Relationship Coach Blog

When we imagine a positive outcome, it motivates us.  We think that girl or guy will talk to us, so we approach.  We think we can get the job, so we apply.  Imagination stimulates motivation and motivation stimulates action.  Having a close relationship, a good job, or a healthy body begins with our imagination.  Therefore, our imagination is an important tool in our success.  It’s one that relationship coaches use constantly in their work with clients.  Planning is important for success, but without imagination, there is nothing to plan.

Everyone has the ability to imagine what it would be like to have a close, romantic relationship, to be rich, or to have the body of a model or athlete.  But, the more desirable the goal (like being rich), the less likely we are to believe that we can achieve it.  Lack of belief throws cold water on the fires of imagination.  Our conclusion?  “It’s too good to be true.” Yet people with very poor relationships can have very close ones.  People with very little money can become wealthy.  Coaches help people to do these things.  But how?  How can we achieve what we don’t believe?

We can use our imaginations to set an endpoint–a mountaintop experience. It will show us what direction to go.  Then, we can set smaller, more believable short term goals which lead to the mountaintop.  As we reach each short term goal we become more excited and motivated.  This happens because we are closer to where we want to be (making it more believable) and we are further away from where we were (showing us our ability to make progress).  Even people who climb real mountains don’t do it in one step.

Here is a step by step method for using your imagination to enhance your relationship:

1. Get a piece of paper and a pen.
2. Pretend you have a magical wand that could give you any future you desire.  Making this “magical” will help you to suspend your belief system for a little bit.  At this point, it makes no difference whether you can actually reach that mountaintop.  Write down what you would wish or do with that magical wand.  How many wishes?  As many as you like.
3. If you wrote more than one thing, circle the one that you would most like to have or that would make the biggest difference in your life (you can work on the others later).
4. Next, write out a description of what your life would be like if you had that.  Don’t just say, “my life would be great.”  Write out how it would be great.  What would you do, see, or feel differently?  The more specific you can be, the more you will get out of this exercise.
5. Now, use the principle of halving (cutting your goal in half) to get to a believable goal.  For example, Let’s suppose that your wish is:  “To have a perfect relationship marked by freedom, excitement, love, commitment and mutual assistance.  If I had it, then, I could go anywhere and do anything with a partner who I am very close to.”  Sounds great, doesn’t it?
6. Then, write down what would be half-way there.  This could vary, but might be something like this: “My partner and I give each other some freedoms and help each other with some things.  We feel close half of the time and are committed to stay together.”  Is this a believable goal for you?  Perhaps, perhaps not, depending on how your relationship is now.  So…
7. Halve it again: “My partner and I allow each other a few freedoms, help each other with a few things, feel in love once in a while, and are hoping to be able to have a committed relationship.” Sound within your realm of belief?  Probably, but if not, then reduce it more.  (Even a goal to argue 3 days a week is a good one if you currently argue 7 days a week).

The point is to get to a level that is believable.  Once you have a believable goal (which is on the road to the unbelievable), then you can focus on reaching this goal.  The specific things that you have written will help you to generate ideas for action or skills to learn.  Relationship coaches generally combine their experience with brainstorming to help their clients generate several ways to start working on their relationship.  I once worked with a couple who started to change their relationship simply by the wife making sugar free Jell-O for her husband.  It was no mountaintop activity, but it got them going in the right direction.

Working on the believable and achievable, even a small thing, gives us hope.  Even more so when we know that it is on the way to an even greater thing.  No one can plant a tomato seed and have a tomato the next day.  But, when we see the seed sprout, it is exciting.  When it grows, even more so.  And the bigger and healthier the plant gets, the more hopeful we are for that tomato.  And, when we do we actually enjoy it?  We enjoy it from the time that we plant the seed.

As a relationship coach, it is not my business to dream your dreams for you.  That is a creative part of you that is inside of you.  As a coach, I can show you how to plant the seed of your dreams, and teach you the small steps that will help it grow. My specialty is helping people who have a dream about their relationship-whether that dream is big or small.  No one wants their relationship just to survive.  There is always a dream beyond that.  But, building trust, sharing, and partnership in your relationship is along the way to those dreams.

Both you and your partner have a dream. If you will allow me, it will be my privilege to help you to start and to help you to help your partner to start.  If you are single and looking, you can also remember that you are an important part of someone else’s dream.  That is the person we want to find for you.

Interested in some of the things people are working on in relationship coaching?  You can take a peek here:

http://www.greatrelationshipcoach.org/what_relationship_coaches_work_on.html