1. Identify your thoughts & feelings honestly: explore if you communicate exactly what you feel.  In cases where you haven't been open with others, then you're also lying to yourself. It's unlikely people will be able to read your mind.  As you clarify things for them, you will also help yourself.

2. Confront your negative thoughts & feelings: determine the root causes of pain and related fears that may drag you down.  Consider a time when you may have sabotaged a relationship.  Imagine you remove weeds from your mind and a more positive relationship garden will grow.

3. Facilitate two-way communication: act to become a more effective listener and speaker.  Men only take in small amounts of information at a time. They feel comfortable when they take turns. Women are multi-taskers. They thrive on talking fast and cover more topics in depth.   Whatever your gender or personality, remind yourself that not everyone is well-equipped to think and talk about many things at once.  Listen to the words you choose. They reveal your personality type.

4. Empathize with others to sense how they feel: grow to appreciate things from different points of view.  Explain that you understand what a person has said by repeating it and putting it into context.  You also have the freedom to explain why their opinion may not apply and why.

5. Practice problem-solving: isolate problems, generate alternatives, and evaluate your results.  If you have issues with someone or forsee a potential issue, try dealing with it hypothetically. Imagine a scenario to yourself or aloud with the other person involved.  Discuss potential reactions and how you would react if you were in their shoes. Reverse roles. Share opinions.

6. Assert yourself: tell others what you desire, work toward it and be willing to compromise. You need to find the courage to discuss what your relationship goals are on various levels. The only way you will know if you are on the same wavelength about shared issues (i.e., children, bills, housing, groceries, chores, ect.,) is if you learn to present your views in non-threatening ways.

7. Accept change: reframe your traits as more than static strengths & weaknesses.  As your perception evolves, you will learn to see benefits to making different kinds of life decisions.  You will gain a sense of what choices make you feel good about yourself and which ones don't.  Recognize that your relationships are evolving at different rhythms too. Some people evolve together and other people evolve such that they grow apart. Learn to understand the reasons why your relationships evolve as they do. Do you take an active interest in other people?

8. Highlight the positive: build relationships by discerning different reasons for compatibility or incompatibility.  You may openly compliment other people, raise their spirits and also your own.  If you hope to build a deeper or more intimate realtionship with someone, highlighting their strengths and talents will encourage them to excel and help them to build confidence. As the saying goes, what goes around comes around.  

As you assess what it would require to refine and strengthen your relationships, as you take action to make them more real, you'll learn to reduce stress, and attract people and circumstances that enrich you. Write out how working through each of the above steps will help make that happen.