When I was recently working with a client couple I asked about their ongoing “homework” of sharing “daily gratitudes” with each other. This activity involves taking turns sharing one to three things that they each appreciate about their day, and ideally sharing at least one appreciation about the other. I emphasize the importance of giving the details of the why behind each shared gratitude, because that’s where the real juice is in feeling and receiving gratitude.

I had suggested this as homework for the past eight months because it quickly became apparent that they were more connected and harmonious when they committed to this brief but intentional activity every day.

This couple is in their early 40s and they’ve been married almost 10 years. During our session, the wife shared that she had just realized that this daily exercise was probably something they would need to do for the entirety of their marriage. She liked the activity and wasn’t disturbed by this thought, but hadn’t previously realized that that kind of commitment and repetition would be necessary for the ongoing health of their relationship.

The husband concurred and then compared it to exercising every day. Exactly. Just like you may work on aspects of your physical health every day or at least several times a week, exercises in emotional health are vital to overall well-being.

I really love this analogy because no one expects their body to just stay in shape or function well if they don’t put time, energy, and commitment into taking care of it. Our emotional health is no different. It requires time, energy, and commitment, as well as an openness to learning new skills and loads of compassion for all involved.

Sharing your “daily gratitudes” is one emotional skill-building exercise I suggest to clients. Other ones include melting hugs, transparency meetings, fantasy talks, using mindfulness tools, self-compassion processes, labeling and owning emotions, and requesting needs in a responsible way. Although you can’t fully understand these exact exercises by these brief names alone, I think you can see the variety and depth of the kinds of activities what could be part of your emotional workout.

This framework of a daily emotional workout is incredibly valuable for cultivating and maintaining healthy relationships. We can choose to view emotional awareness, effective communication, and healthy relationships as competences to be developed. And we can choose to approach this through a growth mindset instead of a fixed mindset.

Having a fixed mindset means that you believe that your skills and talent levels are relatively fixed and therefore aren’t worth working on and can’t be improved. To the contrary, a growth mindset is about believing that you can learn skills and strategies even when they are new and it feels difficult. Learning and growth are embraced instead of feared, trivialized, or ignored. This mindset includes ongoing compassionate self-reflection that aids in learning, seeing progress, and achieving goals. It’s about knowing that struggles are part of the process of helping you learn, grow, and become stronger in the area you’re committed to working on. In a partnership this also means believing that your partner is capable of change with the right strategies and effort, and that you’ll support each other towards success.

You can probably see how vital this mindset is to your willingness to even want to develop your emotional well-being.

A growth mindset allows space for mistakes to happen, yet you’re still committed to your daily emotional and relationship workout. We’re all imperfect humans, so you just need remember to get right back on track the next day. Your emotional health and relationship health rely on it. And therefore, your overall life happiness and fulfillment.

So…what’s your first step in committing to your daily emotional workout?

~Dr. Jenn Gunsaullus — San Diego Sociologist, Intimacy Speaker, and Communication Consultant