Recent findings have increased our understanding about the brain and behavior in the last three decades.

At the same time, we’ve gained much understanding of success by studying persons in their particular areas of achievement, seeking to know their thoughts, beliefs, strategies, and so on.

Here are three important lessons we’ve gained from studying success.

As a mind game of sorts, defensiveness is deceptively destructive. It throws off the energy of the body — and when your heart is off balance, so are you. In survival mode, fear rules the body, and the brain shifts from learning mode to protective mode, thus, no longer open to influence or change.

An angry outburst, denial, blaming, lying, excuses, withdrawal, and the like, can provide rushes of power in the moment — cheap thrills, if you will. Yet these are costly when you consider their effects on your personal health and relationships.

Take heart. Change is possible. It has everything to do with applying certain Laws of Change to manage the energies of your heart.

Regardless how well intentioned, a defensive approach to getting your partner to cooperate does not, will not, and cannot work. There are compelling reasons to understand and let go of these patterns.

The root cause of defensiveness is a belief system that fosters an inner mindset, which, by its protective nature, emphatically opposes the formation of intimacy in your marriage and other key relationships.

If you’re not already supercharging your life with enriching affirmations, you may be missing out on a powerful way to calm your mind and body, and give your brain a boost.

When you think of it, an affirmation is really anything you say or think to yourself. Meaning, you already practice affirmations 24/7.

When you make it a conscious versus subconscious process, however, you exercise your power to, literally, choose the beliefs that will run your life.

The science of intimate relationships has identified specific behaviors of partners that succeed in creating mutually enriching marriages.

Partners who think and act in certain ways nearly guarantee themselves love relationships in which they feel fulfilled, loved and appreciated.

First, the good news is both you and your partner are wired for love, your body’s health depends on it.