You're not just marrying your Fiancé!

….. you are marrying into his or her family and it’s in everyone’s interest if you purposefully focus on building a positive relationship with them. 

Pre-wedding planning can often cause relationships to become strained.  However, this can also be an ideal time to put extra effort into ensuring you and your partner’s family get along together. The groundwork for a long and positive relationship is thus begun.

Your partner is very likely to feel loyalty towards their family so complaining about them is going to put him or her in a difficult position and potentially be faced with making a choice. Perhaps not the best way to show your partner how much you love them. 

Instead, why not focus on getting to know your new family, finding the value in what they bring to your life and the benefits of the relationship you and your partner can build with them.  It is likely to be a long one, like your marriage, so is worth cultivating.

When it comes to the wedding, if they offer advice or ideas – why not at least listen?  Thank them and promise that you will think about their suggestions.  If you were to take on board at least 10% of what they say, what could that be?  Make sure you get back to them and let them know. 

Think about what could be prompting their desire to be involved, rather than focussing on what you don’t like about what they’re saying.  Perhaps they are trying to escape their own issues and no doubt they want to feel useful and involved. Can you feel some compassion and gratitude?  

Often, interfering in-laws genuinely want to help, they just don’t know when to stop.  Remember – it’s not their fault if they don’t know your boundaries.  This is your opportunity, with your partner, to agree your boundaries and gently and patiently explain them to your in-laws.  This can be positive groundwork for the future.

For example - you’d love to speak to them regularly but can’t quite manage every day.  Twice a week would work though.  You’d love them to help with the wedding and would appreciate them taking on something specific.  Can you let go of a small part of the wedding and give it to them to be completely responsible for?  Will it really matter if the place cards are not exactly as you would like or the favours for the guests don’t quite colour coordinate with the flowers?  The benefit of your in-laws feeling valued and involved would outweigh any clash of colour or other mis-match!

Whilst this might feel like the most important day of your life, it is only one day.  Think beyond it and see how important your in-laws could be to your future – not just when you need to borrow money or are stuck for a babysitter but by being an important part of the support network for you and your new spouse.   Just as importantly, remember that they are responsible for nurturing the wonderful person you are about to marry. They must have done something right!

Will you settle for Excellence in 2013?

Hands up if you’re a perfectionist? I am – or rather – I used to be.

I used to think my need to be perfect came from my Father. There are only a few professions where anything less than perfection is completely unacceptable. Pilots and Air Traffic Controllers, for example, don’t have a lot of room for error in their work – my Father enjoyed both professions!

However, I can’t really blame Dad for my perfectionism. I remember him saying instead “I will be proud of you, as long as you do your best”. He never actually asked me to be perfect. I’m the only one who’s ever done that and although, for the most part, I’ve mastered that constraining facet of my personality, occasionally it does re-emerge.

I noticed three mistakes in our newsletter last month after it had gone out. Shock, horror – my initial reaction was to feel mortified. I had failed to be perfect.

Our need to be perfect is connected to how we want others to see us – we want to be liked, respected, valued, loved…..the list goes on. However, rather than assume people will judge me by the mistakes I make, I have learned to assume that they will see the good in what I do instead. This doesn’t mean that no-one will be judging me (or our newsletter!) and if they are, that’s their business. Worrying about it won’t help.

I’ve always been driven to achieve, however I now strive for excellence rather than perfection – not just in the results I aim for but in who I want to be en route to achieving them. By focussing on improving and making the most of the journey, I have gone on to achieve, not only many of the goals I’ve strived for, but also things I never even dreamed of. That’s been the prize for abandoning perfectionism.

Perfectionism is often the cause of procrastination and even stagnation. So many people are afraid to make a change in their life for fear of failure and so do nothing different. They become comfortable in their discomfort. Do you want that to be true of you in 2013? I certainly don’t.

Once you risk failure and take a step forward, you give yourself an opportunity. Ask Kath Grainger whether she would agree it was worth risking failure when she decided to continue towards her dream of an Olympic gold medal in London. The key is to learn from mistakes not dwell on them. “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work” said Edison.

These musings helped make the initial reaction to my mistake a distant memory. My preferred stance (and generally one I take more readily these days) is that I’m not settling for mediocrity but I am striving for excellence. In doing so, I stick my head above the parapet, take risks, sometimes make mistakes and, dare I say it, fail.

I see everything I do as an opportunity for learning and growth – whether it’s about the task at hand or my own personal development.

Now I can smile at my mistakes. I do pride myself on having a great eye for detail though. Maybe I need to encourage someone else in my team to proof read the newsletter next time. One of the typos was in a piece about our recent Christmas Networking Event. A colleague reminded me how successful the event had been. Who would remember the details of a piece in a newsletter when they have their experience of a great evening to remember? Good point.

I do still have that initial gut reaction – ouch – when I make a mistake, but it doesn’t last long. I just ask myself; did I at least take action, despite risking failure and did I do my best? For the most part, the answer is yes. Thanks Dad for your words of wisdom.