If you’re tired of settling for a mediocre relationship, read on to find out how to improve your love life today.

We often think that healthy and great relationships come with huge and extraordinary endeavors of commitment — things like effective communication, trust, and honesty.

Apart from all those big acts of commitment we might likely: try to be more respectful, learn to control our anger, try to compromise when necessary, fight fairly, etc.

While all these huge acts breed healthy relationships, they aren’t always as effective as we often think, especially if our small toxic behaviors are sabotaging our efforts to create strong and healthy relationships.

Big acts of commitment can lead to great relationships, but the truth is, small acts also have great magical impacts.

1. Try to always be yourself.

Do you ever find yourself having a strong urge to act in some ways that are out of sync with your true inner self around a romantic partner or love interest?

Let’s be honest; a lot of us often do.

As soon as we feel that we are in love with someone we think we can’t afford to lose, we perform. We do whatever we can to fight and win their approval, acceptance, and love. Mostly because we deep-down don’t feel worthy enough of a relationship with them.

Most of us grew up in homes that shaped us into chronic people-pleasers because our parents innocently made us fight for love, acceptance, acknowledgment, and validation as they somehow tried to compare us to other children or over-criticize our erring characters.

This somehow affected our sense of selves and gradually but eventually make us helpless people-pleasers who can go to any length to gain the acknowledgment, approval, and love of others, including romantic partners or love interests.

Someone might go as far as giving up not just their interests and hobbies for a romantic partner, but their entire selves in a relationship. Worse, one might even shy away from being vulnerable with their feelings.

It’s just some kind of survival mechanism or coping skills we learned growing up: We naturally hate being rejected, disliked, or having conflicts we think are avoidable.

Even though our true intentions are to ensure our relationships work out well, living or acting out of sync with who we really are, poses a huge threat to our love lives and might land one in a mediocre relationship.

Because putting up an inauthentic personality when trying to attract and win over prospective dates, will only make you come off as unattractive and hence, get you rejected even though that’s what you’ve been trying so hard to avoid.

On the other hand, giving up or adopting interests, hobbies, or even personalities that aren’t yours to be accepted by a partner will only make you more miserable in the relationship than being rejected will — because you’ll be practically molding yourself into what you think your partner might like which is just too stressful and draining for your wellbeing.

And finally, concealing your deepest negative feelings, hiding your anger, or other acts of shying away from being emotionally vulnerable will only build unhealthy resentments and frustrations towards your partner that’ll be enough to ruin the relationship you’re trying so hard to protect by keeping to yourself emotionally.

It all boils down to this:

Shying away from being yourself makes it easier for your relationships to turn out shallow, superficial, and even mediocre at best. You can’t connect on a deeper level with someone when you can’t even show them who you really are.

Recommended Reading: Give Up These Toxic Beliefs If You Want A Better And Less Stressful Love Life

2. Let your partner be themselves.

The depth of your relationships is also determined by the way you treat others regarding their personalities.

Having similar interests, feelings, or ideas is quite admirable, but what really matters isn’t how compatible you both are; instead, it’s how well you both accept, understand, and compliment each other.

Do you normally try to coerce your partners into engaging in your interests, hobbies, or something like that?

Or do you somehow try to discourage them from engaging in theirs, having their opinions, sharing their feelings, or any other thing that makes up their personalities?

These are some of the ways a lot of people treat their partners when they, (their partners) are being their authentic selves. And there are also some of the surest ways to end up in a mediocre relationship.

They, in one way or another, try to change their partners without any atom of respect for their partners’ boundaries and sense of individualities.

Even though that might be coming from a place of wanting their partners to be their “ideal” partners, it often affects the level of connection between them and their partners, thereby making their relationships somewhat shallow, superficial, and mediocre.

Learn to love and accept your partner for who they really are, and you’ll enjoy a deeper connection with them.

Sometimes, all you need to do is stop battling out your similarities and dissimilarities and instead focus on how they each complement and balance each other as you both work on strengthening your weaknesses if you want to enjoy a great romantic relationship with someone you love that’s everything but mediocre.

