Why Contributing Helps Improve Our Relationships
META: To have the strongest relationships with other people, we need to be in the best frame of mind. Contributing helps to create a better mind-set, but why? Find out here.
If you are a person who values your relationships with other people, you will know how tough it can be to maintain this positivity. As life takes its toll on us, we can find ourselves unable to provide the same level of commitment to our relationships – personal and professional. However, by contributing to the success and progress of others, we can find that our relationships generally improve.
It does not even necessarily have to be a contribution to the person whom you have a relationship with. Simply contributing to something – a local event, a sports team, a charitable cause, a project, a fundraiser etc. – gives us a sense of personal peace. We know that we are helping to make the lives of others better, so we feel better about the person that we are.
Why, though, does contributing to something have an indirectly positive impact on our relationships?
The Impact of Contribution On Our Relationships
When we are focused on creating a balance between give and take, it can be much easier to develop positive relationships. People feel like we are someone who gives our time and effort to others, and thus they see us in a better light. When it feels like you only take from someone else, it is bound to impact the positivity of your relationship.
As mentioned, you do not have to give to that person, per se. Contributing to something makes us feel like a better person. We know that we are helping someone – or something – reach a better place in life. This brings out our skills, our passions, and our best thinking. People, therefore, see the selfless, caring side of you. Those of us who commit our time to helping others generally have better relationships.
Naturally, people want to be around those who do acts of kindness and help others. We want to be around people who make us feel positive, who help us to feel like we are being uplifted. Spending time around someone who is kind and selfless simply makes us feel better, too.
Inspiring Others And Strengthening Relationships
It can also encourage others to look at their own give-take relationships with others. This can encourage them to act more like you, and thus this creates a virtuous cycle where your act of giving inspires others to do the same.
Kindness also helps us to look beyond the issues and faults that we all have. If you make a mistake, but you are generally someone who gives their all for the benefit of others, mistakes are far less likely to be treated as a serious issue. As such, the more you give to others, the more they can overlook your mistakes. When we take, it is easier for people to see our mistakes in a more negative light.
Simply being able to contribute to something gives you a way to help remove the stresses and challenges that we face day-to-day. Having something to commit your energy towards can help to remove much of the negativity that can bleed into our personal and professional relationships.
Conclusion
Try contributing to something: even a local event that you are passionate about. You will find that the simple act of selfless contribution to help someone else, not yourself, has the indirect benefit of making you feel better about yourself. And when you feel better about yourself, the best version of yourself shines through.
People want to be around the best version of you, which improves your relationships. It also strengthens our relationships, as people see the good that we do and the mistakes we make.
So, try contributing to something – anything. You might be shocked at the benefits it brings to other aspects of your life, including the relationships that you hold dear.
