Couples Coaching and Counselling

Is your significant relationship in need of work? Are you aware that you have started to exist within your relationship or become two managers of a household?

If this sounds familiar you will want to take action before one or both of you decide to leave the relationship. If that is not what you want here are 5 tips to get you started:

1. Set some achievable goals for your relationship, together. For example, we will go to bed at the same time at least 3 nights per week or we will have a date night at least once a fortnight.
   
2. Look at the way you are spending your time versus what you actually want to spend your time doing. Think of options which will allow you to spend more time with your partner. For example, hiring a cleaner or having stricter rules on your children's bedtime routine.
   
3. Consider the communication weaknesses between you and consider how you can communicate better. For example, rather than just communicate 'to do' lists, check in with your partner when you come home from work, by asking something like 'What has been good in your day?'. Perhaps accompany this with a hug.
   
4. Think about your relationship as the two of you being on a journey along which you aim to develop and get better at playing your part in. Think to yourself about what you can do better and give more of what your partner would appreciate.
   
5. Sit down once a month and review your relationship that month. Look at what has worked (listen to your partner first) and made them happy and find out what could you do more of and less of whicih would improve your relationship.

We see many couples who recognise that relationships need work - just like work needs work - if you are to be any good at it.

I think that if you can work at your relationship and change things so you both feel that your needs are being met you can often avoid a painful break-up whilst at the same time developing into a better person.

Preventing unnecessary break-ups is something we are very good at.

If you would like support in your endeavours and "engage in a process that is solution-focused and enjoyable" (a client's words) then please get in touch via our website at West of England Coaching and Counselling, email us at enquiries@westofenglandcoachingandcounselling or call our confidential answering service on 01761 237 400.

Coaching For Solutions To Relationship Issues

Do you have what seems to you to be an intractable problem which involves other people either professionally or personally?

In certain areas of life, such as, engineering, IT and medicine a problem focus is required so that weaknesses and what went wrong can be understood before a solution can be put in place.

Increasingly in life the most interesting and potentially significant problems are about people - especially their difficulties and challenges in communicating with each other.

Change programmes at work show that the Number 1 challenge is most often communication between the workforce.

Research also shows that when it comes to people issues analysis of the problem rarely assists in finding the solution.

Rather, by focusing on the problem you become problem-focused with an excellent strategy for defining it.

Understanding why things are like they are does little to help you to decide what to do next.

Negative emotions brought about by people interaction issues, such as fear, anger, frustration, feeling overwhelmed and misunderstood do not pave the way for a clear solution.

Following the 'What you focus on is what you get', neuroscience helps us to glean that focusing on what the solution is can help enormously with problems relating to people interactions.

The solutions-focused approach is used in all of our work. We start with some initial questions to elicit the issues as you see and experience them and then move forward to articulate specifically what you do want - your goals and objectives - in positive and measurable terms.

We move forward by scaling where you are now and identifying what is already good and what is already being done right.

This helps us identify what already works for you - so you can aim to do more of it - as well as highlighting resources, strengths which can be used to move further forwards to help you gradually achieve your goals and objectives at your own pace.

We also work on the premise that problems rarely happen in all contexts. Identifying times when problems do not occur for you helps us to think about transferring this knowledge, skills and so on to other contexts where the problem does happen for you.

One example of this came to light for a client of mine last night when he realised he felt calm and in control the days after a good night's rest when he was not up until 1am emailing.

This had the knock-on effect of him being calmer with his wife and children the next day which subsequently helped his wife feel warmer towards him, more supportive and so on.

The solutions-focused approach is a positive and pragmatic way to progress with people issues and problems communicating and interacting.

Your challenge is to apply this approach in your own life and if you so wish let us know how you get on.

Our mission is to teach you an approach which you will find useful again and again in your life.

If you would like to know more about receiving solutions focused coaching or counselling please visit our website to see our full range of services West of England Coaching and Counselling.