Your Success Is Directly Related to Your Spouse

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Your Success Is Directly Related to Your Spouse

A couple both on a laptop searching for ideas to be successful.

If you were to do a search for the phrase “how to be a success” you’d get thousands of suggestions. Hard work, dedication, enjoyment, and even confidence are all part of the equation in achieving success. One author suggests that success is subjective. What you believe to be success may be quite different than your neighbor, but in general, we can probably agree that success is an accomplishment of some goal or purpose in your life. Researchers constantly study the characteristics that go into making people successful. One study from Washington University in St. Louis found that a spouse was one key element in determining how successful an individual was.

Who You Spend Time With Influences You

Jim Rohn, popular motivational speaker, said, “You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.” Your mom probably told to you to be careful who your friends are. It’s no secret that friends and family members influence your character. The WU study demonstrated that the personality traits of a spouse can actually play a part in work performance. Researchers studied more than 5,000 married people over five years. These individuals were aged 19 to 89. About three-quarters of the couples both worked.

Researchers assessed five measures of personality:

  • Openness
  • Agreeableness
  • Conscientiousness
  • Extraversion
  • Neuroticism

The researchers also tracked the performance of the working spouses to measure occupational success by using salary increases, annual surveys, and self-reported job satisfaction. What they found was that those workers who scored high in occupational success typically had a spouse who was very conscientious. Interestingly, it didn’t matter whether the employee was male or female or whether both spouses worked or not.

Short-Term and Long-Term Relationship Patterns

It’s true that when someone has a bad day, they often bring that stress home, which causes tension between a married couple. Research has proven this, but the WU study tracks long-term influences of a spouse. The researchers in the WU study offer some suggestions about why a conscientious spouse can benefit your career in the long run.

  1. Having a spouse with good habits encourages the other person to emulate those good habits, which leaks over into work.
  2. A working spouse with a reliable partner isn’t trying to manage everything on their own.
  3. When people work together to keep their life running smoothly, it makes it easier to balance work and home life.

You can’t continually come home and be upset from work and expect your spouse’s personality to make things better, but you can use your spouse’s enthusiasm and motivation to push yourself to change. Success, whether on the job or in a relationship, doesn’t happen overnight. It’s a long-term process in which you just have to keep moving forward. There are many elements to success and a conscientious spouse is just one of them.

Choose Your Spouse Wisely

Many studies have shown that who you marry is vital to your health or financial status. Your partner will definitely have an impact on who you are and will become. When choosing a romantic partner, you not only want someone who is agreeable and not narcissistic, but you also want someone who is conscientious. It’s just one of the ingredients you want to look for when choosing a partner.

If you’re already married, what can you do? You can’t change anyone except yourself. All you can do is to be more supportive and lead by example. Based on this study, when one person is more conscientious, the other person tends to step up and become more hard-working. You have to set the example. Will things change overnight? Maybe not. You and your spouse need to have the same goals and objectives.

Your Success Is Directly Related to Your Spouse
A couple both on a laptop searching for ideas to be successful.

If you were to do a search for the phrase “how to be a success” you’d get thousands of suggestions. Hard work, dedication, enjoyment, and even confidence are all part of the equation in achieving success. One author suggests that success is subjective. What you believe to be success may be quite different than your neighbor, but in general, we can probably agree that success is an accomplishment of some goal or purpose in your life. Researchers constantly study the characteristics that go into making people successful. One study from Washington University in St. Louis found that a spouse was one key element in determining how successful an individual was.

Who You Spend Time With Influences You

Jim Rohn, popular motivational speaker, said, “You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.” Your mom probably told to you to be careful who your friends are. It’s no secret that friends and family members influence your character. The WU study demonstrated that the personality traits of a spouse can actually play a part in work performance. Researchers studied more than 5,000 married people over five years. These individuals were aged 19 to 89. About three-quarters of the couples both worked.

Researchers assessed five measures of personality:

  • Openness
  • Agreeableness
  • Conscientiousness
  • Extraversion
  • Neuroticism

The researchers also tracked the performance of the working spouses to measure occupational success by using salary increases, annual surveys, and self-reported job satisfaction. What they found was that those workers who scored high in occupational success typically had a spouse who was very conscientious. Interestingly, it didn’t matter whether the employee was male or female or whether both spouses worked or not.

Short-Term and Long-Term Relationship Patterns

It’s true that when someone has a bad day, they often bring that stress home, which causes tension between a married couple. Research has proven this, but the WU study tracks long-term influences of a spouse. The researchers in the WU study offer some suggestions about why a conscientious spouse can benefit your career in the long run.

  1. Having a spouse with good habits encourages the other person to emulate those good habits, which leaks over into work.
  2. A working spouse with a reliable partner isn’t trying to manage everything on their own.
  3. When people work together to keep their life running smoothly, it makes it easier to balance work and home life.

You can’t continually come home and be upset from work and expect your spouse’s personality to make things better, but you can use your spouse’s enthusiasm and motivation to push yourself to change. Success, whether on the job or in a relationship, doesn’t happen overnight. It’s a long-term process in which you just have to keep moving forward. There are many elements to success and a conscientious spouse is just one of them.

Choose Your Spouse Wisely

Many studies have shown that who you marry is vital to your health or financial status. Your partner will definitely have an impact on who you are and will become. When choosing a romantic partner, you not only want someone who is agreeable and not narcissistic, but you also want someone who is conscientious. It’s just one of the ingredients you want to look for when choosing a partner.

If you’re already married, what can you do? You can’t change anyone except yourself. All you can do is to be more supportive and lead by example. Based on this study, when one person is more conscientious, the other person tends to step up and become more hard-working. You have to set the example. Will things change overnight? Maybe not. You and your spouse need to have the same goals and objectives.

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