Life
5 Keys To Success In All Relationships

If you’d like to learn how to develop strong relationships with anybody so you can live a fulfilled life, sign up for the free 90-Day Master Class hosted by the founder of Addicted2Success.com, Joel Brown.
As entrepreneurs, we’re focused on our success, growth and evolution. But can we be truly successful if our relationships are suffering? Success is holistic, and if one area of our life is a weak link – be it health, wealth or relationships – all areas suffer.
The steps below give you a game plan for all types of relationships, including your intimate partner, work connections, and friendships. Remember that how we are in one relationship is how we are in all relationships.
Here are five ways to have success in all of your connections:
1. Know your patterns
Whether we’re speaking to a potential client, reaching out to an old friend or getting to know a new love, it’s crucial we understand our own relationship patterns. These are our factory sections which, if left unchecked, create chaos in our connection with others.
Are you prone to overgiving? Are you someone who struggles to ask for support? Do you lone-wolf it and go it alone without asking for help? Or do you overwork, ignore your relationships, and then find yourself alone during birthdays and milestones?
By having deeper self-awareness around our relationship patterns, we arm ourselves with the information on what unhealthy behaviour is our default. Once we know this, we can change it. We can also become aware of which patterns cause a strong emotional response within us.
2. Know your triggers
While we have patterns, we also have emotional sore points in our interpersonal dynamics. For example, if we have a pattern of not asking for help, it’s likely we will then have an emotional trigger with a friend, brand sponsor, or fellow entrepreneur when we feel we have been giving to the relationship and not receiving in return.
When we know our triggers, we can critically and logically look at an upsetting situation and decide which part is our “stuff” and which part actually needs to be addressed with the other person. It also helps us to explain who we are and what we need. How we communicate this need will differ from relationship to relationship.
For example, asking for what we need from a friend will sound very different to when we voice this to a collaborator or an employee. The phrases, words, and emotions will differ. This is known as healthy social coding. We know what is appropriate in different types of relationships.
“You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you.” – Dale Carnegie
3. Master your emotions
The key to success in all relationships isn’t having perfect boundaries or an impeccable dating strategy. It’s about emotional regulation. In other words, having the ability to create a gap between feeling the trigger from an interaction and choosing your response. How often do we say reactive words in anger only to regret them later?
Perhaps you’ve done this when a comment on Instagram really got under your skin. You reacted, and did irreparable damage to the relationship (and perhaps to your reputation). Emotional regulation is often misunderstood, particularly in the entrepreneurial space. By being a “stoic” and maintaining your composure – in England we call this the “British stiff upper lip” – it’s possible you are bypassing what you are truly feeling.
To master our emotions we need to understand where the emotion came from. Feelings are feedback. And, it goes back to our experience as children. Did you have a critical teacher who called you out in front of class, leaving you feeling humiliated and angry? Is it possible that person who slid into your DMs had the same tone, and it reminded you of that event all those years ago? Get curious about the origin of your emotions. This is how we master them.
4. Take a flexible approach to boundaries
By following the steps above, you will now have a solid idea of what you need from your relationships, as well as what you will not tolerate. Here’s the tricky part, though. Setting a rock-solid boundary and laying down the law doesn’t exactly endear us to anyone. Aggressive boundary-setting says, “This is what I need, and what you need doesn’t matter.”
Whether we’re talking lovers, friends or clients, ruling with an iron fist won’t help us. Instead, take a softer approach to boundaries. Seek to understand the other person, and what caused them to speak or act in the way they did. It could be the situation rubbed up against core wounds for both of you, leaving you both triggered. Emotional triggers release stress hormones and temporarily intoxicate us, preventing us from thinking clearly. Simply put, we’re not our best selves when we’re triggered.
This is why it’s less about boundaries and more about a genuine desire to understand each other. Again, the words we use will change depending on the relationship. To our friend or lover we might say, “Hey, this reminded me of something that happened when I was a kid, and it was hard for me.” To a sponsor or collaborator, it may sound like, “I found this very difficult on a personal level. I’m certain we can find a way to move forward and continue to collaborate. Would you agree? Okay great, let’s talk about how to make that happen.”
