The Coach Approach

How To Fight Fair In Important Relationships

2009-05-11T05:40:00-07:00

MOST relationships are important for one reason or another.

Maybe you care about someone in an intimate relationship. Your relationships with your parents and your kids are probably important as well as your relationships with friends. And then there are your professional relationships - how you get along with coworkers, vendors, bosses, and other professionals impacts your ability to succeed and how much you enjoy your work - among other things.

Since we don't always see eye to eye on everything, there are going to be disagreements.

Disagreements can be highly toxic and damaging to these important relationships, even destroying the relationship if we don't learn to fight fair.

Fighting fair is critical to preserving and growing our connections with other people. Let's face it - it is very difficult to take back comments and actions that are made from a place of anger or judgment or a misuse of power. "Sorry" is an option but much better to be proactive going into a heated moment than cleaning up a mess of hurt feelings afterward.

When you find yourself faced with one of these relationship hot spots, take a moment to reflect on what you want to get out of the conversation and what actions might move you in that direction. Here are some specific guidelines to minimize relationship damage during heated discussions.

Ask permission or schedule a time BEFORE you attempt engagement. Sounds like this, "I'd like for us to discuss our finances. Is this a good time or can we set aside a 1/2 hour later today?"
Set guidelines for the discussion BEFORE you begin. Guidelines will be whatever works for the two of you (after the basic ground rules below). You could decide who will start the discussion, whether they speak uninterrupted or are willing to take questions, how much time you are going to allot to the conversation. You could even ask someone to use a different tone of voice with you or to refrain from swearing if that is an issue. Think about what each of you might need to make the conversation productive.
Set an intention and an outcome for the conversation. It is useful to be explicit here. The outcome might be to brainstorm or to explore or to consider different options. It could be just to express yourself. When you know your goal or outcome, it is easier to stay on track. The intention is how you want to be together during the discussion. You might try an intention like, "working together as parents" or "to be supportive of each other while discussing an issue" or "to be open minded." Decide together and then share your intentions with each other.

Setting an intention is absolutely critical when you have more power than the other person, for instance if you are a boss speaking to an employee or a parent talking to a teenager. By letting the other person know that your intention is to understand a situation, be supportive, or find solutions together - you will lessen the angst and fear the other person might be feeling due to the differences in your roles and power.

Setting guidelines for the conversation is something you do together and is negotiable. You need to find a way that works for the two of you. The four ground rules that follow are NOT negotiable. You must honor them to avoid diminishing rapport in the relationship.

The FOUR Basic Ground Rules for Fighting Fair

Take Responsibility for Yourself. No blaming. No matter how right you think you are, blaming the other person isn't going to resolve anything. Speak from your own point of view. Use phrases like, "I wanted" or "I assumed" or "I feel." Once you start accusing and assigning blame to the other person, you have polarized the discussion into winners and losers. Where there are winners and losers, you both lose because the relationship loses something.
Put Aside Defensive Behavior. Don't defend and justify. When you do, you again lock in to positions of right and wrong. It is the other side of blaming. It says, "Oh no, YOU are wrong and I am right and here is my proof." Unless you are dealing with very simple, indisputable, verifiable data that doesn't include any objective information, perception, or feelings - don't defend. It perpetuates rather than resolves conflict.
Avoid Contemptuous Behavior. "Contemptuous" is anything that attacks or demeans the other person and can be as subtle as eye rolling when someone is talking to as overt as using physical power. As tempting as it may be when you are angry, these are the straws that break the back of important relationships. What you say and do when you are upset will be remembered long after the conflict is over and may cause collateral damage to the relationship.
No Stonewalling Allowed. You need to be a partner in the conversation if you intend to fight fair. Shutting down, withdrawing, or refusing to engage is generally perceived to mean that you just don't care about the issue at hand or worse yet, the person to whom you are speaking. It comes across as insulting and demeaning. If you need to withdraw to collect yourself and refrain from doing relationship damage, by all means, take a break. Just let the other person know that (a) you are taking a break and (b) you will get back to them to resume/resolve. And then, keep your word.

