Ten Commitments to Your Success by Steve Chandler - Commitment Number Seven - To Your Partner - "We waste time looking for the perfect lover, instead of creating the perfect love." - Tom Robbins - If you have a partner right now, stop judging and evaluating that partner. Stop critiquing and keeping score. Stop holding up judges' cards and calling out numbers. Just appreciate and let live. "The deepest craving in human nature," said William James, "is appreciation." Without a commitment to appreciation of your partner, the relationship goes out of control, and control is what you want. Not control of your partner, but control of how you feel about her. As far as your relationship with your partner is concerned, you will want to make the differences you can make, and not the differences you would like to make but can't. It's the giving of appreciation you can control, not the getting. So forget about the getting. That will happen on its own. You don't need to push the river. Or, to rush in on the wave of another metaphor, if you pull up on the seat while the airplane is lifting off you don't help it lift off one bit. Always focus on what you can do something about. "But what if she keeps criticizing me?" Trent asked me one day as we were discussing how his wife was making his relationship almost impossible to enjoy. "It's a partnership, not a judging contest," I said. "Back off and she will back off." "She starts it." "It doesn't matter, just back off and hook into your higher spiritual purpose, to serve and celebrate everyone you love and care for, your partner, your family, your friends and your customers, internal and external." "What if it doesn't work?" "It works. I've tried it." "What if I relapse?" I almost told Trent to "be patient." But because of what I have learned and applied from Shrunyu Suzuki, I told Trent to "be constant." Suzuki said, in Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, "The usual translation of the Japanese word nin is 'patience,' but perhaps 'constancy' is a better word. You must force yourself to be patient, but in constancy there is no particular effort involved-there is only the unchanging ability to accept things as they are." Trent is like so many of my coaching clients who use a segment of their session for family issues, especially when those issues are getting in the way of career focus and success. Often it's about a partner. A wife, or husband, or any kind of life partner. I am not a marriage counselor, so I simply use the same advice I give for professional relationships that are not working. It seems to get good results. It can be summed up in two words: "Stop disagreeing." My client named Boris came to me once with a problem he was having with his reputation at work. Boris was a CEO whose employees didn't trust him. They didn't trust his requests to be open and forthright with him. It showed up on the employee surveys. So I decided to get to the bottom of this. I followed Boris around for a few work days, sitting in meetin...

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