6 Mistakes We Make in Relationships & 4 Ways to Make Them Right

Do you want to meditate daily with me? Go to go.calm.com/onpurpose to get 40% off a Calm Premium Membership. Experience the Daily Jay. Only on Calm Being too critical about the things your partner does, unknowingly, makes you the toxic person in the relationship. When you get the same treatment from your partner, you often feel unappreciated and unloved without realizing that you’ve been doing the same thing to them. As this cycle continues, the foundation crumbles and the relationship inevitably fails. In this episode of On Purpose, Jay Shetty explains the mistakes we often make in our relationship and how we should be mindful of our actions to strengthen it. Want to be a Jay Shetty Certified Life Coach? Get the Digital Guide and Workbook from Jay Shetty https://jayshettypurpose.com/fb-getting-started-as-a-life-coach-podcast/ Key Takeaways: 00:00 Intro 01:47 The common relationship mistakes we make 03:53 Mistake #1: Being too critical to our partner 07:42 Instead of criticizing, get creative in removing complaints 09:42 Mistake #2: When jokes go too far 14:57 Mistake #3: We become deflective, we become defensive 17:35 Mistake #4: Disconnecting or becoming aloof 19:41 Mistake #5: You focus on the value displayed in the moment 22:13 Mistake #6: Our partners aren’t our coaches Like this show? Please leave us a review here - even one sentence helps! Post a screenshot of you listening on Instagram & tag us so we can thank you personally! See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Jay Shetty?

  This episode is brought to you by AG1. Are you feeling September reset too? Shorter days, longer to-do lists, earlier alarms, all those routines you promised yourself you'd pick back up. It can feel like your whole life is recalibrating. And when everything around you is changing, it helps to have a few things you can rely on. AG1 Next Gen is one of those easy habits to keep. It's the clinically-backed, comprehensive daily health drink that supports your gut health, energy production, and foundational nutrition all in one scoop. AG1's ingredients are sourced from quality partners for absorption, potency, and nutrient density to deliver the foundational nutrition your body needs. And alongside a proper diet,

• 0:44Jay Shetty?

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• 1:30Jay Shetty?

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• 2:16Jay Shetty?

  And when everything around you is changing, it helps to have a few things you can rely on. AG1 Next Gen is one of those easy habits to keep. It's the clinically backed, comprehensive daily health drink that supports your gut health, energy production, and foundational nutrition all in one scoop. AG1's ingredients are sourced from quality partners for absorption, potency, and nutrient density to deliver the foundational nutrition your body needs. And alongside a proper diet, AG1 Next Gen meets 94% of nutrient requirements and is clinically shown to enrich the gut microbiome. For a limited time, save 20% on your first subscription order of AG1 Next Gen or AG1

• 2:59Jay Shetty?

  Pro at drinkag1.com/onpurpose. That's drinkag1.com/onpurpose. It's not the big things that destroy relationships. It's the accumulation of small, everyday things.

• 3:25Jay Shetty?

  Hey everyone, welcome back to On Purpose. I'm Jay Shetty and I love getting to record these for you. I feel so grateful that you lend me your ears for a few hours every week so that we can find that inner clarity, that inner stillness, that space to reflect, to think, and to make decisions. When we're running around, when we're chasing a result, when we're caught up in the hustle and bustle and the hectic nature of our lives, we get more tired, we make poorer decisions, and then we often feel confused and constrained.

• 4:10Jay Shetty?

  But this time that we take out every week, don't underestimate it. Don't underestimate it. It's so powerful, this investment that you make in yourself every single week.

• 4:22Jay Shetty?

  Thank you. And make sure you thank yourself honestly, because it takes a lot that you chose growth over some immediate gratification. You chose development over some distraction. You chose education and enlightenment over some brief entertainment. And I hope I make these entertaining too, but genuinely, just take a moment to acknowledge that. I know you're being hard on yourself. I know some of you are judging yourselves. Take a moment to recognize what incredible investments you're making in yourself. Now, today, we're talking about the six relationship mistakes we make.

• 5:02Jay Shetty?

