How To Get Over A Break Up
January 24th, 2007Mike and I are upgrading a few of the articles on our website and I decided that you may find this one useful. One of my rules for a successful relationship is ridding yourself of the fear of ‘walking’ (leaving the relationship). Once you’ve lost that fear you know you’re staying in a relationship because you want to, not because you’re too afraid to be on your own. So even if you’re not broken hearted right now you may want to view reading this as an investment in your future.
There are 7 practical steps to make the pain of dealing with a break up disappear as soon as possible. I’ve picked out the three most likely to give you some ideas about how to get over a break up and turn surviving into thriving in the quickest possible way. Read the rest of this entry »
The Question That Dropped Her In The Deep End
January 10th, 2007I’ve been working with a client on what to say when someone asks about her relationship history. This is a bit of a sticky subject for Suzy as she’s now 28 and, aside from a relationship she had through University, she’s never been in a serious relationship. She had a couple of dates recently. When this question came up on both of them she was left feeling like she handled it very badly, got totally self conscious and went home early.
This got me to thinking about the nature of questions and how we answer them. In my experience a lot of people really don’t understand what they are being asked and can make a total mess of something that was only ever meant to be social fluff. If you’d like to know more about how to answer those tricky questions more artfully then please read on. Read the rest of this entry »
How To Stop Arguments Before They Start
December 13th, 2006I’m still putting the final touches to Should I Stay or Should I Go and I’m really amazed by what I’ve learned whilst researching it. So many more of the problems between couples than I ever realised are actually communication based issues not compatibility mismatches. This is great news if you are in a relationship and that includes friendships. I’m about to teach you a skill that may well revolutionise the way you view conflicts in your life.
Often times our conflicts are about trying to get other people to change and become more like ourselves. The irony here for me is that it’s hard enough for me to change myself let alone try to bend someone else to my will. It is my humble suggestion that we should all stop trying and take a lot more responsibility for handling our own emotional issues. The strange thing about this of course is that the moment you stop trying to bully your partner into changing they are generally more than happy to meet you half way. Let me show you how you do it. Read the rest of this entry »
Love Hurts and Here’s Why!
November 29th, 2006Sometimes when working with a client I share something about my own life, or more specifically about my own struggles. At the end, when I ask them what the best thing was about the call, they’ll often say that it’s nice to know that even I struggle in my relationship.
I recently got to thinking about my work with my own coach, and also about a men’s group that I’m in, and I realised that time and again the most important message I get is that I’m not alone. So if you find that being in a relationship is a challenge you really are in very good company. Those of you that are single and wondering if this article will apply to you had better start paying attention. Being single is not accidental, pretty much everyone I have ever worked with has been in love, it’s staying in love that is the challenge.
My sense of a perfect life is being laid in the shade in a hammock, reading a great book, birds chirping, sound of the surf in the background and feeling totally at peace. In those moments I experience the world as loving, supportive and safe. I’ve had many of these moments (not always in a hammock) and they touch me deeply, but by comparison to really experiencing the connection between my partner and I, they pale.
Our primary relationships are, in my opinion, pretty much the best that life has to offer us. When they are working well and when things are easy there is no finer place to be. However, the moment they stop working so well and we get into conflict they can become hell on earth. At least for some of us. In this article I’m going to talk about why that happens and show you how you can save yourself a huge amount of pain.
In my experience, both personally and professionally, emotional security seems to come down to one thing and that thing is ‘attachment’. John Bowlby worked in an area referred to as developmental psychology and is widely acknowledged as having developed what is referred to as ‘attachment theory’. This is the idea that all of us, in fact all primates, have an inbuilt, biological need to ‘attach’ to our primary caregiver. I’d like to ignore the fact that he tortured baby monkeys to come to this understanding and make sure that their suffering wasn’t in vain by sharing some of the implications of his work with you. Read the rest of this entry »
But, What Do I Say?
November 15th, 2006Every time I present a class on ‘How to Talk to Anyone’ I’m asked by at least 50% of the class to explain how to best approach strangers. In particular, people want to know how to approach someone they find attractive.
There’s a very common attraction pattern where the better they appear, the scarier we make them. There’s a funny (well, painful really!) dynamic that occurs when you’ve become excited and interested in a member of the opposite sex whereby you suffer the paralysis of analysis. What would I say? Maybe he’s too busy to talk to me? Supposing she thinks I’m an idiot?
How often in your life have you seen someone that looks really interesting, and in some way attractive to you, yet you haven’t done anything about it? Would you like to learn an easy to master technique to rid yourself of this problem once and for all?