How to Simplify Making Decisions

2009-02-26T14:15:38-08:00

Making decisions about things that are really important in our lives can sometimes be overwhelming. We try to think through all of the possibilities and what ifs and uncertainties to make the uncertain - certain. But, we just can't know everything there is to know about the future or the implications of every decision. When faced with big decisions, we might find ourselves cycling through the options over and over in our head as if we could "think" harder about it and the "right" path would be suddenly clear.

AND, if the right path does suddenly appear - terrific. But when it doesn't, here is a really simple process to chunk down those big decisions. At the heart of the process is figuring out what is most important to you and then organizing your desires into needs, wants, and wishes.

Get Clear and Get Personal

To make the "right" decision, you need to identify what EXACTLY is important to you.

First make a list of all of the things that are important to you. For instance, if you were considering job choices, you might list salary, a good boss, security, and interesting work. Write down all the important things you can think of.

Now, you need to get your list in order of priority. Do this by comparing the items one at a time. Ask yourself, if you could have x and not y, which one would you take. For example, if your career criteria list looked like this:

salary
security
good boss
interesting work

Begin by asking, if you could have good salary but not security, which would you take? If you said security, then you would put security above salary. Next you would compare security to having a good boss. If you could only have one, which would you take. If you said security again, then security would stay at the top of your list. Once you have found the number one item, you would start to compare your second item to the third and the fourth until you have an ordered list.

What's Necessary and What's Nice?

This is a way of sorting what is most important. Once the list is sorted, decide which things you NEED. Which ones do you absolutely have to have to meet your needs? They will be the items at the top of the list. Next, identify which ones you would LIKE to have but don't necessarily need. Finally, identify the ones you WISH you could have; they would just be nice not necessary.

Once you have your most important criteria, evaluate your choices according to the most important values that you have identified. What are the items that are not important and not negotiable?

Do a Gut Check

Finally, check in with your intuition. What is your gut feel about your choices and opportunities? If you took no action, what would it be like one, two or five years from now? If you took option A and not B, what would you miss or regret? What other possibilities might become available?

Trust that your intuition will provide you with the best guidance. Your subconscious mind is able to process much more than your rational mind. When you are recycling, over and over in your rational mind, you are probably ignoring some very important feelings and intuitions about your choices OR you haven't identified what is most important to YOU.

*Photo byLaTur

8 Criteria for Creating Even More Happiness in Your Life

2009-01-13T13:37:06-08:00

Photo by outdoorsie
The last of one’s freedoms is to choose one's attitude in any given circumstance.

~Victor Frankl

I am hard pressed right now to find anyone who is optimistic about the upcoming year except a few Internet marketers who are bombarding my inbox with messages claiming that they are not participating in any recession.

Fear, dread, and anxiety won't change the economy, the stock market, or energy prices. They just make you feel crummy no matter what is going on. Worse yet, they jam your creative mechanisms and point your line of focus straight at problems rather than opportunities.

This is a time to be resourceful and to be resourceful, we need to clear our head of all the things we can't do anything about. We need to really get that while we don't control our environment or the economy or our teenage son, we DO control our responses to these things. Attitude and feeling good are a choice. So why not choose to feel good and fully engage with your life this year, no matter what the circumstances?

Yes! You Can

Yes, you can feel better, make yourself happier. In the best selling book, "Flow. The Psychology of Optimal Experience," psychology professor and researcher Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi outlines the eight principles that are necessary to create happiness. This is not another pseudo psychology self-help book but rather it is based on a decade's worth of research by the author and his team out of the University of Chicago.

For you to enjoy yourself and feel happiness, engage in activities or tasks in such a way that at least one if not more of the following criteria are present.

1. You feel you at least have a chance of completing it. Notice you don't have to be supremely confident, just feel a possibility of completing it. Don't choose something that is so easy it doesn't require you to stretch. Too hard and you'll feel more struggle than satisfaction.

2. You have the opportunity to concentrate.

3. The task has clear goals.

4. You receive immediate feedback on your progress so you know whether or not you are on target to reach your goals.

5. Deeply engage with the activity so that your mind pushes aside day to day worries and frustrations. This is one reason why physical activities and sports are so effective at producing positive states.