  And these happen in love, these happen with our friends, these happen all around. And I want to speak to these six because they're often missed, skipped, forgotten, overlooked, because it's not the big things that destroy relationships. It's the accumulation of small, everyday things. When you see a relationship break down, whether it's a divorce or a breakup, a lot of the times our reaction is like, "Oh my gosh, I didn't see that coming. I can't believe it. I thought they were really happy." And then we think, "Well, what could have happened all of a sudden? Like, what made that happen?"

• 5:45Jay Shetty?

  The answer is never one big thing. It's lots of small, tiny things that compounded to lead to that. I saw this amazing video on social media the other day, and it looked like it was from an area with natural rock and water. And it was showing how, at different years, how much a few drops of water eroded the rock. So five years, 25 years, 50 years, and you could see how in five years, the water was slightly eroding the rock. Then in 25 years, it was a bit deeper, and then in 50 years, it was deep, almost like a waterfall.

• 6:30Jay Shetty?

  And it was incredible to see how that accumulation creates impact over time. So these six things may seem insignificant. They may seem small.

• 6:43Jay Shetty?

  They may seem like, "Oh, it's not a big deal." And it's like, "Yeah, on its own, it's not a big deal." But when they're put together, they're a huge deal. And these huge deals become deal breakers, right? These small deals that get added up to become big deals become deal breakers. The first mistake we make in relationships is being overly critical and complaining about our partners. How many of you, be honest, raise your hands, say something critical to your partner on a monthly basis? Keep your hand up if you say something critical about them to them on a weekly basis.

• 7:28Jay Shetty?

  Now, you look really weird because you're walking around with your hand up, but it's okay. You're listening to my podcast. You can tell people that. Keep your hand up if you say something critical to your partner every day. Maybe it's like, "Well, you never get the dishes done. You always leave this out." That's a complaint, but often it's followed up with some criticism. And there's a difference between criticism and complaining. Nagging your partner if they're making a mistake, there's better ways of going about it, but that's not criticism. Criticism is when you say, "You're so unorganized. You're so late all the time. You're such a distracted person." Notice how there's a difference between saying,

• 8:09Jay Shetty?

  "Hey, the dishes are left out," versus, "You're always distracted. You're always looking for the easy way out." A criticism is when you are talking about that person and there is no distinction between that person and the issue. You're saying, "That's who they are, not that's what they do." A complaint is when it's like, "I'm complaining because I don't like this." Criticism is, "I don't like this about you." Notice the difference between, "I don't like this," versus, "I don't like this about you." It's a lot harder to take when that criticism compounds.

• 8:49Jay Shetty?

  Now, this is so easy to fall into a trap of because we are not used to understanding that people are different from their traits. They existed before that trait. They may let go of that trait one day and they'll still exist afterwards. And what we don't realize is that's because we don't free ourselves from recognizing we're different to our traits. For example, we say things like, "I'm so unorganized, I'm the worst, I'm just always unfocused," right? We're saying, "I am unfocused, I am distracted, I am unorganized." No, the truth is, you've just developed unorganized habits.

• 9:34Jay Shetty?

  The truth is, you've just become used to and conditioned to be distracted. You are not distracted as an individual, you've just developed certain habits. And so, in the same ways we're tough on ourselves, we're tough on our partners. And often, the criticism that we share with our partners is somewhere being triggered from somewhere inside where we're unhappy with ourselves. The issues we notice in them are so often the issues we have within ourselves. We're upset at ourselves for being unorganized.

• 10:16Jay Shetty?

  And so, when we see our partners wasting time, we clamp down on them and say, "You always waste time, you're such a time waster." And deep inside, we're talking to ourselves. How many of you have had this experience? Where in reality, you are talking to yourself, you're talking about yourself. I know it's a hard one to stomach, but it's true. Think about the last criticism, not a complaint. Remember, complaints are normal and there are healthier ways to complain. But when we're being critical, we have to realize that we've gone down a different path. So how can we first evolve our criticism to being complaining? That's the first step.

• 10:59Jay Shetty?

  Instead of criticizing, let's complain. We can all make that step. Instead of telling them that they're time wasters, instead of telling them that they're useless, instead of telling them that they're unfocused or unorganized or distracted, let's tell them that we don't like that this is happening. It's not the best, but it's healthier. And then let's evolve one step further, where we get creative. Where we get creative about scheduling opportunities to remove complaints. We get creative around dividing responsibilities so we don't need to complain. We get creative around our commitment to each other and what we expect from each other. Criticism chips away at someone. They may not say it.