“Some of the biggest challenges in relationships come from the fact that most people enter a relationship in order to get something: they’re trying to find someone who’s going to make them feel good. In reality, the only way a relationship will last is if you see your relationship as a place that you go to give, and not a place that you go to take.” – Tony Robbins
5. Do the relationship-specific healing
Just as you hire a business coach to refine your business strategy and a nutritionist to eat the best foods for your body, it’s also important to find the right expert for your relationship healing. And yes, relationship healing is different from personal development and general coaching. It’s specific.
Find someone who will help you to dive deeper into where you’re currently at, what you need in relationships, and how to get you there. Consider seeing a coach or therapist one-to-one to work through any challenges you are experiencing in your personal or professional interactions.
My hope is these five steps helped you understand yourself at a deeper level, made you curious about your own relationship patterns, and gave you practical steps to improve your relationships in every area of your life. After all, true success is success on all levels.
What characteristics do you think make the best relationships? Share your thoughts with us below!
Life
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Life
5 Indicators of Unresolved Attachment Trauma

Trauma caused during specific stages of a child’s development, known as attachment trauma, can have lasting effects on a person’s sense of safety, security, predictability, and trust. This type of trauma is often the result of abuse, neglect, or inconsistent care from a primary caregiver.
Individuals who have not fully processed attachment trauma may display similar patterns of behavior and physical or psychological symptoms that negatively impact their adult lives, including the choices they make in relationships and business.
Unfortunately, many people may not even be aware that they are struggling with trauma. Research estimates that 6% of the population will experience PTSD in their lifetime, with a majority of males and females having experienced significant trauma.
Unresolved attachment trauma can significantly impair the overall quality of a person’s life, including their ability to form healthy relationships and make positive choices for themselves. One well-known effect of unhealed attachment trauma is the compulsion to repeat past wounds by unconsciously selecting romantic partners who trigger their developmental trauma.
However, there are other less recognized but equally detrimental signs of unprocessed developmental trauma.
Five possible indications of unresolved attachment trauma are:
1. Unconscious Sabotage
Self-sabotage is a common pattern among individuals with unprocessed attachment trauma. This cycle often begins with hurting others, which is then followed by hurting oneself. It is also common for those with attachment trauma to have heightened emotional sensitivity, which can trigger this cycle.
This pattern can manifest in lashing out, shutting down, or impulsive behavior that leads to feelings of guilt, shame, and self-loathing.
Many people with attachment trauma are not aware of their wounds and operate on survival mode, unconsciously testing or challenging the emotional investment of those around them, and pushing them away out of self-preservation and fear of abandonment.
This can lead to a pattern of making poor choices for themselves based on impulsivity.
3. Behaviors That Block Out Trauma
4. A strong need for control
5. Psychological Symptoms That Are Not Explained
What to do next if you’re suffering from emotional attachment trauma?
There are several ways that people can work to overcome emotional attachment trauma:
- Therapy: One of the most effective ways to overcome emotional attachment trauma is through therapy. A therapist can help you process your experiences, understand the impact of your trauma on your life, and develop coping strategies to manage symptoms.
- Support groups: Joining a support group of people who have had similar experiences can be a great way to find validation, empathy, and a sense of community.
- Mindfulness practices: Mindfulness practices such as meditation, pilates, prayer time with God or journaling can help you become more aware of your thoughts, emotions, and physical sensations, and develop a sense of spiritual connection and self-regulation.
- Trauma-focused cognitive-behavioral therapy (TF-CBT): This is a type of therapy that is specifically designed to help individuals process and recover from traumatic events.
- Building a safety net: Building a support system of people you trust, who are there for you when you need them, can help you feel more secure and safe in your life.
It’s important to remember that healing from emotional attachment trauma is a process and it may take time. It’s also important to find a therapist who is experienced in treating trauma, who you feel comfortable talking with, and who can help you develop a personalized treatment plan.
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