6. Exercise a sense of control over your actions.

7. During the activity, your sense of self disappears. Think back to the last time you saw a terrific movie and became completely engrossed in the story on the screen.

8. Engage in an activity where your sense of time is altered.

Organize the Chaos

The normal state of our mind is chaos. Without something to occupy our time and our thoughts, most of us will default to worry or trying to solve a problem. By engaging in activities that involve challenge, have clear goals and a way of obtaining feedback, we channel the normally chaotic workings of the mind in a constructive direction. By using concentration and self directed skills, we push aside our worries to become fully engaged and lose all sense of time. We create in essence a sense of flow, an allowing of a greater experience of happiness.

The really good news is the opportunities for flow are endless. Sports, dance, sex, reading, writing, painting, playing music, eating, building a Lego tower with a child. Just about any activity can be transformed into a happiness producing experience by consciously employing some or more of these criteria.

Friday's Coaching Inquiry: Something to Think About

2008-11-14T22:05:34-08:00

I've been thinking on this one alot lately myself.

What would you do if you knew, absolutely, that you would not fail?

Out of the Mouths of Babes

2008-11-07T05:38:00-08:00

Photo by Diana Bella

My six-year-old daughter asked me:

Who made God?

How come they call a tree a "tree?"

What is the point of you? The point of a towel is that it dries you off.

Friday's inquiry: What is the point of you?

My apologies to email subscribers who received an unedited copy of this post yesterday. I hit the wrong button while composing and was unable to retrieve from cyberspace.

Related Posts:

Inquiring Mind Friday, October 31

Inquiring Mind Friday, October 24

Personal Development Books - The Answer by John Assaraf

2008-11-06T10:39:51-08:00

I was a true book-a-holic last month, plowing through four new books, repeat reading six old books and perusing three of the many books written by my office mate over the last ten years. I cherish books and the learning at my fingertips.

Not too long ago, when I longed for the time to finish even one new release - often settling for book summaries or spot reading on Amazon or in the book store. If you are in that camp, or if you missed it recently, here is a summary of John Assaraf's, "The Answer." Assaraf is one of the key contributors to the hit DVD, "The Secret." He has built four multi-million dollar companies and is currently at work on his dream of building the largest franchising company of the world at OneCoach.

The book brings together neuroscience, coaching, positive psychology, self-motivation, and goal-setting with a dose of the spiritual if you will. Below is a summary of the psychological and strategic concepts. I've skipped the tactical business coaching that starts on page 173. Even so, this post is fairly long.

"Discover what it is you are uniquely gifted to be and to do, then build your business and your life in ways that take maximum advantage of those aspects of yourself. That is when life flows."

We know from the field of quantum physics that everything is energy - even things that look like solid matter, like a chair - are, the tiniest level, packets of energy. Your thoughts are energy that create your physical world basically by broadcasting to the universe - kind of like a radio - what it is you are thinking about and desiring. Some mysterious force makes sense of what you are broadcasting and brings it into your awareness or reality. This is what some call the "Law of Attraction."

While it can't be scientifically proven, there is plenty of anecdotal evidence to support it. Everything you desire is out in the ether waiting for your thoughts to resonate at the proper level to bring these good things into your life. But how? Harness the power of both your conscious and nonconscicous minds.

Your conscious brain has five levels of functioning. They are will, memory, perception, reasoning, intuition, and imagination. The most powerful of these is imagination which is where dreams and ideas are born. However, to tap the power of the quantum universe, you have to train your subconscious mind and need both aspects to work together. To do that, you use the following six step process.

Create a vision of what you want to achieve complete with sensory and emotional details.

Write down affirmations that fit the vision in your mind.

Feel the emotions of succeeding in this way by accessing memories of other times you have succeeded. The author refers to this a "neural linking" and spends good deal of time explaining exactly how to do it.

Make a vision board of your dream.

Design and implement a daily routine to imprint the new beliefs on your subconscious mind three times per day, morning, noon and before bed.

Feed positive messages to your subconscious throughout the day via audio, video, affirmations or mediation.

The above technique is referred to as Neural Reconditioning and it is a rock solid method for self-motivation. Chapter 8 provides a complete list of FAQ's for more information on the technique.

