Personal support is important for the growth of any individual in any field of life that they would like to seek growth in, as it can form a massive success driven momentum. But aside from personal support, another very important tool that human beings can use to amplify their growth in their desired fields is interpersonal support. Why is that?
First, let’s take a moment to understand what exactly interpersonal support is. Interpersonal support as the name suggests is the support an individual can be seen as when it comes to relationships outside of their individual selves as well as barring any personal gain that that individual would receive. To support and be there for your interpersonal relationships in a consistent manner regardless of whether you would personally benefit from it is what interpersonal support stands for.
Now, to address why interpersonal support can be a decisive factor in achieving success in various fields of life, whether it is the social aspect, the business aspect, or to have better fulfilling relationships in your family and with your partner, we can look at all of these separately in order to understand the effect that the presence of interpersonal support can have on them.
Influence Of Interpersonal Support On Family Life
Having a good relationship with your family members can influence your own individual self in a tremendous positive manner that almost can not be compared to others. Family relationships are the earliest relationships that we have, and due to that fact, internal family relationships often bear with them old baggage that is hard to overcome.
A way to go beyond these old conflicts is to build a new family environment based on complete trust and faith in each other. Once your family members sense that you are supporting them in ways that you haven’t done before, and they are certain that you don’t have any secret agenda behind that behavior, they open up to you like never before. They see you in a different light, and that enables them to let go of old resentments and grudges without even noticing, simply because your new support is now the defining factor in your relationship.
Furthermore, these relationships are probably the most determinative relationships that you will ever have, since they have been formed in your critical early childhood years and adolescence. The kind of personality that we start developing since childhood and the kinds of personality traits that we develop in our adolescence are the ones that are seen to have more of a powerful hold on any individual. Not to say that these personality traits are irredeemable or unchangeable if the individual requires that change for the purpose of pursuing their personal growth, but due to the powerful hold that is occupied by those personality traits, it can be exceedingly difficult to make that change. And this is why interpersonal support can be so impactful in family relationships.
To further illustrate this concept, we can take the example of a child that receives steady praise and constant support from his parents and siblings. That child will most likely have a fulfilling relationship with his most primary caregivers, the people that he looks up to the most, and idealizes. Make no mistake, this will frame that child’s personality as when he is a child as well as lasting effects on his personality and individuality as he grows up to be an adult.
Having that fulfillment in terms of the basic need of affection that every human being needs especially as a child, will most likely lead to the child being more satisfied with his life and more confident in who he is. Seeing as he has a trust-based relationship with his family members, he can trust that the habits that they portray will not have any negative effect and can freely practice the same ideals, accepting them and himself without hesitance.
The confidence of the child will increase as he applies these ideas and behaviors to his own individual life on his own and finds the result to be satisfactory. This will further keep enhancing the confidence of the child to build good values in his life to get further satisfactory results and ultimately will help him become a successful adult. Contrary to this would be an example of a child from a troubled home.
Yes, there are exceptions, but even if you are taking examples from your very own life of knowing any children and teenagers from troubled homes, chances are that that child or teenager is troubled themselves. The importance of supporting and understanding parents can not be stressed enough. The effects on the child can have such a huge influence on him or her that some claim that this influence can never be undone in the future, no matter what.
When the stakes are this high, it can be concluded that interpersonal support should be a leading factor in parenting and encouraged as much as possible. Aside from the parenting point of view, other roles in the family also benefit from having interpersonal support. Strong lines of communication between you and your brother or cousin can are a safety net that can help you cope with any challenge that life may put in front of you.
How Interpersonal Skills Improve Your Social Life
After discovering the pivotal role that interpersonal support can play on an individual’s psyche, behavior and formation of deep-rooted personality traits, it will most likely not be a surprise to find out that the same applies to the individual’s social life as well. Relationships within your family are undoubtedly the foundation of the relationships that you form with others outside of your family.
These relationships outside of the family can be just as important to an individual’s personal growth. As a human being’s relationships and connections with other human beings are a massive driving factor in the kind of behavior exhibited by that human being. There is a reason that most psychopaths are portrayed as lone wolves who like to operate within the company of only their selves or those who can be easily manipulated by them.
It can be said with certainty that a lack of human connection and emotional attachment can have seriously horrific effects on the psyche of the man. Proving once more the importance of having and displaying interpersonal support in your social relationships. Building relationships that are based on effective communication and genuine caring will determine the level of depth in that relationship and will also determine how long those relationships last.
Lasting relationships are not only the key to a successful social life, but to a person’s happiness in general, when he or she or surrounded by people that love them and care about them, and therefore will support them in any challenges or endeavors that they may seek. So it is obviously favorable in every way to inculcate interpersonal support in your social relationships because that will determine your own levels of happiness, personal growth, and wellbeing.
The Impact Of Interpersonal Support On Business Environments
You can break your back studying for your degree, invest your life savings to support your dream business, and play by all the rules in the book that are said to guarantee you success, and you might even achieve a semblance of that success. But what they don’t ever mention in the books is what kind of roles people and relationships with them even in business can spell out in the manner of prosperity or loss.
What usually happens is that a child is put in the education system and told to study well, achieve good grades and keep their studies as their highest priority even it means compromising on other aspects such as forming relationships with their peers, or even only working together with others as a teams player. We can also see many students doing just that where they sacrifice forming relationships with their peers because they are told that achieving good grades is their purpose of life and the rest will be taken care of later.
But even the highest of achievers feel lonely. They get an honorary mention in the dean’s list but later when they find themselves working for the same industry that they broke their back to get to, and they find that their coworkers who used to have worse grades are doing much better somehow. That is when they find out the importance of interpersonal relationships and skills that they missed out on as they have lesser experience in working together with others.
Almost every industry has an unspoken rule of how your connections can accelerate your growth and success. These interpersonal support skills will be a determining factor in the connections you are able to make and in turn, the opportunities that you will find yourself with that can consequently make you successful in achieving your career dreams.
Furthermore, people do business with people. People buy things from people. People are reaching business goals, developing products, building a go-to-market strategy, with other people. And these people, are the ones that you are spending most of your time in the day with. And actually, most of your life!
Wouldn’t that be a complete tragedy to spend most of your life with people that you don’t get along with? People that when you don’t like them, at best you are faking your happiness around them to make everything look OK, and at worse you openly hate them and they hate you? Why would you do something like that to yourself? After all, you do have only one life, and yesterday is a day that you’ll never get back again…
Remember, you definitely have the ability to support others, you definitely have the ability to improve your interpersonal skills, and to have great relationships with your peers and a great atmosphere in your work/business environment.
So after all of that let me ask you, is investing in your interpersonal skills worthwhile?
