Coaching practices for Which Relationships to Invest in
Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For Which Relationships to Invest in, these are the strongest matches in the current practice library.
Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?
- I spread myself thin trying to keep up with everyone, and I end most weeks drained
- We’ve built so much together
- I keep telling myself I’ll make real time for the people I love once I hit the next work milestone, and that milestone never stops moving
- We’ve drifted into roommates running on autopilot
- We default to whatever each of us wants in the moment, and I rarely choose their preference over mine on purpose
Practices that may help
- Apply 80/20 to relationships and energy sources
Identify which relationships energize and catalyze your best work, and invest in them disproportionately.
The Pareto Principle: 80/20 for Personal Productivity - The Investment Model of Commitment: Why People Stay (and Why They Leave)
Caryl Rusbult’s Investment Model proposes that commitment is driven by three factors: satisfaction (how good the relationship feels), quality of alternatives (how appealing life outside the relationship seems), and investment size (what you’ve put into it that would be lost on leaving). All three are modifiable — and understanding which is weakest gives a precise target for strengthening commitment. The model has extensive empirical support across diverse relationship types and cultures. - Making your investments visible to both partners
Name and acknowledge the shared investments in the relationship — children, history, shared projects — to both parties.
The Investment Model of Commitment: Why People Stay (and Why They Leave) - Investing in people over status
Direct discretionary time and energy toward relationships, not just career and acquisition.
The Good Life: Lessons from the Harvard Study - Pro-relationship maintenance behaviors
Actively do things that maintain and strengthen the relationship, rather than expecting it to run itself.
The Investment Model of Commitment: Why People Stay (and Why They Leave) - Willingness to sacrifice: building relationship-oriented decision-making
Practice making at least one weekly decision that prioritizes the relationship over personal short-term convenience.
The Investment Model of Commitment: Why People Stay (and Why They Leave) - Automatic Investing, Made Practical
Automating investments removes the behavioral errors — panic selling, market timing, procrastination — that reliably destroy returns for most individual investors. Systematic, automatic contributions into low-cost index funds have outperformed most active strategies over the long term, as documented in decades of observational and index-fund research. - Invest in the people physically nearest you
Your immediate neighbors, officemates, and classmates are your highest-ROI friendship investments — propinquity is already working.
The Propinquity Effect (Leon Festinger) - Build the network before you need it
Invest in relationships continuously so you have real capital when a crisis or opportunity arrives.
Never Eat Alone: Building a Real Network - Invest resources in gain-loops when conditions allow
Resources beget resources — when you have surplus, invest it where it compounds.
Conservation of Resources Theory, Made Practical
Related concerns
- Investment In Relationships
Name and acknowledge the shared investments in the relationship — children, history, shared projects — to both parties.
Making your investments visible to both partners
- How To Invest In Relationships
Name and acknowledge the shared investments in the relationship — children, history, shared projects — to both parties.
- Capitalization Relationships
Name and acknowledge the shared investments in the relationship — children, history, shared projects — to both parties.
- Active Relationship Investment
Name and acknowledge the shared investments in the relationship — children, history, shared projects — to both parties.
- Commitment In Relationships Psychology
Caryl Rusbult’s Investment Model proposes that commitment is driven by three factors: satisfaction (how good the relationship feels), quality of alternatives (how appealing life outside the relationship seems), and investment size (what you’ve put into it that would be lost on leaving). All three are modifiable — and understanding which is weakest gives a precise target for strengthening commitment. The model has extensive empirical support across diverse relationship types and cultures.
- Invest In Nearest People
Your immediate neighbors, officemates, and classmates are your highest-ROI friendship investments — propinquity is already working.
Invest in the people physically nearest you
Describe your situation in your own words to search the complete practice library.