Your ability to relate measures your capacity to establish connection and rapport with the people in your life. My work as a professional coach has helped me identify specific strategies that can help you develop high quality relationships. These strategies make up the Seven Principles of Relating.
yourself.
Be Willing to Risk
Nothing great is ever accomplished without some element of risk. If you want the experience of being fully loved, you must be willing to experience full vulnerability. When you take this approach in relationships, allowing yourself to be open and expressing your true feelings, you create a space for your connection to deepen.
Think about the key relationships in your life. Get clear about what you want, communicate what that is, and invest in developing the relationship rather than in protecting yourself.
Be Available
True intimacy develops over time. Relationships grow as individuals learn about one another, share secrets and dreams, and develop comfortable patterns of interaction. This evolution requires your active participation.
To develop a bond, you must consistently spend time with the person you’re committing to, whether in friendship or love, and you must be mentally and emotionally present when you’re together. Once you’ve decided you’re committed to a relationship, make it a priority, and demonstrate how much the person matters to you by showing up fully and consistently.
Be Interested, Not Just Interesting
Our society is filled with people posturing for approval, working to prove their worth, and vying for acceptance. At times, even the most outwardly successful and confident among us spend more time talking about how interesting they are than finding out about the person they’re talking with. This habit is nothing but a call for acceptance, approval, and belonging.
As you grow personally, you will become more confident in your own value, and will feel less of a need to prove your importance. As this shift takes place, begin to focus on how interesting others are. Make the effort to learn about the people in your life. You will become interesting as a result of being interested in who others are.
Be Who You Are
Don’t ever pretend to be someone you aren’t. Relationships require a great investment of time, intellect, and emotional currency. If you’re developing a relationship based on a false self, you’re doing yourself and the other person a grave disservice.
Have confidence in the magnificence of who you are, and believe in the fact that the people you want to connect with will be attracted to the real you. Be honest about what you think, believe, and feel. The people in your life who deserve your commitment will love, support, and embrace all you. Those who won’t can move on – to make room in your life for those who will.
Don’t Make Assumptions
When you assume, you make something true without any proof to support your expectation. In relationship, our assumptions are usually based on our fears. We assume the worst because we fear the worst. This puts us into survival mode, which causes us to react. This cycle is at the root of many a disagreement.
When in doubt, ask. Relationship is based on communication. Your ability to clearly share, request, and exchange information will be one of the most pivotal and profound skills you’ll bring to your connection.
It’s okay to have doubts. It’s normal to experience varying levels of fear as you move into deeper levels of intimacy with another human being. Honestly share that process with the person you’re bonding with, and you will watch your relationship flourish. Making assumptions contaminates relationships. Don’t do it.
Accept Without Condition
There is no such thing as a perfect human being. Every one of us has bad habits, flawed character traits, and wounds we need to heal. Don’t enter into relationships with people who have flaws you cannot embrace. When you do enter a relationship, accept the other person completely.
When you fully accept others, you validate the fullness of who they are. This is incredibly empowering. When you let others know that you like, accept, and embrace them exactly as they are, you give them a true gift. This type of intimacy withstands not just the tremors of life but the earthquakes of life. Accept without condition, and you will experience real love.
Give What You Want to Receive
The law of reciprocity states that we will get what we put out into the world. People respond to our expectations of them. If you’re constantly focused on what you’re not getting in a relationship, it’s likely you’re going to get even less of that. Instead, begin to focus on what you want, and make the first move to add that quality or emotion to the relationship.
If you feel a shortage of kindness, be kind. If you want to be understood, seek to understand. If you want to feel appreciated, find something to express appreciation for. If you want to be thanked, find something to thank your friend or partner for. Be willing to give what you want to receive. You’ll still get what you wanted, and you’ll get it a thousand times over.
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Written By: Kimberly Fulcher
President, Compass Life Designs
Professional Coaching and Speaking Services
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kimberly_fulcher@compasslifedesigns.com
This material is excerpted from “Life Fitness”, written by Kimberly Fulcher. Copyright 2004. All rights reserved.
Reprints require permission. Edits not authorized.
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Kimberly Fulcher is a professional coach, author and speaker, with twelve years of experience in human development.
Her professional experience includes the co-founding and $ 38 million dollar sale of SkillsVillage.com, and her leadership
of a leading Silicon Valley consulting firm, where she grew revenues from $3M to $25M in four short years. Kimberly sits
on the board of directors for The Silicon Valley Coach Federation, and actively supports non-profit organizations that
benefit underprivileged women and primary education initiatives. Kimberly offers group and individual coaching programs,
speaks throughout The United States, and will publish her first book “Self Care For SuperWomen” in early 2004.
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