Read Also: 7 Things Every Great Relationship Has At All Times

3. Apologize when necessary.

Talking about toxic narcissists, we all know they lack empathy and are unable to put themselves in other people’s shoes.

They endlessly put up behaviors that aren’t just manipulative but are mostly driven by ego. Maybe you might not be as egotistical and manipulative as a narcissist is.

But always failing to sincerely and effectively apologize whenever you intentionally or otherwise hurt someone doesn’t make you any better.

And you know what’s funny about being someone that finds it difficult to apologize whenever he’s in wrong? It won’t only be more difficult for you and your partner to reach a resolution, reaffirm shared values, and restore positive feelings during conflicts, but it’ll be even easier for any relationship you find yourself to always turn out to be nothing better than mediocre.

Want to stand a better chance of enjoying deeper and meaningful relationships?

Be human enough to remorsefully apologize when in wrong.

When you offer a sincere apology, you aren’t in any way admitting you’re inadequate or that something is fundamentally wrong with you; instead, you’re simply admitting you’ve made a mistake which you’re willing to make amends for.

Because let’s face it: We are all humans and are bound to make mistakes that would hurt other people’s feelings, break their trust in us, and cause them pain.

But what’s abnormal and even inhuman is being ashamed or too proud to offer an apology that communicates genuine empathy, remorse, and regret as well as a promise to learn from our mistakes when we’ve hurt others with our words, actions, or inactions.

Read also: Four Reasons Why Some People Have It Hard Falling In Love

4. Leave the past in the past.

Some people are helplessly and unhealthily obsessed with their past. They simply can’t get over the past. They often compare their partners to their exes. They obsessively talk about their past relationships.

Worse, they often remind their partners of their past mistakes because they keep a record file of their partners’ past behaviors.

The harsh reality, however, is that you might not be able to avoid often ending up in a mediocre relationship when you just can’t let the past be in the past.

In fact, relationships with people who are just obsessed with their pasts are nothing short of stressful, draining, and full of unnecessary drama. In such kind of a relationship that lacks strong emotional connections, things will and are often turn out to be shallow, superficial, and mediocre.

And the thing is, the counterproductive habit of living in the past often stems from deep-seated insecurity and the inability of one to face reality and deal with their emotions. Thereby letting their past shape and eventually ruin their relationships.

Quite often, these people let their past experiences prevent them from opening up and connecting on a deeper level with their partners, and other times, they try to make the relationship and life more difficult than it should be for their partners as a result of things that happened in the past.

But if you want to enjoy better relationships, you’ll need to desist from letting your past rule the present moment that should rather be a breath of fresh air and enjoyed.

You don’t have to endlessly bring up past issues which will only wound, hurt, and break down the other person. Or use your partner’s past to punish them. That will mean you’re selfish, unforgiving, suffering from low self-esteem, or avoiding addressing and taking responsibility for your emotions.

Also read: 7 Reasons You Suck At Relationships

5. Be ready to leave when things don’t feel right.

How often do you witness situations where someone endlessly gives themselves delusional reasons to hold on to relationships that are obviously wrong from the onset?

Chances are: You’ve been in one before. Or you might even be in one now.

While it’s certainly not that easy to walk away from a relationship even when it’s downright toxic, staying in one doesn’t in any way make life easier.

Without thinking twice, leaving a partner or relationship that brings you more pain than joy should be your natural reaction when you find yourself in one.

Sometimes, people find themselves doing the contrary in such kinds of situations because their manipulative partners used some manipulative tactics to manipulate them into justifying, accommodating, or compromising excessively in the relationship up to the point where they don’t feel like there’s any reason for them to leave the relationship.

And most times, people give up their rights to be treated with respect and decency by staying back in a terrible relationship because they’re afraid of being single again, hurting their partners, or not being able to find someone else.

At the end of the day, they’ll eventually have a mediocre relationship where they often find themselves crossing self-respecting boundaries they shouldn’t ever consider crossing.

So, if you ever have a gut feeling that you might want to end a relationship, that’s a good sign that something is amiss. That’s why you should always remember that you don’t have to think twice about getting rid of any partner that treats you disrespectfully, or else things will turn out messy.