The balance of the book covers creating a vision for your business based on your passion, defining your ideal customer,innovating, and differentiating your business from your competitors. All practical , specific and useful information!

I love the science although I don't know enough to be skeptical about it and I am fine with that. The information on how to use your mind is useful with or without the science although the authors go to great lengths to provide the background and the science. he book is an excellent balance of theory, explanation, and practical application. After completing the exercises, you will have written a fairly comprehensive business and/or life plan based on your deepest passions.

This is an excellent coaching book for people who need to understand a little more about the science behind visualization, a positive mental attitude and the relationship between thoughts, energy, and success.

Related Posts:

A Recipe for Happiness

Getting Started on Your Goals

What Areas of Your Life Need Fresh Goals?

Three Simple Tips to Help You Achieve Your Goals

Improve Your Opportunities for Success with Laser-Like Focus

Save Time and Energy by Visualizing Your Goals

Stretch Your Dreaming Muscle

Life Coaching Tool: Friday's Inquiring Mind

2008-10-31T22:51:00-07:00

Photo by crouchingcathiddendog

Something to contemplate over the weekend, or the week ahead. Journal on it. Discuss with a friend or just mentally chew on it a bit.

There are 61 days left in 2008.

Where is the best place to invest your energy for the rest of this year?

Related Posts

Inquiring Mind Friday, Oct. 24, 2008

20 Habits You Need to Break to Get to the Next Level

2008-10-29T18:12:15-07:00

"You can get there. But you have to understand that what got you here won't get you there." Marshall Goldsmith " onclick="window.open(this.href,'_blank','scrollbars=no,resizable=yes,toolbar=no,directories=no,location=no,menubar=no,status=no,left=0,top=0'); return false" style="FLOAT: right">

Executive coach Marshall Goldsmith's book "" target="_blank">What Got You Here Won't Get You There" identifies 20 behaviors that successful people need to change to get ahead at work. The book elaborates on each of these negative habits and provides useful remedies and strategies for modifying the offending behaviors.

Worth a a read and what I notice is you can apply them at work, at home, in relationships and other places in your life as well. They don't need much explanation.

Winning too much.

Adding too much value.

Passing judgment.

Making destructive comments.

Starting with "No," "But," or "However."

Telling the world how smart you are.

Speaking when angry.

Negativity, or "Let me explain why that won't work."

Withholding information.

Failing to give proper recognition.

Claiming credit that we don't deserve.

Making excuses.

Clinging to the past.

Playing favorites.

Refusing to express regret.

Not listening.

Failing to express gratitude.

Punishing the messenger.

Passing the buck.

An excessive need to be "me."

The only one I didn't really get on first read was the last one. An 'excessive need to be me" is justifying a behavior with "That's just the way I am."

Which of these behaviors might be coming between you and your next level of success?

Life Coaching Tool: The Inquiring Mind

2008-10-24T12:22:46-07:00

Photo by Michael Mahlum
All of the wisdom and resources you need to solve problems, identify opportunities, grow yourself and move forward toward greater fulfillment and success are within you. They simply need to become available to your conscious mind from your subconscious mind or some other mysterious holding place.

Train your mind to access this guidance by sending it on a quest for information. Pose a query to your self and then reflect on it over a period of time and see what surfaces. There is no right answer to a query of this kind. There is only your answer, your wisdom.

Each Friday, I'll post a query here for you to contemplate over the weekend if you like. Write about it in a journal. Talk about it with a friend. Twirl it around in your mind while you're driving. See where it takes you. Let it be effortless and entertaining.

The question for this week is:

Where am I in relationship to my biggest dreams?

Related Posts

A Recipe for Happiness

Stretch Your Dreaming Muscle

16 Ways to Jumpstart Your Day

2008-10-23T11:34:46-07:00

Photo by Mizz Amontillado
I love mornings. I appreciate my mornings so much because not too long ago, I didn't have mornings to enjoy. Well, the mornings were there. They were just insane.

