Here’s a quote that I want you guys to pin up on your board. You’re going to need it throughout your entire life. You’re going to need it in everything you do, from relationships to dating to work. Here’s the quote:

“Decide what you want, and learn how to ask for it.”

Think about it. You have to make a decision. What do you want? What do you want in a date? What do you want to get out of a date? What do you want in relationships? How do you want to be treated in a relationship? How do you want to be loved? How do you want to give love?

In work, you get to decide how to get a job, how to start a business, how to get clients, how you want your career shaped. The quote above works for everything. But, today, let’s focus in on how it works for relationships.

I truly believe we all have a blueprint, a blueprint on how we need to be loved, how we desire to be loved, and how being loved will satisfy us. All of us need to share this, whether you’re in a relationship or not in relationship. Communicate how you need to be loved. Are you somebody who likes to have sex for long periods, for lots of long, intimate sex sessions? Are you somebody who lives to travel with your partner? Are you somebody who likes deep conversations, and it’s really important? Are you somebody who is all about quality time, no distractions, hanging out? Are you someone that likes to have their head rubbed or their back rubbed?

Learn what you want, decide what you want, and learn how to ask for it.

We give each other the blueprint when we’re first dating, during that excitement phase, when we’re first hanging out with somebody. We tell them everything we need, because we truly trust and believe that this person, this new special person that we feel wonderful things for, really gives a shit and wants to please us, wants to learn, wants to know what we’re all about and how we desire to be loved. Then, in a perfect world, that person will actually do those things that are important to the other person.

The problem is that most relationships dissolve because the other person or both people stop doing the things that are most important to the other person due to whatever battlegrounds ruin those wishes.

Some of us actually suck at delivering what the other person needs. There’s a book called “The Five Love Languages,” which I’ve discussed before. It talks about learning your partner’s love language. Until you learn your partner’s love language, the relationship will be frustrating. Once you learn the love language, then every single day, you can go and do the things necessary. Every day you’ll be able to then do things that fill that person’s love tank. I believe it. I look at all my relationships and I realize the reason they weren’t successful because the woman I dated wasn’t getting their love tank filled, and my love tank wasn’t full either. The book’s great because it really talks about how, even when your love tank is empty, you can go and fill another person’s up, because somebody has to be full. And even though that other person may not react or fill up your love tank for a while, eventually that lover will, if they love you.

Self Love

Decide what you want, and learn how to ask for it. It’s pretty amazing. It’s pretty simple. I think the majority of relationships fail because the couple sits there like two stones on a couch, not reaching, not doing a thing, because the other person isn’t doing it. It all starts usually when one person or both people have really described what they wanted and the other person doesn’t deliver. We’re talking simple things usually what most of us want. I’ve had lots of relationship in my adult life, and it’s mostly simple things that people are asking for. The other person just doesn’t want to deliver. They can deliver for their kids, for their family members, and for their friends. Yet, with you, they won’t do it.

If the other person can’t fulfill yours or doesn’t want to, that could be the end. But you can decide what you want, and learn how to ask for it. Every day, you need to think to yourself, what can I do to fill my partner’s love tank up? You need to do it, otherwise you’re a phony. All those wonderful promises and all those wonderful emotions and wonderful feelings you make and have in the beginning of the relationship are just a facade. If you’re that lazy and that mean – and I’m referring to when people act in a very passive aggressive way to really hurt somebody – you really don’t deserve to have a wonderful relationship.

Relationships take work, and take effort. If you think the next one is magically going to be any better, you’re 100 percent wrong. Because what happens is, you’ll take the same behavior patterns, and lack compassion for the other person’s needs, wants, and desires, and you’ll repeat that same pattern for the next person. Life works that way. It’s really that easy. Decide what you want and learn how to ask for it.