Do One Thing Different

If you keep doing what you've always done, you will keep getting what you've always gotten. In relationships, and in life, sometimes it's important to mix things up a little. Surprising things can happen when you do just one thing different. For example:

If you normally overreact and get defensive with your partner, next time focus on staying calm and listening.

If you always become a couch potato after work in the evening, put on your walking shoes and go for a stroll in your neighborhood.

If your normally withdraw from others when you feel down, try the opposite and reach out to make plans with a friend instead.

These are solution-focused approaches to solving life problems. This approach focuses less on why people do what they do, and more on changing patterns of behavior that don't work anymore. Solution-focused therapy tends to be faster and shorter than traditional psychotherapy.

Bill O'Hanlon is a talented therapist from Santa Fe, New Mexico, and one of the founders of the brief therapy movement. In his classic book, Do One Thing Different (Harper Collins, 2000), O'Hanlon provides a useful, concise, and practical look at ways to get unstuck in your life, and move forward to solving problems.

O'Hanlon has some great tips for using the solution-focused approach to improving your communication and relationships:

1.      Change your standard conflict pattern or style: change the timing, the location, interrupting, speak up more, listen more, etc. Some couples need to work out before arguing. It could also be fun to agree to only argue at Starbucks, or on a walk.

2.      Do a 180: Most couples have a pursuer and a distancer. Change up that pattern. If you're usually the distancer, take a turn at pursuing. If you are usually in pursuit, step back and create a little space.

3.      Notice the other person (your partner, your child) doing something right.

4.      Give up vague, blaming, and loaded words. Instead, be specific and ask for the actions or behaviors you would like to see.

5.      Make action requests, not complaints.

6.      Take responsibility for making changes and supporting your partner, close friends, and family members in making changes.

7.      Have some fun blowing up your partner's stereotype of you.

8.      Listen with a compassionate heart.

Solution-focused approaches, like Bill O'Hanlon teaches in Do One Thing Different, give us some clever ways to break old patterns, remember past solutions that worked, shift our attention, and change problems into solutions. Living in a solution-oriented way gets us to collapse the old stories we told ourselves about us and who we are, and rewrite them.

Why not do something different this week?

Be The Architect

What if this beautiful new year, you woke up and realized that you have way more control than you ever realized to make your life and relationships really satisfying? Many of us don't fully understand that in many ways, we are each the architect of our own life. I find this a similar dynamic to how we use very little of our actual brain capacity. Many times, people drift along at work, in their marriage, with their children, and in their own life path. You might feel silently slightly sad, or complain to others, or be aware of a sense of longing which calls you to a higher level of being alive. Sometimes the disappointments and difficulties in our lives discourage our spirit and flatten our dreams. The fresh start of a new year is the perfect time to dust off your hopes and dreams, and figure out what you want now.

This could be your year to commit more fully to the lifelong development of yourself, and to having deep and loving relationships with those closest to you. Life is passing by, and you really shouldn't settle for a mediocre life or relationships. You have to take an active role in making positive upgrades in your life-- it's an inside job nobody else can handle. You can start by taking inventory with the different facets of your life. How is each area working out for you? Here's a check-list to begin with:

Work

Finances

Marriage/Primary Relationship

Friendships

Spiritual Life

Physical Health/Fitness

Living Space

Intellectual Growth/Learning

Hopes and Dreams

Take a few minutes to reflect on the list of life components, and identify the one or two where you feel most stuck. Day-to-day life responsibilities and routines can crowd out our ability to focus on what REALLY matters. If you can think of yourself as the architect of your life, this review is like viewing your life from above in a helicopter, and deciding which aspects of your world merit some remodeling this year.

One important mobilizing next step is to do something different (and hopefully better) in the one or two areas you care most about improving. If you keep handling that issue the same way this year, you are likely going to get the same results. Baby steps are a good way to go here. How about a few examples of doing one thing differently?

If you are not happy about your handling of money, you could commit to writing down all your expenditures for a month, asking your partner to do the same, and meet to go over what you discover and set a shared budget. Being good stewards of our finances, and not wasting money, increases the sense of self-confidence, and makes a couple feel closer. Set a written budget together.

If you and your partner are drifting apart, or you are feeling resentful, carrying anger, or are bored, get moving to make improvements as soon as possible. Most people would hire a mechanic to fix their transmission, or a brain surgeon to do their neurosurgery if needed. A few sessions working with your partner and a good marriage and family therapist can do wonderful things to help guide you and your partner into better ways to work through differences, and ways to help make sure you both get what you really need. Be proactive, rather than suffer silently while your relationship is headed for an iceberg. An action step, like inviting your partner to go with you to counseling to make the relationship better and closer, is an incredibly loving and brave action that helps you both move out of fear and complacency. Over half of all marriages end in divorce. Many others aren't happy. Raise the bar and take responsibility for being the co-architect of one of the special marriages that is different: more loving, mutually supportive, encouraging each other to be your best, and being each others' best friend and lover all along the journey. Another positive step? Plan weekly date nights with your partner.

What if you hate your work? Think about one action step you can take. Take some career assessments at your local college (UC Irvine Extension has such a class here in Orange County, California). This is an affordable way to get some systematic, objective feedback on understanding your preferred skills, strengths, values, and work environment. Update your resume. Join a professional networking group for your desired industry. Information interview a few people who are in a position to make suggestions about how you could upgrade your skills or make yourself more marketable. Think about how you used to play as a child, as there are often clues there about the work you would most enjoy.

In any area you select to upgrade your life, there are many right answers about positive and courageous ways to do one thing different this year. Remember, life is either a daring adventure, or nothing. Realizing that only you can be the architect of your best life, and dusting off your dreams and resetting the course is empowering. Find other like-minded people to encourage you and keep up the pursuit of your life lived fully and well.