’ve planned our life accordingly to make it happen.

What’s one of your most powerful dreams as a couple?

What are you doing to achieve it?

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5 Reasons for Creating Your Own Wedding Vows

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Post written by premarital columnist Susanne Alexander of Marriage Transformation.

Your wedding vows reflect the essence of your relationship and direct what happens after the wedding.

They state what actions you commit to doing to create your marriage. Even if your ceremony has pre-set vows, you can share your own personal vows as part of the reception, perhaps before the toasts.

And after marriage?

Anniversaries are great for reviewing the promises you made in your vows and setting goals for anything that’s off-course. And, if you didn’t write down before marriage what you want to have together, it can still be helpful to do it now.

Writing your own vows:

1. Provides Couple Reflection Time: Your vows will reflect what’s important to both of you if you talk about them as you write them. This is true whether they are individual vows or a mutual one you both craft together. Couples sometimes get stuck on the romance of hearing individual vows for the first time at the wedding. But then do they truly reflect your united hearts and minds?

2. Highlights Potential Challenges: Sometimes you don’t realize that the two of you are on different pages until you write your vows. It’s wise to pay careful attention to where you have differing visions of your marriage. Do you change course? Do you get some counseling from a family member or professional? It’s vital to address any differences and not just push through to the wedding hoping for the best. It’s unwise to leave creating your vows until the last minute!

3. Creates a Commitment: Thinking through what’s vital in your relationship and what you want your marriage to look like in action gives voice to what you truly commit to create. You can include how you will speak to and act with one another and what activities you will do together as marriage partners. You can envision your marriage and family and what it will take to fulfill it.

4. Connects You to Family and Community: When you make your vows public in front of people who care about you, they can help you with fulfilling them. They can also hold you accountable at times through reminding you what you promised and holding you to it.

5. Reflects Your Personal Beliefs: You can align your vows with what is most important to the two of you. For example, as couples increasingly embrace equal partnership in their relationships, the word “obey” often does not work. The new model for marriages is respectful and joint consultation and decision-making. A wife might occasionally defer to a husband and a husband to a wife, but practicing equality means neither has the right to dictate to the other and expect obedience. Your vows could reflect a perspective like this.

Some couples may simply create a vision statement for their marriage and share it at the ceremony. Here is one given as an example by John Curtis, Ph.D., in All-in-One Marriage Prep: 75 Experts Share Tips and Wisdom to Help You Get Ready Now:

“Our vision for our relationship is one where we will have complete trust and honesty, free of fears or anxieties, and full of acceptance and support. We each will be devoted to helping one another reach our full potential through the ever-increasing exploration of who we are as partners and parents and by expressing our individuality. We will be close to God, Who will bless us with lives full of deep meaning. We will continue to explore our world and include our family members whenever possible. We will be free of material burdens while living a rich and full life.”

Other vows will be more complex. Here is a portion of the detailed one used by Terri Muuss (a life coach), and Matthew Pasca (a teacher) of Long Island, New York, when they married:

• Treat each other with love, honor, respect, courtesy, and integrity.
• Be examples of service to ourselves, each other, our families, friends, and communities.
• Deal with issues that arise as soon as possible.
• Be playful, have fun, and incorporate humor into daily life.
• Act with integrity in all things, particularly in our finances, our work, and our service commitments.
• Enrich our lives with the arts.

Terri says, “Designing concrete, specific vows as opposed to more general ones has made it so much easier to remind ourselves of the importance of tending to our partnership on a daily basis. Being of service, laughing, and dealing with issues immediately have just become part of the routine of our lives, as opposed to a grandiose claim made once many years ago at our wedding.” [An expanded list of possible vow items is in All-in-One Marriage Prep.]

Whatever way you choose to do your vows, the key is to do them together and weeks in advance of the wedding. And then have a great time making your promises come true in your marriage!

(photo source)

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Adios TV

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A year ago my wife and I tried a little experiment: going a month without Television.

