I think it is safe to say that our lives thrive on relationships. No, I do not necessarily mean romantic relationships by saying that, although they do count. What I mean is all the people in our lives. I have asked you many times in past posts to sit and think about your loved ones and this post is going to be no different. Think of all the people in your life no matter how big or small of a role they play. We get through life together. Even if we are anti-social and an introvert life is all about teamwork.

Let me provide a little context here. As I have mentioned a few times before work has been pretty crazy for me lately. I am temporarily working for a third advisor which means my work load has increased. My two permanent bosses have recognized this and have been doing everything they can to help me out through this process. Instead of them just giving me work, letting it pile up, and then if it takes me a little extra time to do asking why it isn't done,  they are both being really understanding about the whole thing. They are helping me out by doing some things I normally would for them themselves or if it is work for a joint client having the other advisor's assistant help out. All of these seem small but they have really added up to take a lot off my plate. My whole point in mentioning this is to show that the three of us work very well as a team. Do they have every right to just give me the work and expect it to get done no questions asked? Yes they sure do, but they do not and never have done that. I am sure a ton of people have bosses like that. I am pretty blessed to have the teamwork with mine that I do. 

Work is a pretty good example of where teamwork comes into play but it is of course not the only one. I would say there is teamwork involved in every relationship in your life. If you are in a serious romantic relationship that is a great example of a team as well. You have to work together to make the relationship work. Now I am no expert in the category of course and I am not going to claim to be, but each side is going to have to give and take a little. Usually to make a relationship work both sides are going to have to make sacrifices at some point. If one side is the one always making sacrifices and it is all give and no take, chances are that is not the healthiest romance and it likely is not going to work out in the long run. Friendships work the same way as well. Really any relationship in your life is going to work the same way. Each party needs to be contributing equally.

Now that I have talked about some specific examples of teamwork I want to again ask you to think about the relationships in your life. Be it professional or personal, think about how you interact with all of these people that play a part in your life. Is it give and take equally? Is one side more give and less take? If the answer to the second question is yes, how can you resolve that? Life is all about working together so if one side is doing more work the tug-of-war is inevitably going to crash to one side. Ask yourself how you can keep the little cloth tied to the rope right in the middle. Are you the one that is doing more taking and less giving? If so how can you fix that? Are you giving more than the other is? Think of ways to fix this as well. Sure you can't exactly go into work and start making demands to your boss but there are certainly ways to have a discussion with them if you are overwhelmed. If a friendship or relationship is one sided go ahead and discuss with them how you can make things work a bit smoother. Sometimes the best option in that case is to cut ties too. Think of all the ways you can try to bring a bit more balance in the teams of your life.

I am so incredibly thankful for each and every person in my life no matter how big or small their role may be. I love my job so much because of the teamwork we have to get things done every week. In fact my one boss even said a few weeks back that he doesn't think of him as my boss and that he more so thinks of us as a team. I like to think I have some pretty great teamwork with my parents too. I also have some very close friends that I would say our relationships are pretty balanced and our friendships are a team effort. Sadly there have been some relationships in the past that I recognized were not in sync, tried to fix them, but in the end decided to cut ties anyways. You are not a failure for doing so. Some people just don't always belong on the same team. Even in professional sports the players get traded around between teams. Do not think of this as a flaw. Focus on all the relationships you have been able to make work in your life and keep them this way. Your current teams are the most important of them all. Stay focused on keeping the balance and they are sure to thrive!