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.

Cause and Effect

If you want to change your situation the starting point is taking responsibility for your where you are now and how you feel.

What is the outcome that you want?

We teach people how to treat us - so if your issue concerns a relationship perhaps you need to change your part of the script or role in the play.

We can either be at 'Cause' or 'Effect'. If at effect we say someone else or something else is responsible for how I am/feel/do/behave/my results/my situation.

If we are at cause we say I am responsible for my results/how I feel/do/behave. Which would you rather be?

If we want to be empowered we can choose to be at cause.

We cannot directly affect others' behaviour - that is usually outside our sphere of influence - but we can change our behaviour and indirectly influence them.

When I met Joan (name changed) she was not far from serving her husband with a divorce.

I asked Joan what her outcome was and if she still loved her husband. She said that she did and wanted to take some steps to save her marriage.

It transpired that her husband was away during the week on business and on Saturday night my client was tasked with holding dinner parties for his clients/potential clients/business associates.

Saturday nights had ran the same for the past year or so. Joan's husband would complain about aspects of the food/Joan's dress.

When guests left Joan would row with her husband, cry and he would sleep on the sofa.

I played back to Joan what she had shared with me and said it's rather like being in a play where the script does not change - he has his role and you have yours.

Who was the wise person who said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing in the same way and expecting to get a different result.

I said to Joan that in order to achieve her outcome she would need to change her part of the script.

The next time I saw her she looked much happier and said: 'It was so hard but I changed my role in the script and it's helped'.

The Saturday after our session Joan had not shouted, screamed and cried when the guests left even though her husband had said 'that old thing' about her dress and criticised the food that she had spent all afternoon preparing.

Joan had sat down opposite him, looked him in the eye and said 'What I love about you are that you are a great dad to our daughter and a good provider for our family'.

I asked what his reaction was. She said he looked embarrassed. Why wouldn't he?

I asked what happened next. She said that for the first time in almost a year they shared the same bed and he held her.

Over the next months Joan's situation improved so much that her husband started complimenting her in front of friends/colleagues even adding 'How she has put up with having dinner party guests every single Saturday for as long as I can remember beats me' and 'I think we will have some time out and spend some weekends just the two of us'.

If you have found this blog useful, please leave your comments and if I can help you please do get in touch via West of England Coaching and Counselling.

Improving Our Relationships

How much time do you spend improving your key relationships?

Is there room for improvement or would you score yourself 10/10 in this area of your life?

If you do score yourself less than 10/10 perhaps consider your most valued relationships - most of us have between one and four - and think about what you can do to move up one point say from 6/10 to 7/10.

Then when you are at 7/10 what can you do to score 8/10 with the person you have in mind and what can you do to score 9/10 and even 10/10.

Many relationships are improved through better communication. Arguably the most important part of communication is listening and being heard.

Let's first focus on your most important relationship - perhaps your partner or child.

When was the last time you really listened to the key poeple in your life without interrupting them or passing judgment on what they say?

One of the ways we improve relationships is asking the important person/people in our life what we can do to make the relationship stronger.

We can then ask the other person if they would like us to reciprocate and let them know what we feel they can do to strengthen our relationship.

The idea is that we actively listen to the other person for about 10 minutes without interrupting, without thinking of a response and without being distracted by other thoughts such as 'I really should be getting the dinner on'.

After 10 minutes we can comment for about 5 minutes e.g. 'Yes I can do that' and have a discussion with the person about what to do next.

Perhaps you cannot do what they are asking but you are willing to meet them half way and compromise in some way. If this is the case say so.

Then you swap over and let the other person know what you need from them e.g 'I feel that we have an excellent relationship with x and y working really well for me...what would make it even better is if this happened..'

Another exercise that works well is to imagine that you are the other person and walk in their shoes in relating to you. What do you see now?

The idea is that looking at you from another's perspective helps you to both be aware of what it is like living with you / working with you and also to think of those changes that you can and are happy to make to strengthen the relationship.

Has this post been helpful to you? Please do let me know or contact me via my website at West of England Coaching and Counselling.