The experiment went really well and after a couple of weeks, our kids didn’t even ask to watch anything.

After the month was over, we did go back to watching TV, albeit limited primarily to sports and cartoons for the kids. Over the course of this past year, we’ve stuck to the limited TV schedule (for the most part), but lately we have found ourselves sitting down in front of the thing every evening after the kids go to bed.

While we were on vacation last week, we didn’t turn the thing on once! It was great; but it was also vacation in the mountains.

So now we’re doing something more drastic.

We’ve made the decision to do away with TV completely.

I called Direct TV the other day to cancel our service, and even though they offered everything under the sun for us to stay, it’s gone. And with only our old analog antenna, we get no reception in our home.

By saying adios to TV, we hope to focus on other things together as a family, and as individuals.

I’m about a month away from completing my second eBook (Stripped Down Marriage: Eliminating the unnecessary in order to focus on the essentials). I’m also creating some marriage and life classes (Blow Up My Marriage, and 2 others in the works).

As a family, we plan on playing more, being outside, serving those around us, and working on living a better story.

Read more »

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What would you do if you knew you could not fail?

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Three questions to ponder:

  1. If you knew you could not fail and those around you would not only suspend judgment, but wholeheartedly support you: What would you do?
  2. Are you doing it?
  3. If not: Why?

Oh, and one more question:

  1. If your reason for not doing something is that you’re afraid of failing or being judged: How much worse would that be than never having tried?

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Working with Your Spouse

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Editor’s Note: This is guest post from Julie Magro of Boardroom Couple.

Do you work with your spouse?  My husband and I happen to work during the day together, but I am not referring to that kind of work.  I am asking if you and your spouse work together to achieve your dreams?

  1. What are your dreams as an individual?
  2. What are your dreams as a couple?
  3. Have you and your spouse mapped out a plan to achieve these dreams together?

In organizations, it is fairly well established that to achieve a desired goal everyone must work together to be successful.  Yet in our own families we often fail to set and work toward goals with our spouse.  For a long time husbands and wives didn’t need to set a common long-term goal, because it often was just one thing, survival.  I am not suggesting we move back to a time when every family toils for unspoken survival, what I am suggesting is that couples should not let their goals remain unspoken and assumed.

Setting goals with your spouse will not happen overnight.  It will take time to determine your individual and joint goals.  Incidentally, if you haven’t read Corey’s Simple Marriage book, I think you will find it tremendously helpful in laying the groundwork for successful goal setting.  Think about what you both desire.  What goals you can set for your finances?  For your children?  For your relationship?  For your home?  For your health?  For your spiritual life?  Once you have determined your goals, get to work.

When you think about how to implement your goals with your spouse, think about how a team at your work, school or church would work to achieve a new goal, and do the same.  Usually they:

  • Write it down so everyone knows about it.
  • Communicate about it.  There are memos, emails, phone calls and text messages to communicate what needs to be done, who is going to do it, when it will be done, and notification when it is completed.
  • Get outside professional help where needed.  Maybe you need to hire a financial planner, or a personal trainer or a house cleaner to achieve some of your goals.
  • Value feedback and act on it.  As you work toward your goal, gather the successes, failures and changes in your situation and make any needed changes to your implementation.
  • Celebrate.  As you begin to inch closer toward your end goal, celebrate the success.

When you begin to set and achieve goals with your spouse, you will realize just how much fun it can be to work together to achieve something great!

Julie Magro is the co-founder of Boardroom Couple, a site dedicated to helping couples manage the conference table to dinner table relationship while providing resources like the Free How to Build a Website Yourself Guide for the conference table side of these relationships.

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Expectations . . . The Path to an Unhappy Marriage

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Editor’s Note: This post is by Simple Marriage contributor Mary Ann Crossno.

If a good working definition of expectations is planned disappointment, then the outcome of expectations will be unhappiness. When what we expect to happen does not happen, we are disappointed and we suffer pain at some level. The greater the expectation, the greater the pain we will suffer.

