Coaching niceguy: I had a training session at work yesterday called coaching for development and there were some interesting parallels to divorce and/or separation. It was an interesting class and I thought I'd share some of the concepts. The first was never use the words.. Try, should or why. This class teaches a very cut and dry approach so instead of using these words:
We are TRYING to work on our marriage...be honest with yourself and use either We ARE or ARE NOT working on it. The class went so far as to say there is no such thing as trying.
Our Marriage SHOULD be happy. Use our Marriage IS or IS NOT happy instead.
WHY are we unhappy? Use WHAT makes us happy and act on that rather than pondering the why's they get you nowhere.
The approach is to try to break down the abstracts and use smaller easier to handle question that you can answer. I've sort of twisted this from coaching a person to go further in career, but it made sense to me.
Another concept was acknowledge Interpretation, but act on Facts.
How many times in a divorce do we act on our interpretations of our spouse? Rather than the facts in front of us. Gather the facts and act on those.
One more that I sort of mentioned above was break things into action and whether they are working or not. Have an honest conversation with yourself or a coach and build on what's working and stopping what's not. This may lead to nothing is working, but at least it's moving forward to finding something that will. In the case of marriage it may be ending it. Only you can tell.
I don't know if this made sense to anyone, but it made some sense to me towards separation and divorce so I thought I'd share. Maybe it's a little too cut and dry...but take it for whatever you want.
Re:Coaching niceguy: You know after I posted this I was thinking.... it sounds awful cold and easier said than done. Just something that had me thinking yesterday. Who knows.. I just found it interesting how everything in my life I can somehow twist around to be about divorce.
Hopefully I didn't come off like a know it all...because obviously I don't. Just some Saturday morning ramblings :-\
Re:Coaching Kathy: Niceguy,
I liked it. To be honest about it, who doesn't take one thing and turn it into something about divorce. I really liked the part about the words not to use, try, should and why. The why got me the most. I am going to take a note from your page and try to directly relate it to my day to day life.
When people ask me if I am having a good day, I would say I am Trying, instead of I am.
When people ask me to get out of the house and do something productive I would say, I should, now I am going to go.
And when people ask me WHY am I getting divorced I am not going to say, I ask myself that everyday. I am going to ask them, How is your marriage? Sorry mine is not as good as yours, but I don't know why?