The fear of introducing yourself to strangers applies to far more than singles trying to get a date; it’s relevant to anyone that has to meet people. That said, the most painful occurrences are generally around love interests so that’s going to be the focus of this article. Read the rest of this entry »
He Never Says ‘I Love You’
November 1st, 2006Joyce* has been coaching with me for a couple of months and came to me because she was considering leaving her relationship. She’d been with this guy for the last two years but had got to the point were she could no longer ignore her sense of feeling unloved and under appreciated. Initially she was very angry with her partner James, but has more recently she’d come to the understanding that the level of pain she was in was her responsibility not his.
One of the biggest areas for potential growth occurs the moment you accept that it’s your job to educate your partner about what makes you feel most loved. Then, for a truly magnificent relationship, learn how to love your partner how they want to be loved, not how you think they want to be loved.
One of my clients taught me to think about this concept in a really easy way. When it comes to giving our loved ones gifts there is a real tendency to end up buying your partner the things you’d love to receive. So James buying his girlfriend a Nintendo Gameboy and Joyce buying him a new pair of shoes was never really going to go well.
Gary Chapman wrote a book called ‘The Five Languages of Love’ and it’s a real eye opener. You see, we all have our own preferred way to receive love and the mistake that we make is in assuming that our mate speaks that same language. The five languages are as follows. Read the rest of this entry »
How To Make Yourself More Attractive
October 18th, 2006Would you like to know a quick and easy-to-master skill that will make you more attractive overnight? Are you ready to give out doses of love and affection guaranteed to make you and those around you feel even better about life?
One of my ‘How to Talk to Women‘ clients, Robert, was complaining that he wasn’t getting much in the way of compliments or affection from his friends. Beneath the shell of being fine, it had him wondering if he was doing something wrong or whether they even liked him. I had begun to notice that Robert rarely offered up any praise himself so I had him explore the connection. A very simple rule for success is that whatever you want more of in your life start giving it.
Dan Sullivan, The Strategic Coach, created a great metaphor called ‘The Helium Culture’ for this process and I’d like to share it with you. Picture this and play along with this idea somewhere inside yourself. We are all balloons and we need helium to stay afloat. Every interaction is a chance for one of three things to happen. Read the rest of this entry »
Take A Compliment, Will You?!
October 4th, 2006In my last article I suggested you should aim to compliment your partner on a first date at least three times. In all the time I’ve been coaching women on dating and getting more dates I’ve noticed that there is a phenomenon that occurs around compliments. One that makes life much more difficult than it needs to be. Recently I had such a blatant example of it happen that I thought it warranted an article.
I was teaching a seminar and during the break I happened to notice that one of my shyer female attendees was wearing what I thought was a fantastic watch. I approached her and said I thought her watch looked great, to which she replied. ‘It’s rubbish really. I got it cheap off e-bay’. With that she’d made a classic mistake. One that has probably cost women more dates over the years than you could ever imagine. Most people aren’t aware of the implications of the mistake she’d just made, but it’s enough to turn men off you. And if you’ve ever complained you don’t get asked out enough, you really need to know this. Read the rest of this entry »
The Priming Date
September 20th, 2006I recently started coaching Angela* on my Finding Mr. Right program. She had no problem getting male friends but then again, no idea how to shift the ones she really liked to becoming lovers.
This is an issue that both my male and female clients have and it’s really easily fixed. In fact, I teach people one sentence that makes the transition really easy. If they have the courage to use it, that is!
I’ve been re-reading a book called ‘How to Succeed with Women’ by Ron Louis and David Copeland. They have a brilliant concept which they refer to as ‘The Priming Date’. I’ve actually trained more of my female clients in its use and, almost without exception, they end up raving about their new found success with their love interest.
For years now I’ve been teaching people the value of context and how it overrules content. Context is the framework you set a meeting up within. Content is what happens within that meeting. If the person you meet up with isn’t clear on what your intention is then you have to work a lot harder with the content of the interaction and that is often a bit of an up hill struggle.
A priming date should last no more than about half an hour - which is why meeting up for coffee or a walk is just about perfect. According to Copeland and Louis there are a list of things that really need to happen on this date to establish the right context. It includes things like bathing beforehand and making sure you smell good, but I think you already know that.
So next time you meet up with someone for the first time this is what you have to do. Read the rest of this entry »
Leaving A Relationship
September 6th, 2006Sometimes after working their way through ‘Should I Stay or Should I Go?’ a client will decide that it’s time to leave. I’ve been coaching Mary* for the past 3 months and having explored her options from every angle she decided that she could no longer pretend her relationship was going to improve. ‘Goodbye my love’ is so much harder to say than ‘Hello stranger’ and I’ve been working with her on making it as painless as possible.
Mary’s been having nightmares, the kind where she needs to start running away but she just can’t get her legs to work. These are called anxiety dreams and can be really scary. They tend to occur around situations that we feel we’re not strong enough to deal with. It’s almost as if our subconscious is letting us know that we’re not truly ready for the challenge.
If you’re going to leave someone here are a couple of suggestions for how to make it much less traumatic for all concerned. Read the rest of this entry »