• 11:42Jay Shetty?

  They may not understand it. They may not recognize it, but it chips away. As it chips away, again and again and again, it slowly weakens a relationship. You may think, "I've only said it three times." For them, it might have tipped them over the edge. You may say, "Oh, I didn't mean it. You know, I'm not saying it like that." But they didn't take it like that. It's so important to recognize criticism does not fit into a long-lasting relationship. And for those of you that have been dealing with criticism, you fighting back with criticism doesn't work either. And you staying silent doesn't work either.

• 12:26Jay Shetty?

  You can actually rise to be constructive and say, "How can we improve this? What steps can we take to constructively make this better? What are the actions that I can take, that we can take together to construct a better environment for both of us, to make you feel better, to make you feel different?" So there's another step that you can take in being constructive. So that's number one, criticism. The second... Is a really interesting one because sometimes it's seen as a sign of love because it's joking. But this is where jokes go too far. It's like sarcasm. Maybe it's passive aggressive comments.

• 13:09Jay Shetty?

  There's that feeling of trying to hit at something and poke at something deep inside that person or important to that person. And it starts as a joke, right? They always say there's some truth behind a joke. But when you're using a joke, when you're using sarcasm to communicate it because you don't want to communicate it through an adult, mature conversation. How many times, again, be honest, how many times have you used a joke as a way of trying to get a point across to someone or use sarcasm like, "Oh yeah, that's what I expected" or you say something like, "Oh yeah, oh my God, they're always late. Oh yeah, how funny. Like, you know, they're never on time. They never get there." And really, you're laying into that person.

• 13:52Jay Shetty?

  It's really interesting because in the UK, we talk a lot about banter culture. And a lot of the times when people from the UK are joking around, I've had a lot of friends who are a bit like, "Wow, that's really intense. Like, you guys really laid into each other." And sometimes in the UK, it feels like the more you can banter with someone, the more you actually love them. But what we find is that in a relationship, when you're in a romantic relationship with someone, yes, you should be able to laugh at yourselves. I highly recommend that. I think that's good. You should be able to laugh at each other. But you shouldn't be using sarcasm and jokes as a way of communicating how you actually feel about someone.

• 14:36Jay Shetty?

  The difference with your friends is you all go home at night, go to sleep, separate beds, separate homes, separate lives, and then see each other again maybe next weekend. But with your partner, you're with them every single day and so they read into it more. They feel like it's truly about their character. They feel like it triggers another part of themselves. And often, our partners get more triggered if we said something compared to if their family or their parents said something. And that's because they think you know them better. Your partner thinks that you see all of them. And so if you feel that way, then it must be true. I really want you to take a moment to ask yourself, just for the next week, become aware of how many sarcastic jokes you make.

• 15:19Jay Shetty?

  Or how many passive aggressive statements you make. And it will shock you. When I did this, I was like, wow, I didn't realize I had a reaction to everything. And I started thinking to myself, okay. I really, really, really need to be careful with this. Because I'm pushing someone away by pushing on things about them that they may even be uncomfortable with. Because when you're close to someone, you know what they're uncomfortable about. And if you push that button, you are pushing them away. You can't hit someone where it hurts when you love them and you know them and they feel they've been vulnerable with you. And that's the biggest thing when sarcasm relates to someone's vulnerability.

• 16:04Jay Shetty?

  If someone has been open with you and honest with you about what they're going through and what they're experiencing. And now you've used that against them, that is really challenging for someone to take. We've been getting so many amazing reviews for the Daily J, my new daily guided meditation series on the car map. You might have heard a couple of snippets on the podcast for a few weeks. So in case you haven't had the chance to check it out, I just wanted to share this review from Caitlin, an elementary school teacher from New Jersey. Here's what she had to say. I have over nine years of experience in the American public school education system, including teaching throughout the pandemic. Over the past two years, I've seen extreme cases of anxiety in my students like never before. Many of these children have never experienced these feelings before,

• 16:49Jay Shetty?

  and most are not even sure of what they are feeling. My school district has spent a great deal of time focusing on social emotional learning, SEL, through this school year. We try to teach coping skills and focus on teaching kids how to deal with their feelings and become the best version of themselves. As someone who has also been experiencing the many anxieties of the world today, I have recently downloaded the car map, thanks to my mom. My mom and I are big fans of yours, and once she heard that you will have seven minutes of Daily J each day, she encouraged me in doing this. Your meaningful ideas and meditation have quickly become part of my daily routine, so much that I have begun incorporating some of them. Into my S E L morning meetings with my third graders.

