Help Your Spouse Realise Their Dreams
We run a small business in our home creating custom designed cookies. We launch our Christmas range as early as we can (normally mid-November) and we get booked out in a few days! The next three weeks are crazy as we bake, ice, decorate and package hundreds of biscuits for our loyal customers. We are up late almost every night, working 15 hour days, juggling kids, sourcing supplies, attending Christmas parties, school celebrations and trying to find any extra time for sleep.It's truly crazy. But because it helps pay for Christmas and a two week holiday in January it's worth it. Plus, people love it! But, even though Beck is the creative genius behind Crumb, I know I need to engage at a whole new level if we're going to survive December and get to Christmas with our sanity intact.Support your spouse. Encourage their dreams. Help them make their dreams happen! Put in the extra work to assist them.How do your strengths compliment one another? What are you good at that could release your spouse to do what they're good at? How could you encourage them to step out and do what's in their heart? What practical changes might you need to adapt to make this a reality?Here's what we recommend:
1. Communicate seasons of stress/extra work
When you're aware of any extra stress coming up, communicate it as early as you can. This helps your spouse manage expectations, prepare to take on more responsibility and help you whenever they can.
2. Ask how you can help
Brainstorm what you can both do, in your individual strengths, that will set it up for success. Depending on the dream you might need to tackle the finances, wrangle the kids more, do extra chores around the house or change your schedule to suit.
3. Go the extra mile
Only this week we had a small situation with a customer. The courier hadn't been booked (purely an oversight!) and the order was time sensitive. I grabbed the relatively small order, got in the car and drove the 90 minute round trip just so it didn't become another overwhelming challenge in my wife's mind. Success! Sometimes, in order to serve your spouse, you need to do whatever is necessary!Sometimes we'll even have a home date night (yes these are possible) and brainstorm business stuff together. It gives us a chance to connect and really lean on each other's strengths to find solutions to problems.NOTE: We do at times give our date nights a purpose (finances (see Barefoot Investor), kids, business, sex life) but we don’t recommend you do that all the time (similar to always watching movies together - get a break from that and enjoy conversation and laughter!)Help release your spouse into their dreams. Support them, give practical help and use your strengths to help them realise the dreams that are in their heart.