December is a time for reflection but for many high performing leaders it is NOT! This is the case whether you celebrate Christmas or not. Because you are a successful High Performer and High Achiever, you don’t often find that time or you struggle to make that time because you are too busy making sure your team, your clients, your colleagues, your friends, your members, your family are catered for and are nurtured.

You yearn though, for the time to review the last 12 months especially because you have such a FAST paced and busy life.

You want to assess if how you led worked, your leadership style worked, you want to review your team’s performance and you want the time to plan ahead especially if you are a visionary entrepreneur you want to plan ahead before the Financial year ends.

You really desire a time to think of strategies on how to maintain the performance of your team if it has been high performing or if it has not to look at ways to improve upon it. So you can start the year strong and ENERGISED instead of burnt out.

However it has been the story of your life that each December when you think you can relax and rewind at home and reflect that is when the arguments with your partner starts.

Each December ever since you can remember you realise that while you are very successful in your Professional life, you actually feel a failure when it comes to your marriage or your long term relationship. 

That connection you had is not there.

You yearn for that connection.

And you wonder when did your relationship become so mixed up in confusion, chaos and conflict?

The partner you married is so distant. And you wonder, is it your ambitious nature that drove you apart in other words, your workaholism is damaging the marital bond?

And it is easier for you to blame your partner than actually look in the mirror and just for a second consider your long hours working resulting in the shituation you are in right now.

So it is not surprising that the impending Christmas holidays that most of the world look forward to, you actually dread. You dread having to live the lie of playing happy families and putting on the facade that it is merry and relaxing when inside you are screaming.

You yearn to learn a strategy of being with your partner in the holidays where you enjoy each other’s company instead of avoiding it or arguing constantly.

Although your fast paced professional life looks complex and hellish, to you it is far more simpler and pure heaven than the complex dynamics of your marriage.

You have coached colleagues, clients, congregants, friends and family members regarding their marital conflicts.And you seem to solve theirs and reveal so many insights for them.However when it comes to your own you find it is like a labyrinth of confusion, conflict and chaos.

The Dual Facade of Success

Success is a double-edged sword, and you sadly in public have to project that you are successful personally too. The reality is you have had this decades long marriage because you give your partner a lot of Space and vice versa.

However what lies underneath this decades long marriage is decades of resentment that you harbor and so many unexpressed feelings that you find difficult to express. Each time you do they choke in your throat and cannot come out or they come out as a tirade that you utterly regret.

As a high performing leader despite your public victories, you grapple with the disconnect between the public persona of your marriage and the private reality that it is full of ups and downs.

Wealth and Emotional Fulfillment

While you have amassed huge financial wealth and this financial prosperity is to your friends and colleagues, a marker of external success, you know that this wealth does not satiate the hunger for you having a fulfilling relationship with your partner.

You yearn to be fulfilled in your marriage. You yearn for these holidays to be like the early days when you first met. Before the children. Before Professional success.

The Challenge of going beyond personal development

For high performers, you are used to investing in personal development courses or going on spiritual retreats but investing in therapy or deeply transformative coaching you are reluctant to do. You once had therapy and it wasn’t a pleasant experience.  Your therapist sided with your parents and they were cold or clinical as hell. That does not mean that will be your experience this time.

And just because your partner is not into personal development does not mean all hope is lost. We can only change ourselves.

Perhaps this December this year, you can start searching for something beyond a do it yourself personal development course or a self help book. Perhaps this year you can consider that you invest in a Coach just for yourself that can be a mirror for you. Your partner is not mirroring you and you really want someone to show you your blindspots and to remind you not just of your weaknesses but your strengths. You yearn for another human to hold your hand and be a guide on the side as Marie Forleo says. I find as a Consultant to High Achievers that MULLING i.e trying to work out with another why you think your marriage is in the state it is in a very useful exercise.

Marital Struggles of Visionary Entrepreneurs, Change Makers, Disruptive Innovators and Innovative Leaders and Critical Thinkers

Whilst marital struggles are common amongst married couples, the stress that accumulates from the sheer amount of work you as a  high performer does often seeps into your marital life.

Sometimes slowing down and actually working less hours or working on less projects can help you examine the impact of your long working hours on your married life

Health and Wellness in the Limelight

Over the decades your pursuit of success has meant you have sacrificed your psychological, spiritual, emotional, physical and gut health and in particular the health of your marriage. Although some of the personal development techniques,strategies  and spiritual practìces that you undertake have helped you in crisis situations, you know they help you in a superficial and temporary way. They don’t seem to unearth the root causes of the disease and tension in your marriage.

 Overcoming Barriers to Unearth the cause of marital tension.

What really can unearth this, is when you give yourself time and space to face the tension head on and feel it instead of denying it or avoiding it or burying yourself in more work to distract yourself, then your shituation can change.

And how can you do that by entering therapy or embarking on a deeply transformative experience with a skilled professional who knows the difference between personal development, coaching and therapy but can also do all three.

The three are different but can together unearth the  cause of the tension.

Building Stronger Marital Bonds

Embarking on the emotional alchemy journey can really help you balance a demanding work life with the pressures of marriage and a family life. What do I mean by this journey? I mean sitting with these difficult emotions and sitting with your partner instead of avoiding the pain. Raising the standards you expect your partner to treat you and how you treat them also helps. When there have been arguments it can get ugly so not tolerating blaming and shaming. Spending time together by yourself just with your partner instead of at work is common sense but who said common sense was common. All these techniques enhance communication, empathy, and understanding within relationships.

So fulfillment in marriage can be attained when you give time and space to yourself and to your partner by slowing down and adopting a holistic approach. Only a holistic approach can guarantee that you find fulfillment in your work and in your personal relationships.