Once you’ve moved beyond the dating stage into a more serious relationship or even marriage, the dynamics of your interactions necessarily change. Make sure that you maintain your own friends and interests, and work for compromise when there are disagreements. If you are confident, you will remain your own unique person even as you become part of a couple.

Co-workers can produce tricky relationships. You will most likely spend more of your waking hours around your co-workers than around friends and family, so you want your relationships to be pleasant. Keeping things pleasant doesn’t translate into not having a backbone, though. Be confident and willing to say no to co-workers who ask you to take on work you’re not able to handle, ask you to join a committee you’re not interested in, or otherwise force you to do anything you don’t want to do. Stand up for what you think is right if someone you work with makes a bad decision. You may want to occasionally bend to the requests of others for the sake of maintaining positive work relationships, but if you do this with confidence, you’ll feel better knowing that you’re making a conscious decision to say yes to a disagreeable task.

If you’re in a position of authority at work, make sure that you remain confident in your power. You’re not there to be everyone’s friend or to make all of your workers happy. If you believe in a decision or policy, stand by it, regardless of the complaints. Don’t take confidence in your authority too far, though, and become dictatorial.

Neighbors can provide another tricky situation because they’re hard to get away from if you’re not getting along. If conflicts arise, be confident in stating your opinion and work together to create a solution that is agreeable to everyone involved. Just like at work, you may need to occasionally compromise for the sake of peace in the neighborhood, but do so conscientiously.

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