Getting your partner on the same page when you don’t see eye to eye?
So Last week I got a question that I’ve seen pop up again and again.
“How do I convince my partner of X”.
The goal might be different – anything from minimising, homeschooling, kids, traveling, careers, Tiny Houses and more. But the theme is the same. It says “I see a vision and my heart is open to the work and process of achieving it – but my partner doesn’t see the vision that I see. I see a way forward – but we don’t agree on moving that way”.
If this is you know I hear you. You are excited and burning with eagerness to achieve a vision – but so far not agreeing on this goal has perhaps caused confusion, tension or frustration. You desperately want to convince them to see your vision right?
Here is the thing – you are in this together. You NEED to be a team. That means you are both playing by the same game plan and aiming for the same goals. It’s not going to work if you are running around and kicking all the goals – but your partner is sitting cross-armed in the stadium as a spectator, right?
So how to start working together as a team? Start with aiming for the same goalposts.
Sit down together and talk about your short and long term goals. Where do you see yourselves as a family? As individuals? What about your career or financially? Write out where you want to end up. You need to have the same destination in mind.
Now work backward and work out the route to get there.
This is the part you get to start identifying all the things that are stopping you from getting there and start talking about your ideas on how to get there and why that solves a problem or achieves movement towards the goal.
You both have to be on the same page with the plan so you both need to clearly see the obstacles and the solutions.
It was about 4 years ago that my husband and I agreed to explore the idea of Tiny Houses.
We were at a point that we realised that working 9-5, to service a large mortgage for a big house full of clutter that had to be cleaned and maintained was NOT going to move us towards our goals. We had this overwhelming desire to be self sufficient and reduce the amount of house and stuff that needed time and energy.
The idea of Tiny Houses popped up and it just fitted in so perfectly. We spent the next 6 months researching and absorbing every bit of information about Tiny Houses that we could before we jumped in, bought our trailer and got started on our own DIY build over the following year.
I didn’t need to convince Jeremy of anything nor did he need to convince me of anything. Because we both had the same end goal in mind, could identify the same problems and we could see a potential solution to move forward.
I want to stress here that you need to get really clear about your goals.
This clarity will be essential to unite your visions and make important decisions about your project. And, when things go wrong (and they will) you will need this clarity to remind each other of why you are aiming for that goal post.
You and your partner are a team and you need to be headed in the same direction. If you can unite your vision for any goal you have then it becomes so much easier to discuss, plan and decide upon the process to get there. If you are both aiming for different goal posts though of course there will be fights about which way you are throwing the ball, right?
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