THE NON FLUFF EMOTIONAL STUFF™

How To Solve Any Problem

I spend many hours each day coaching clients who want to better their life in some way.

The topics range from lack of motivation to dealing with anxiety. I talk with a lot of people about not letting their frustration reach a boiling point, which results in an outburst, or what we like to call emotional intelligence terms, an emotional hijacking.

To get to the root cause of what my clients would like to work on, we always start with the end in mind.

It’s easy for me to sit and listen for an hour to my client’s problems, however that would result in them not feeling like they have gotten anywhere at the end of a session.

They may get a heavy weight off of their chest, but they have no clear direction and still feel stuck.

The solution?

They need to tell me what success looks like in that area for them. Or in other words. Set a goal.

What would you like this area of your life to look like?
By when?

Quality questions allow us to set an endpoint. We know what we are heading towards and we can identify if we have reached it.

One client I have worked with, Sally*, had experienced a series of really unsuccessful relationships. You might say she’d had her eyes closed and had been kissing a bunch of frogs without realising.

She didn’t know what she needed to do in order to feel more loved in her relationships. She didn’t know how to open her eyes and choose what she wanted.

Sally states the concern she has (her current reality):

“I don’t know why my partner doesn’t respect me. He doesn’t seem to communicate with me at all about anything, let alone about his feelings. We don’t live together and I feel like we are just together on the weekends, and a day in the week. The rest of the time I don’t really feel like we are in a proper relationship. I don’t know what to do.”

It is easy to explore what he is or is not doing in this scenario. We could spend hours on how to make HIM communicate better.

However, we have no control over his actions, so in this scenario, I immediately go to:

What does success look like for you in A relationship for you? (Not this relationship, but in A relationship).

PING a light bulb moment! My client had never really considered what she wanted!

She realised that in the past she would fall into relationships without giving any thought to WHAT she wanted from them.

The first step to a successful relationship (or anything) is…

Set a GOAL.

What does a successful relationship look like to you?
How do you want to feel in a relationship?
How will you be treated? and how will you treat them?
What are important, must-have, requirements for the type of relationship you want?

Once you determine this, you have an endpoint. A goal. You know what you are working towards. Next, the work begins to move towards that goal.

In this case, we use the Acronym. GROW. This stands for:
Goal
Reality
Options
What’s Next?

Now Sally has the goal. Next, we need to explore what is the reality in this situation?

This is where you explore the problem or concern.
For Sally, we insert her concern from above and we have her current reality.

(In case you don’t want to scroll back up, here it is again: “I don’t know why my partner doesn’t respect me. He doesn’t seem to communicate with me at all about anything, let alone about his feelings. We don’t live together and I feel like we are just together on the weekends, and a day in the week. The rest of the time I don’t really feel like we are in a proper relationship. I don’t know what to do.”).

The third step is to look at the Options.

What can I do to move toward my goal?
What is within my control?
What can I do that I haven’t tried before?
What is my 50% in this?

Answering these questions brings up all the possible solutions and together, I helped Sally begin to explore the answers.

Quality questions will keep you moving forward.
Stopping at statements about your reality will keep you stuck.

If you’re going through this process as you read this, regardless of the problem you are experiencing, keep exploring open-ended questions and see what comes up for you.

Finally, we come to the W.

The What’s Next? part.

This is the fun part. Where we choose an action and commit to it.
Nothing changes in life until we do something different.

It only needs to be a small change… but committing to doing something will make a difference and can help move you towards that goal of yours.

So, now Sally’s eyes are open did she stop kissing frogs and find her Prince Charming?

In the end, Sally broke up with her boyfriend. It took her 6 months to realise the work she put in on herself did not change the outcome of the relationship. She chose to release the relationship with love and see what happened in her life.

Sally set a new goal to be in a relationship with someone who shared the same values.

And yes, I am happy to say, Sally is happily in a relationship. She did kiss a few more frogs, but let them go faster. Her current relationship has everything she wrote in her goal. This may just be her Prince Charming.

*Names have been changed to protect identities

What are some of your life, problems, or concerns that you could apply GROW to?

Got a question you want us to answer? We can help. Hit reply and ask away?

We may share the answer with our audience; however, we will not include your name.

Yours in Growth and Positivity
Alisa x

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Written by Alisa Pettit

It’s never too late for a lane change. Insite Mind is the brainchild of one woman who after a decade spinning in the hamster wheel of the accounting world gave it up to live out her heart work. But it didn’t come without challenge and a little nudge from the universe in the form of a book Dealing with Difficult People. Upon opening it Alisa was surprised to find in black and white text “maybe it’s you”. So after several ego deaths and many personal development books along the way Alisa Pettit found her way to coaching. Now a fully fledged positive mindset coach and personal mastery guru Ali’s work helps people find their way through mindset teachings.

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