All Great Feats Are Accomplished One Small Step At A Time - Part 1
By Mort Fertel
Did you ever hear the Paul Simon song, "50 Ways to Leave Your Lover"? It's a humorous song about a not-so-funny subject (the break-up of Simon's marriage). I don't want you to hop on a bus or drop off your keys, but the song does make a good point about how to succeed in marriage.
See, the song's ultimate point is that once you make up your mind to do something, action is sure to follow. Whether you decide to leave or love, it's the decision that's most important.
Once the decision is in your head, there are 50 ways you could do either.
You want to save your marriage, right? Good; you know WHAT you want. The only question left is HOW.
HOW will you restore your marriage? Everyone WANTS to renew their marriage. But very few people have a clue how to go about it.
Let's be clear about one thing first. It happens through ACTIONS. You'll never be able to blab your way out of a situation you behaved yourself into. You must act.
Okay, but what actions?
Within the next 24 hours, I want you to try a "Talk Charge" and a "Touch Charge".
A Talk Charge is a 60 second positive verbal interaction with your spouse about a NON-LOGISTICAL matter. It's a fun or frivolous chat. And you do NOT need your spouse's cooperation. If necessary, you talk, they listen. A voice mail can even work.
A Touch Charge is similar, but it uses touch instead of talk. A Touch Charge is a loving physical gesture with your spouse. It's not foreplay or an advance for love making; it's just a warm touch for the sake of connecting in that moment.
I had private sessions with Cindy (not her real name). In one of our sessions, I noticed that Cindy was resistant to incorporating Touch Charges and Talk Charges into her relationship with her husband. She kept trying to change the subject. She said she wanted to discuss "bigger" matters. Eventually, Cindy told me why she didn't want to talk about Touch Charges and Talk Charges. "My marriage is horrible." Cindy said. "I need a BIG solution. I just don't think talking and touching is going to make a difference."
Cindy expressed a common thought, but she couldn't be more WRONG.
You can't turn your marriage around with one Herculean event. There's no gift you can give, favor you can do, or letter you can write. When your marriage is on the rocks, it's common to want to "microwave" it better. But you can't.
There's no quick fix. There's no one thing you can do or say that will turn things around. It took you years to get into this mess; it's going to take time for you to get out of it. And what's the way out? Listen carefully.
Failed marriages eventually succeed because at least one spouse commits to doing SMALL THINGS in great ways over an extended period of time.
Do you want REAL change in your marriage? Then establish the RIGHT HABITS and do them CONSISTENTLY. Talk and touch everyday for example.
Og Mandino says, "Take great comfort in knowing that ALL great feats are accomplished one small step at a time." TAKE THE SMALL STEPS! They make a BIG difference.