• 17:32Jay Shetty?

  If you've ever wanted to meditate with me, join me on the Calm app for the Daily J, a daily guided meditation where I'll help you find calm in the chaos, plant beautiful intentions for a happy, abundant life, and simple steps for positive actions to get you closer to the life of your dreams. Meditate with me by going to calm.com/j to get forty percent off a Calm Premium Membership. That's only forty-two dollars for the whole year for a daily guided meditation. Experience the Daily J only on Calm.

• 18:06Jay Shetty?

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• 18:49Jay Shetty?

  That's indeed.com/podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need to hire? This is a job for Indeed sponsored jobs. This episode is brought to you by Wayfair. Home should be a place that feels like a sanctuary, a space that truly reflects who you are. But it can be challenging to balance style, budget, and endless options. I was looking to create a dedicated calm space for my morning meditation and reading, but I was struggling to find pieces that felt grounding but could also stand up to daily use. I went on Wayfair and found a beautiful, solid wood accent chair and a bookshelf. Now that corner is my favorite place to anchor my day. The quality is incredible, it's built to last, and it completely shifted the energy of the room.

• 19:31Jay Shetty?

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• 20:15Jay Shetty?

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• 20:37Jay Shetty?

  The third one often results from some of these and it's what we do, which is we deflect. Right? We become deflective. We become defensive. Where we shut down and we don't take any responsibility. There is no long-term relationship that can last in a healthy way if there isn't a healthy acceptance of responsibility. And what I find in this is that often our acceptance of responsibility is like, yeah, I did it. Fine. I know I did it. All right, I'm wrong. I'm wrong. I'm always wrong. And so it's not even said with an honest sincerity. And it's not said with an understanding of, hey, I'm not losing. I'm not weak if I made a mistake. If I accept that I made a mistake,

• 21:22Jay Shetty?

  it doesn't put me in a position of weakness. And if it does, then maybe I'm not with the right person. If they're gonna use that against me every time, then that's a manipulative tactic. That doesn't sound healthy at all. Right? So maybe the issue is not that at all. Maybe the issue is that I need to take responsibility when I've made a mistake. I then can't also point fingers and say, you take responsibility when you've made a mistake. It's not like saying, well, I took responsibility, why didn't you? It's about saying, well, where is our responsibility in this? I think that's the other part where we almost make it a, well, you take responsibility or I take responsibility.

• 22:03Jay Shetty?

  And it's like, well, no, where is both of our responsibility in this? Maybe this was your job, but maybe it was never explained to you properly. Maybe this was part of what you do at home, but maybe you didn't understand all of it. Maybe I didn't do a good a job at setting you up. And so I find that that happens a lot with responsibility where it becomes binary, it becomes black or white, you or them, when actually it's always us. It's always us. How can we move away from you and me to us and we? That's the goal. From you and me to us and we. How can we make that switch? How can we make that switch from our language not being, well, you did this, you take responsibility,

• 22:48Jay Shetty?

  I took responsibility? No, us and we. What is our responsibility? What responsibility can we take? So that defensiveness or that deflectiveness creates issues long term because people start to think, well, if you're never responsible for anything and you're not willing to take that responsibility, then do you actually recognize my feelings? Do you actually understand how I feel? Are you conscious of this? The next one is disconnecting or being aloof. When you argue, you just don't talk for three days. When you had some miscommunication, you don't respond to each other. That shutting down, switching off.

• 23:30Jay Shetty?

  And never reconnecting is different to someone who becomes quiet to respond effectively. And this is where we have to become better at sensing and learning and understanding our partners and having conversations about this. So, some people like to shut down so that they can switch off and think about it, so that they can come back to it later. With more stillness, more poise, more clarity. But some people just wanna sweep it under the rug and not talk about it at all and disconnect from it and be aloof and not think about it. And then they go quiet and then they come back to being normal a week later. That's unhealthy. That's unhealthy because there's always one person who feels like they never got to share how they truly feel.