Working east coast hours from the west coast, I used to fly into the bathroom at 4:00 a.m., flip on the micro-coffee pot - that's right. the coffee pot was in my bathroom - and then jump into a fast and furious shower. I could wash my hair and shave both legs in less than 7 minutes on a good day. By 4:20 a.m. I was speeding down Columbus Ave. to the 12th floor of the Transamerica Pyramid building for the start of a 4:30 a.m. meeting.

The meeting was broadcast over a loud speaker so I could read the newspaper, scan multiple news services, review overnight emails and research, and choke down an apple while listening to CNN and MSNBC on the jumbo screen tv's - all at the same time.

If this sounds even a little bit like your morning, know that you don't need that frantic morning pace in order to succeed or get everything done that you want to get done in the day. The reality is, starting out at that level of adrenaline and cortisol so early in the morning leads to ineffective decision making and burn out. Its kind of like trying to run a marathon at the pace of a sprint. You use all your juice right off the start line and then limp through the rest of the race at a lackluster crawl.

I've change my morning routine to include exercise, an awesome breakfast, time for reflection and planning, and a few moments with my kids. This is what works for me and allows me to accomplish more during a day with less effort and angst. But a zen morning is not for everybody. Regardless of how you choose to start your day, begin with a choice. Replace your frantic habit with a powerful morning routine that will support you in being productive for the rest of the day.

Here is a list of 16 ideas to jump start your day in a powerful way. If what you are doing is not empowering you throughout your day, why not try something new?

Exercise. You will feel better. You will look better. Over time, you will absolutely be healthier. My husband, along with a few other professionals we know, recently started riding his bike to work. He keeps a suit and shirts at the office. He now squeezes 40 minutes of exercise into every work day and has a terrific morning routine.

Breathe. Take a few deep breaths to clear your head and bring a good dose of oxygen to your brain and your body .

Appreciate. Look around at your quiet surroundings and take a moment to appreciate. Appreciate your home, your spouse, children, a favorite pet or your good health. Just notice how fortunate you are today.

Break the routine. Do something different or out of the ordinary like drive a different route to work or shave before your shower instead of after. This wakes up your brain and increases your awareness of your environment.

Start the night before. Make a list the night before of the most important things that need your energy tomorrow. Let your subconscious mind work on your plan while you are sleeping.

Plan. If you didn't do it the night before, make a plan for your day. Review your appointments and make notes about other issues that need your attention.

Be the master of your Blackberry/email. Don't turn on your Blackberry or check your email and messages until you are ready to move into reaction mode. I use to check my messages before driving my kids to school so the whole time we were in the car, I was wishing I was back at my desk. This created stress and drained my energy so now, I wait. It can be done and good people everywhere are learning how!

Get intentional. Have a conversation with yourself. What do you want to achieve this day? What do you want to create? How do you want to feel? What impact do you want to have walking into the next meeting?

Affirmations. If you are an affirmations person like I am, read them, say them, sing them - whatever works to bring forward that positive mental attitude.

Affection. Hug your spouse. Have sex before the kids wake up. Kiss your children good-bye or tell them that you love them just because they need to hear it.

Listen to inspiring music. Ramp up your mojo by listening to some uplifting music. For an extra kick, move your body a bit - dance.

Nature. If you are fortunate enough to have easy access to the great outdoors, take a walk or sit on the porch and enjoy a cup of coffee. Nature can work wonders in just minutes, really just minutes.

Read. Save the paper for later and grab something inspiring like a great biography, success story, or spiritual text. A couple of pages is sufficient.

Yes, eat your Wheaties! Eat a healthy breakfast loaded with complex carbohydrates (i.e fruit and whole grains) and some protein. When in doubt - eat an apple. Your brain and your body need the fuel to get started. Even though you don't feel hungry because your body is in fasting mode while you are sleeping - eat something anyway to fuel your brain and ramp up your physiological systems.

Self care. Meditate. Reflect. Write in a daily journal.

Follow your natural rhythm. Everyone has a rhythm. Some people wake up ready to go and others take awhile. Honor your natural rhythm. If you are a person who needs more time, think about getting up a few minutes earlier and allowing yourself time to transition into the pace of the day. On the other hand, if you wake up bursting with energy, you can make good use of it by getting some rigorous exercise before you throw on that jacket and tie and head to the office.