Jennifer Wisdom - MILLENNIALS GUIDE TO RELATIONSHIPS: Happy and Healthy Relationships Are Not a Myth!

Millennials Guide to Relationships provides a one-stop actionable workbook for the minefields of the myriad relationships a generation juggling outsize expectations, a difficult world, and re-defined paradigms about love, family, and work are managing. The beauty of this book is that it can be tailored to the relationship needs of the reader whether its dating, family issues, or roommates. Drs. Hallett and Wisdom do a great job of consistently revisiting the pillars of healthy relationships such as self-reflection, self-awareness, respect, and empathy, qualities that can often get lost in the shuffle.

Ramani Durvasula,
PhD, Clinical Psychologist, Professor of Psychology, and Author

Millennials Guide to Relationships is full of down-to-earth tips for people at any stage in life. If you are a person who sometimes speaks to other people, this lists reasonable, objective advice based on your situation and what you want for yourselfnot what society or the authors think you should be doing.

Caroline Mays,
English Professor and admitted Millennial

Millennials Guide to Relationships is another must-have Millennials guide for your bookshelf, providing clear and action-oriented guidance for people in their 20s and 30s who are looking to build and strengthen existing relationships. The book is easy to navigate and offers quick yet thorough considerations, tips, and tricks that can be applied to romantic, professional, familial and other relationships. Millennials Guide to Relationships will be a helpful resource for Millennials to use in their own lives and for them to share with friends, family, and other loved ones of all ages.

Jennifer Felner,
PhD, San Diego, CA

Dr. Hallett and Dr. Wisdoms guide to relationships is extremely helpful for anyone, but especially a Millennial such as myself its like having a therapist and a best friend in your back pocket! I will be recommending this incredible resource to all Millennial clients I work with as an occupational therapist as well as to all my friends!

Laura Stursberg,
Occupational Therapy Doctoral Student

Millennials Guide to Relationships is a wonderful breakdown of how to look at your feelings, figure out your intentions, and interact with other humans to have a successful relationship with yourself, your friends, your family, and even romantically. I really enjoyed the road map-style reading and feel like I gained a lot of knowledge and tools on how to have healthier relationships. This book has so much useful information and it is written in a manner which is easy to digest and fun to read.

Leah Gallagher-Hull,
Real Life Millennial

Millennials Guide to Relationships is one of the most powerful guides to navigating any relationship. The candid and direct support given by Dr. Kristina Hallett and Dr. Jennifer Wisdom is gold. If and when you ever struggle no matter what kind of relationship it may be, this book will guide you to the other side with care and honesty.

Tricia Brouk,
Director, Writer, Producer, Curator, Coach

2021 Kristina Hallett and Jennifer P. Wisdom

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 International Copyright Act, without the prior written permission except in brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Published by Winding Pathway Books

ISBN (print): 978-1-954374-00-3
ISBN (e-book): 978-1-954374-01-0

Book design by: Deana Riddle at Bookstarter
Cover design by Brian Sisco at 115 Studios and Diego G. Diaz
Photo credit: Diego G. Diaz

For more information or bulk orders, visit: www.leadwithwisdom.com

Printed in the United States of America

We wish to thank the following for their expert and insightful comments: Lindsay Harris, Jennifer Felner, Alison Feuer, Adam Hart, Maria Lawrence, Greg Muriello, Laura Stursberg, and Elizabeth Warren. We appreciate Diego G. Diaz for cover design and photography, Deana Riddle at Bookstarter for publishing support, and Cassandra Blake for exemplary administrative assistance.

This is not a book best read cover to cover. We encourage you to review the table of contents and identify a challenge you are currently having or recently experienced. Turn to those pages to start finding a solution!

This book is about relationships all of the different types of relationships that we may have, including the relationship with yourself! Each challenge includes a brief description and a number of possible solutions that you may want to try. Many times, you can see success after trying just one option. Youll see some solutions repeated across different challenges because theyre likely to be helpful for many problems. For complex challenges, you may want to attempt several interventions at the same time. We suggest using a little bit of the scientific method as you try this process: After you identify the challenge youre having, visualize what it would look like for you once the issue is resolved. Then as you try out solutions, you have an ideal to measure progress against. Its helpful if you take an approach of curiosity; pretend youre Sherlock Holmes trying to figure out and solve the problem, or putting together a massive 3-D puzzle.

Its important to have patience and give the solutions a little bit of time to work. Some ideas that you try wont solve the problem but will make it a little better thats still success! If you dont feel comfortable trying a solution or if it works partially or not at all, try something else. Some of the solutions are very low risk, such as changing your expectations of the other person. Others can appear more challenging, such as directly discussing a concern with a partner or asking your roommate to move out. Start with solutions that feel lower risk to you and work your way up to more challenging solutions.

Its important to remember a few basic rules of relationships that will never steer you wrong:

1. Be honest and diplomatic with everyone, including yourself.

2. Listen to what others are saying before responding.

3. Be patient. Sometimes people are working on your behalf to make things better and you dont even know it.

4. Be curious about yourself and seek constant self-improvement.

5. Set and maintain boundaries and limits that reflect your priorities within your relationship(s).

6. Remember that we all have struggles. Be kind and respectful.

As you work through possible solutions, youll get better at knowing yourself, reading situations, responding to issues, building relationships, and applying solutions effectively. There will sometimes be situations in which there is a game being played around you that you dont fully get a version of relationship politics. Observe, be patient, clarify your own boundaries, and learn. The more you know what you want, the more youll be able to achieve your goals and have the kind of relationships you want. If youre not sure what you want, thats okay too thats a perfect place to be while youre in your 20s and 30s. The goal of the strategies in this book is to help you develop skills that will serve you well as you continue to move forward in life.