• 24:16Jay Shetty?

  And if they didn't get a chance to share, they feel, guess what, that's gonna compound. That's gonna accumulate and then that's what you're gonna experience. When we have those big arguments, you're like, where did this come from? I thought we were okay. It's because, yes, you thought you were okay, but what about them? We process everything in our head and we think, okay, well, if I processed in my head by just forgetting about it, then they must forget about it too. Just because you're in a relationship doesn't mean you have the same mind. It doesn't mean you process things in the same way. It doesn't mean that you go through the same things at the same time. So, if someone disconnects, check in with them and say, hey, when can we talk about this again? When would be a good time to discuss this?

• 24:58Jay Shetty?

  And if they say, well, not now, never, just say, well, it would be really useful for me to have a conversation about this when you're ready. Just bring it up to me. You may give them a week, a couple of weeks, but then you'll address it. But if you just feel like, oh yeah, this is what they do every time, they get angry, then they go quiet for a week, then we just talk and go back to normal. That doesn't support the long term of a healthy relationship.

• 25:21Jay Shetty?

  This one fascinated me. It was a three-year study, found that divorce rates were reduced by more than half by watching movies about relationships and discussing them afterwards. And that's really interesting. I guess the idea that learning from others' relationships is a healthy way of processing how you want to live yours, right? When we're learning, when we're reflecting, it's not just about watching shows together, movies together. The key part was discussing the movie afterwards, discussing it, analyzing it, breaking it down. Now, you may say, oh, how can you do that with a rom-com? I mean, they're, they're pretty basic. Well, no, how could you get deep into a character?

• 26:04Jay Shetty?

  There's a love story hidden in most movies. But the idea of talking about other relationships in order to figure out your own was a great way to start that conversation about your own relationship. Sometimes people are like, Jay, I don't even know how to talk to my partner about our relationship. It's great to use a movie. You watched a movie, you watched a TV show, you watched an episode, and now you can have a conversation about something that happened in the show that was a tough part. That's a great jump-off point. And so I find that often we don't realize that these simple things can have a massive impact because the art of discussion engages us. When we're talking about someone else, we can now finally talk about how we really feel.

• 26:48Jay Shetty?

  And the key there is to not get triggered by something our partner says, but to really hear them out, to really understand their perspective, to really try and see their train of thought, even if we disagree, to give them the space and then engage in a discussion. The challenge is that our discussions are not discussions or debates, they turn into angry arguments. And that's because one of us gets triggered. So let's say you see a movie and let's say in the movie, the guy takes a girl out on a date and he doesn't pay. And now someone in your life saying, well, yeah, that makes sense. I mean, he shouldn't pay, you know, we're trying to get to a world of equality and that makes sense. Right? Say, let's say that's their perspective.

• 27:32Jay Shetty?

  Now you may be triggered by that and be like, well, no, he should pay for the date because you know, she said yes to him and it should be his job. Now you could turn that into an argument or you could analyze it and understand the deeper value. And when you get to the value, you might see that you actually agree versus when you focus on how that value is displayed in that moment. That's number five. Number six is recognizing that a lot of relationships today, we get into them because we're not just looking for comfort and stability. We're looking for growth. We're looking for a partner. We're looking for someone who supports us. We're looking for someone who believes in us. Almost we're expecting our partners these days to be coaches. And that's a lot of pressure. We shouldn't put that pressure on our partners.

• 28:18Jay Shetty?

  But you know, I, I often feel that way when I'm coaching my clients. A lot of people will say, well, you know, like, oh, I wish my partner would think like this. And I'm like, well, that doesn't make sense because they're not trained to be a coach. So they can't. They can start thinking like that, but we shouldn't put that pressure on them right off the bat. So recognizing that your partner has their own journey. How can you help them? How can you support them? How can they help you? How can they support you? That builds a strong, powerful platform. So those are the six relationship mistakes we make. I hope you're going to pass this on to a friend because I think a lot of people may be stumbling over some of these really simple fixes. And I hope these insights help you today. Thanks so much for listening.

• 29:00Jay Shetty?

  Share on Instagram and on Tik Tok and on Facebook and Twitter and whatever platform you're using, what you learned from this episode. And I can't wait to see you next week. Thank you.

• 29:18Speaker 01

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