Surprisingly, we are likely to be unhappy even when our expectations ARE met! Let me explain.

We are most grateful for the good things that come our way that we did not expect to happen. If you expect your partner to help with the housework, you will be disappointed, mad, sad, or angry when your partner does not help you with the housework, but you won’t necessarily be grateful when your partner does help with the housework. Depending on your history together, you may be

  • Pleased – “I’m glad we’re doing this together.”
  • Surprised – “I can’t believe you actually mopped the floor!”
  • Justified – “I do my share and you need to do your share.”
  • Vindicated – “It’s about time you started pulling your weight!”

When you are dog tired at the end of the day, and you walk in to find your partner cleaning the kitchen, or putting the kids to bed when you expected her to be home late – that’s when you feel truly grateful – because you were not expecting the help! When we are truly grateful for something, we cannot help but feel happiness.

Dennis Prager says it best:

Gratitude is the key to happiness and anything that undermines gratitude must undermine happiness. And nothing undermines gratitude as much as expectations. The more expectations you have, the less gratitude you will have.

Expectations and gratitude are opposite sides of the same coin. Where do our expectations come from?

Our expectations are the confused result of our reactions, our thoughts, and our emotional heritage. We confuse wants with needs, anticipation with expectation, loneliness with emptiness, touch with sex, talk with communication, ideals with reality, and self with relationships.

We confuse what we can get only from within ourselves with what we can get only from a relationship.

This confusion drives us to continually

  • try to get from someone else what we can get only from ourselves,
  • or try to get from ourselves what we can get only from a relationship.

No matter how hard or long we try, we will never be complete in this life. We cannot be complete as an individual, and we cannot be complete by marrying or having children. We cannot be completely secure emotionally nor can we know everything about any one thing. When we are fixated on finding completeness in this life, we become so anxious that we either aim for absolute safety or we stay paralyzed for fear of not getting it [completeness].

The expectation that we can be complete and the desperate search for it leads people to attempt the impossible. The fantasy world is full of the illusion of completeness – which leads people to drugs, sex, alcohol, money, conflict, helplessness, power – all of the world’s ills. We’re all a little lonely, we all feel some sense of inadequacy, some fear of failure – in other words, we all feel some emptiness.

This is a natural state of being, and in my Christian worldview, designed by God to draw us to Him.

Growing up – becoming emotionally mature – is all about how we handle the uncertainty – the incompleteness – of life. When we are able to accept and understand that this emptiness is a natural part of being human, we are on the path to a better life.

The less aware we are of our own emptiness, the more unrealistically we raise our level of expectations on others. High expectations become hypersensitive and emotionally reactive. So much focus is placed on what others are or are not doing that there is little time left for self-focus. The more successfully we can lower our expectations of others, the more time we have to develop our personal sense of responsibility – and the more effort we put into living up to our personal responsibilities, the more we experience responsibility as joy and fulfillment.

Unhappiness is trading what we want most for what we want now. We want whatever makes us uncomfortable – our anxieties, our insecurities, our challenges – we want that discomfort to go away RIGHT NOW. But deep down, what we want most is to be more – more loving, more forgiving, more compassionate, and more grateful.

Make gratitude a habit.

  • Write down three things everyday that you are grateful for –– and see how many days you can come up three things to be grateful for – without repeating yourself!
  • Get a copy of The Simple Abundance Journal of Gratitude by Sarah Ban Breathnach and write in it everyday for a year.
  • Write your gratitudes on post-it notes and stick them around the house, in the car, in your spouse/kids’ lunch bags . . . surround yourself with reminders of what you have to be grateful for.
  • For your Christmas cards, send a note to everyone that helped you in some way this year – and start with those closest to you – your spouse, your kids, your parents, and your siblings.

Whatever you focus on, grows.

Grow your happiness by lowering your expectations and growing your gratefulness.

