Know Your Expectations

Before you can see how aligned you two are on your “must-have” expectations, it’s important first to understand what’s really important for the two of you, so you can articulate  those “must-haves” to each other. For instance, if it’s extremely important to you to have children, but the person you’re dating absolutely doesn’t want to have kids, then you two are at considerable risk that this difference could become a problem if you decide to stay together in the long term.

To help you better understand what’s important to you as it may relate to your relationship, Relationship Workout segments expectations into two areas to explore:

• Needs & Wants: This includes the core 20 fundamental areas that influence all of our lives.
• Passions & Convictions: These “electives” include additional areas that can be important to a person, which includes one’s passions and convictions.

Your first step is to complete both of these exercises. Make sure to be completely honest in your answers.

Share Your Expectations

It’s especially important that you two honestly share and discuss those areas that come up for you as:

• Undecided meaning you don’t know how you feel about the answer to the question, and
• Must Have where either of you are highly attached to an expectation.

You want to uncover as early as possible any misaligned expectations to you can see if there are any showstopper incompatibilities sooner versus later.

On the other hand, if there aren’t any showstopper incompatibilities, then celebrate that at least in these questions you two seem compatible.

Learn more by checking out Core #5 Alignment in the Relationship Workout Master Class.