Written by: Ethel Hagonka Daka, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
When you're caught up in the excitement of your wedding, it can be hard to imagine that you and your spouse might not live happily ever after. The joy, the excitement, and the expectations are just on point, all headed for happiness. However, whether you think about it or not, your marriage needs your input for it to work.
I have never met a spouse who does not care about their marriage, both male and female. Everyone desires to have a certain standard and success in marriage. However, this will not happen miraculously, spouses need to be intentional about having that desired marriage.
Wishing for a beautiful marriage does not amount to having one. Time and effort will be required of every spouse who desires peace, love, and a strong successful marriage. It’s a great joy to have your marriage stable and a great joy to reap the fruits of your labor.
Let us have a step by step look at how to achieve the success every spouse desires in marriage:
1. Be Specific: What specifically do you want to improve or achieve in your marriage? Is it the disclosure of finances? it is better communication? is it spending more time together? it is raising your children in a certain way?
Avoid ending at, “I want a happy marriage, I want a better marriage.” What is a happy marriage? what does it mean to you to have that marriage? Generalization yields no results.
2. Fit your goals together: Break your goals into smaller pieces, you can’t fix your marriage overnight. It is easier to eat your bread slice by slice as opposed to trying to swallow the whole loaf at once. Align your desires to make sure that one action to achieve one goal does not frustrate the other.
Know who are you and what are you becoming as you move towards your beautiful outcome. Remember that you still have an identity to keep and build.
3. Positivity is Key: Most times spouses focus on what they don’t want to try and achieve what they want. There is nothing wrong with knowing what you do not want, it helps to know what not to do. However, spending so much time thinking about what you do not want and what you want to avoid drains the energy in you that would have otherwise been used to accomplish what you want and need.
You are the same person, using the same energy for different activities, hence, if you waste your energy on what you do not want, there might be non-left to achieve what you want, or at least it would be less than it should have been.
Your focus drives your activities, and your activities build the result. Focus on what you want than what you do not want. Imagine studying for an exam by focusing on the possible wrong answers that you do not want to choose. When are you going to study the answers needed?
4. Put your Resources Together: What do you have to help you achieve your success? Before looking for other resources, remember that you have yourself; the greatest resource. Present yourself ready to win your battle, set your personality right, and work on your habits. Remember that it is the habits that build your character and success in your marriage will not miraculously happen without a well-built character.
Keep learning; your marriage requires you to continuously learn how to do something right, both new and old. You will need to learn about your partner over and over because people do not stay the same for the rest of their lives. Habits change, likes and dislikes will also change and beliefs may also change. It is, therefore, imperative to keep yourself within a radius where learning can reach you.
You can also learn through books and seminaries and from your role models. There are a lot of people that have successfully driven their marriages and there is no harm in learning one or two things that they have done differently.
However, be watchful because people in our lives sometimes, unknowing and unconsciously try to sabotage our efforts in building success in marriages. They do not intentionally do that; they genuinely love us and do not want us to go through some trouble. However, they forget that for us to succeed, we need to put in some effort.
5. Opportunity Cost: What are the wider consequences of what you are aiming to build? What is the opportunity cost for that? What will you have to give up to achieve what you want for your marriage? Is it Pride? Is it Friends? Is it being right?
The greatest deceit is thinking that you can have anything without paying a price. It is said you can have anything you want if you are prepared to pay for it. Even Christ had to pay a price to get back his creation after sin, what about you and I? Check your pride, it is good for progress? Check your company/friends, it is good, or is it there for more destruction?
6. Control: What and how much is under your direct control? As much as spouses need to work as a team to build their marriage, it is not always the case. Sometimes depending on your spouse may be a recipe for more destruction. In this case, choose your resources and timing rightly so that your efforts do not go to waste.
Secondly, ask yourself sincerely if you can start and maintain what you want? Sometimes we want things we cannot contain. Let’s say you want to achieve total disclosure between you and your spouse, would you take it if your spouse told you they helped someone when deep inside you, you have needs that have not been met?
Analyze your desire deeply so that even as you are set to achieve it, your character is molded to sustain the same. Otherwise, what you thought would be great may turn out to be more detrimental to your marriage than its absence.
7. Action plan: What to do next? You have established what you want and what you will use to achieve to achieve that beautiful marriage. How do you move forward every single day? How will you know that you are making progress and headed towards achieving your dream marriage? how do you know how to keep yourself on track? Know exactly how to accomplish what you want (where, when, and with whom)
Begin the process, thinking about it, and planning it is not enough. If you require more disclosure with your spouse, decide what you will disclose first to them, when, and where? Change begins with you. If you require to raise your children a certain, begin to let your spouse know without having them guess.
Your marriage is in your hands, the power lies within yourself!
Be Marriage Smart, Be Love Smart!
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Ethel Hagonka Daka, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Ethel Hagonka Daka is a marriage coach, Writer, and founder of Vinthel marriage solutions. Ethel is driven by her passion, mission and vision to see better marriages and fulfilled spouses.
She is dedicated to helping couples be drivers of their own marriages other than them being passengers.
Through coaching and writing, Ethel helps spouses and couples to master their marriages so as to experience fulfilment even as they journey in the art of love and commitment towards one another.
She is a stronger believer that marriage is beautiful, can be made better and enjoyable provided that spouses apply the necessary ingredients.