Prager, D. 1998. Happiness is a serious problem.
Fogarty, T.F. 1978. On emptiness and closeness. In The Family, Compendium I.
Photo courtesy suvodeb

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Goals And Dreams Are Means, Not Just Ends

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For the past couple of weeks my wife and I have been discussing our future plans and dreams. We have this discussion at least once a year, although this time it’s been different.

Over the years we have tried to simplify our life. This has included our marriage, parenting, house, schedules, and in August our TV watching.

We believe that if you can keep things simple, you can experience more enjoyment in life.

There are many times in our goals and dreams discussion where we have the illusion that attaining some level of status or living in certain areas of the country will provide whatever is missing in our life and relationship. As if living on the coast in the Caribbean or working completely online would provide new levels of happiness in our lives.

The reason our most recent discussions have been different is the realization that regardless of where we live or what we do with our time, our baseline happiness level (or life satisfaction level, or pleasure level, etc.) remains roughly constant. While new scenery or career challenges may provide a spike in happiness, we’ll return to our previous level after the newness wears off.

This idea is confirmed by Philip Brickman’s research on lottery winners and their levels of happiness. He and his colleagues found that within as little as a month, lottery winners returned to their base levels of well-being. If they were unhappy before winning, they will remain so. Conversely, they discovered that accident victims who became paraplegic often are as happy as they were prior to the accident within as little as a year after the accident.

So regardless of where we live and what we do, we will largely be the same as we are now. This idea can be sobering or freeing. To me, it’s freeing. This frees me from chasing the proverbial carrot. From making a life goal or dream an end-all-be-all.

Now my wife and I are focusing more of our discussions on who we are at this moment. We are discussing ways we can increase our baseline levels or well-being both now and in the future.

While we still are making plans for our dreams, we are focusing on our dreams and the journey towards them!

Robert Pirsig, in his book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, describes joining a group of elderly Zen monks mountain climbing in the Himalayas. Although he was the youngest member of the group, he was the only one who struggled – eventually giving up while the others made it to the peak. He was so focused on reaching the peak that he became overwhelmed by what lay ahead and was unable to enjoy the climb. He lost his desire and strength to keep going.

Meanwhile, the monks also focused on the peak, but only to make sure they were staying on course. Knowing they were heading in the right direction allowed them to focus their attention and enjoy the steps along the way.

Goals and dreams are still important, but they must be kept in the right perspective. Goals and dreams are means, not just ends.

Here’s to the journey! Where are you headed?

*Adapted from Happier by Tal Ben-Shahar
Photo courtesy Hamed Saber

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Simple Living Simplified: 10 Things You Can Do Today to Simplify Your Life

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Editor’s Note: This is a guest post taken from Leo of Zen Habits.

Simplifying can sometimes be overwhelming. The amount of stuff you have in your life and the amount of things you have to do can be too big a mountain to tackle.

But you don’t have to simplify it all at once. Do one thing at a time, and take small steps. You’ll get there, and have fun doing it.

In fact, you can do little but important things today to start living the simple life.

And these are not 10 difficult things, but 10 simple things that you can do today. Not tomorrow, not next week, not next month. Today. Choose one and do it today. Tomorrow, choose another.

If you do these 10 things, you’ll have made great strides with little effort.

