10 Life Skills To Explore Before Starting A New Relationship
Photo by Anastasia Vityukova on Unsplash
If you are single and want to be in a relationship, the best thing you can do is focus on becoming the person who is worthy of the person you want to date.
No one enters a relationship being perfect. No one checks off every box of the desirable traits in a romantic partner checklist.
Everyone is traveling through life, so no matter who you are, you’ll arrive at any relationship with some baggage that you’ll eventually need to unpack and examine if the relationship is going to work out.
It was that way for my wife and me. We met when we were 18 and we started dating a year later. We got married right after we turned 23 so we didn’t have time to master every skill in the book before we jumped in. We had to adjust along the way.
If that isn’t your story, that isn’t a bad thing. We often consciously or unconsciously push single people towards relationships without ever really stopping and encouraging them around the beauty of their season of singleness.
If you aren’t in a relationship, you have an opportunity to grow and mature in who you are before you introduce all of the complications that relationships inevitably bring.
Because here’s the secret that every romantic comedy doesn’t want you to know: relationships don’t complete you. They don’t magically remove all of your insecurities or cover up all of the negative consequences of your bad habits.
Therefore, if you have some space before starting a relationship, you can use that time to focus on becoming the best man or woman you can be. That way, when you meet your special someone, you can give them the best of yourself.
Here are 10 life skills that are great to work on before jumping into a serious relationship.
1. How to be comfortable with silence
Silence can be unnerving, so learning how to be comfortable in the quiet is a great skill. Being comfortable with silence means that you don’t always have to add your input to a conversation, but that you can listen on purpose.
It also shows that you can be comfortable in your own skin.
2. How to balance a budget
Money matters. 55% of Americans have credit card debt. 58% of Americans have less than 1,000 in savings. Some people fall into this category because they are living paycheck to paycheck just scraping by.
Most however are in these circumstances because they don’t know how to budget as a result, overspend. Your skills with money follow you into any relationship you are in.
When I first graduated college, I took a one-year paid internship where I barely made over $20,000 for the year. I had to learn how to budget and track every single purchase. I made a spreadsheet that I have tweaked and adjusted over the years that my wife and I now use to keep track of our finances.
3. How to work hard
There is a difference between hard work and working hard. Learning how to work hard is an invaluable skill and is ultimately something you will need to learn to sustain any successful relationship in the long-run.
If you can get some practice working hard under your belt before you get into a serious relationship, your partner will feel so comfortable knowing that you know how to put the work into making something great.
4. How to manage your calendar
Have you ever noticed that everyone is always busy? We as a society are suffering from a chronic issue of time-management. Over the last two decades, working time has increased by 15% and leisure time has decreased by 33%.
Really investing in a serious relationship is timely. Learning how to manage your calendar when you are single will greatly improve your odds at learning how to have healthy boundaries in all areas of your life once you start dating.
5. How to change a tire
It’s great to know how to get your hands dirty. If something breaks, it is possible for you to fix it. In an age of experts and specialization, it’s easy to fall into the trap of relying on the quick fix rather than learning how to do the heavy lifting yourself.
When I was 15, my dad taught me how to change a tire in our front yard. He didn’t just impart a practical skill but put the idea into my head that it’s important to know how to just do basic stuff like that. I learned how to change my own headlights and my own oil. I learned how to put together my own furniture. Recently, I learned how to change all the fans and light fixtures in our house.
Don’t become dependent on the shortcut. Learn how to be self-sustainable in some of the basic areas of life.
6. How to make a good home-cooked meal
It is hard to put into words the immense value of a good home-cooked meal. Sharing a meal together with others has been a sign of hospitality, community, and purposeful relationship for literally thousands of years.
There’s no reason why you shouldn’t be able to at least cook one good dish for friends and family when they visit. It just requires a little effort and a little practice.
7. How to write a letter to a friend
This skill is multi-faceted. First, it teaches you how to think about and express your emotions. Second, it teaches you to slow down because writing a letter takes time. Third, it teaches you to place value on your friendships by challenging you to not only keep in touch but to actively think about your friends more frequently than the occasional text.
When I was in college, I would pick 6 friends each summer and I would commit to writing them a letter every week of the summer. I told them I would write to them consistently regardless of if they ever wrote me back. Now, 10 years later, I still get occasional texts from those friends saying how grateful they were for that practice.
8. How to process through your emotions
Speaking of emotions, learning how to evaluate and judge your own emotions is one of the most treasured skills when looking to start a new relationship. Emotions are valid and need to be taken seriously. However, they are not always true.
Learning how to admit that you have emotions without validating every emotion is crucial. You can be sad without being a bad friend. You can be happy at your success without being an egotistical jerk.
9. How to release stress (how to have a hobby)
Many people make the mistake of giving up their hobbies when they start new relationships. Dating does take time so you may not be able to go play golf every weekend. However, your hobbies are often your opportunities to release stress which is a vital skill for helping you remain healthy.
If you have time, learn how to have a hobby without committing your whole life to it.
10. How to celebrate someone else
Dating and serious relationships are ultimately long examples of learning how to love and celebrate someone else more than you celebrate yourself. Therefore, if you still think that the world revolves around you, you may want to work on learning how to celebrate your friends or family before jumping into anything too serious with a romantic partner.
You don’t have to celebrate others to the exclusion of taking care of yourself. It really comes down to: do you think of yourself more than you think of others or do you think of others more than you think of yourself?
Aim to be well-rounded
The goal of this list is not that you would become an expert at all 10 skills before you start dating. If that were the case, you would never start another relationship again.
Instead, the goal of this list is to encourage you that if you are single and looking to start a new relationship, to see if there are any skills such as are on this list that you can focus on improving. The best news of all is that all of your personal growth will not only strengthen your own personal character but will also add more value to any relationship you may step into.
After being married for five years, I look back on the time I spent before I started dating my wife and I wish I would have been more mature in some of these areas and skills. I wish I would have known how to better process my emotions or how to be comfortable with silence.
I didn’t take that opportunity to grow in those areas before I started dating, so if you can take that opportunity, by all means, explore away.