Becoming More Like My Ideal Self - The Part of Me that You Bring Out

I love you not only for what you are, but for what I am when I am with you. I love you not only for what you have made of yourself, but for what you are making of me. I love you for the part of me that you bring out.

— Elizabeth Barrett Browning

We can all relate to this feeling of becoming a better person in the presence of the one we love. In The Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Caryl Rusbult, Eli Finkel and Madoka Kumashiro explore this.  They state that: 

'In harmonious relationships, close partners promote one another’s ideal selves, and each person is likely to move closer to achieving his or her ideals' (Drigotas, Rusbult, Wieselquist, & Whitton, 1999)

So how do we help each other to become closer to our 'ideal' self?

1. Clarify what your ideal self is like. Who do you want to be in the world? What sort of partner, parent, friend, worker etc? Explore this with your partner with openness and curiosity. You are not trying to change each other but support each other in moving in a freely chosen direction.
2. Support each other by:
• Validating the dream 
• Encouraging each other to go for it. Often uncomfortable emotions hold us back - realistic encouragement from a trusted partner can make all the difference.
• Responding positively to attempts to enact new behaviours in line with those ideals - even if the attempt doesn't get the desired outcome.
• Showing compassion when either of you fail to behave in line with those values - whatever you do, don't become the 'values police'. 
• Acting as if your partner has those qualities already - people tend to live up (or down) to our expectations of them
• Displaying the behaviour yourself
• Being a supportive voice of reason - when a plan looks doomed to fail, help each other to brainstorm a more realistic but optimistic plan.