  1. Make a short list. Take out a sheet of paper and fold it into a small square, perhaps 3×5 inches. Or take out an index card. Now make a short list of the 4-5 most important things in your life. What’s most important to you? What do you value most? What 4-5 things do you most want to do in your life? Simplifying starts with these priorities, as you are trying to make room in your life so you have more time for these things.
  2. Drop 1 commitment. Think about all the things in your life that you’re committed to doing, and try to find one that you dread doing. Something that takes up time but doesn’t give you much value. Perhaps you’re on a team, or coaching something, or on a board or committee, or whatever. Something that you do each day or week or month that you don’t really want to do. Now take action today to drop that commitment. Call someone, send an email, telling the appropriate person or people that you just don’t have the time. You will feel relief. I’d recommend dropping all commitments that don’t contribute to your short list (from Item #1), but for today, just drop 1 commitment.
  3. Purge a drawer. Or a shelf, or a countertop, or a corner of a room. Not an entire room or even an entire closet. Just one small area. You can use that small area as your base of simplicity, and then expand from there. Here’s how to purge: 1) empty everything from the drawer or shelf or corner into a pile. 2) From this pile, pick out only the most important things, the stuff you use and love. 3) Get rid of the rest. Right now. Trash it, or put it in your car to give away or donate. 4) Put the stuff you love and use back, in a neat and orderly manner.
  4. Set limits. Basically, you set limits for things you do regularly: email, RSS posts, tasks, feeds, items in your life, etc. And try to stick with the limits. Today, all you have to do is set limits for a few things in your life. Tomorrow, try to stick with them.
  5. Simplify your to-do list. Take a look at your to-do list. If it’s more than 10 items long, you can probably simplify it a bit. Try to find at least a few items that can be eliminated, delegated, automated, outsourced, or ignored. Shorten the list. This is a good habit to do once a week.
  6. Free up time. Simplifying your life in general is a way to free up time to do the stuff you want to do. Unfortunately, it can be hard to find time to even think about how to simplify your life. If that’s the case, free up at least 30 minutes a day for thinking about simplifying. Or alternatively, free up a weekend and think about it then. How can you free up 30 minutes a day? Just a few ideas: wake earlier, watch less TV, eat lunch at your desk, take a walk for lunch, disconnect from the Internet, do email only once today, shut off your phones, do 1 less thing each day.
  7. Clear your desk. I can personally attest to the amazing feeling that a clean desk can give you. It’s such a simple thing to do, and yet it does so much for you. If your desk is covered with papers and notes and gadgets and office supplies, you might not be able to get this done today. But here are the basic steps: 1) Clear everything off your desk and put it in a pile (either in your inbox or on the floor). 2) Process the pile from top to bottom, one item at a time. Do not defer decisions on any item — deal with them immediately and quickly. 3) For each item, either file it immediately, route it to someone else, trash it, or note it on your to-do list (and put it in an “action” folder). If it’s a gadget or office supply, find a place for it in your desk drawers (or get rid of it). 4) Repeat until your pile is empty and your desk is clear. Be sure to get rid of any knick knacks. Your desk should have your computer, your inbox, perhaps a notepad, and maybe a family photo (but not many). Ahh, a clear desk! 5) From now on, put everything in your inbox, and at least once a day, process it in the same way as above.
  8. Clear out your email inbox. This has the same psychological effect as a clear desk. Is your email inbox always full of read and unread messages? That’s because you’re delaying decisions on your emails. If you have 50, let’s say, or fewer emails in your inbox, you can process them all today. If you have hundreds, you should put them in a temporary folder and get to them one chunk at a time (do 20 per day or something). Here’s how you process your inbox to empty — including emails already in your inbox, and all future incoming emails: 1) process them top to bottom, one at a time, deciding and disposing of each one immediately. 2) Your choices are to delete, archive, respond immediately (and archive or delete), forward (and archive or delete), or mark it with a star (or something like that) and note it on your to-do list to respond to later (and archive). 3) Process each email like that until the inbox is empty. 4) Each time you check your email, process to empty. Ahh, an empty inbox!
  9. Move slower. We rush through the day, from one task to another, from one appointment to another, until we collapse on the couch, exhausted, at the end of the day. Instead, simplify your life by doing less (see Items 1, 4 and 5) and doing them more slowly. Eat slower, drive slower, walk slower, shower slower, work slower. Be more deliberate. Be present. This isn’t something you’re going to master today, but you can start practicing today.
  10. Single-task. Instead of multi-tasking, do one thing at a time. Remove all distractions, resist any urge to check email or do some other habitual task like that while you’re doing the task at hand. Stick to that one task, until you’re done. It’ll make a huge difference in both your stress level and your productivity.

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