The steps to restful relationships are also principles to live by. Once you become comfortable with the steps, that is, after you have gone through the 7-week challenge, you will have acquired 7 tools for relationship success.
When you are faced with a challenge, you can look at your steps to see which step you could focus on to maintain the others. For instance, if you are dealing with someone who is causing you to lose patience (step3), and you feel that you will not be able to be consistent (step5) and maintain a non-confrontational attitude (step1), rather than force yourself maintain those steps, you could focus on making an adjustment to the situation or your reaction (step 6), as a way to bring yourself back into a more restful and productive mindset. This will give you time to plan (step 2) how you will address the situation. This moves you from a reactive attitude to a proactive attitude.
A stressful situation causes an increase in adrenaline, because stress is the body’s call for action. How you respond to the call affects the outcome. The 7-Steps to Restful Relationships allows you to make a proactive response rather than a reactive response. Both responses make use of the increase in energy caused by the increase of adrenaline, but the proactive response can lead you back to a positive state of rest, while the reactive response usually leads to a quiet before the next storm.