Our highest priority in Life and Relationship Coaching is to empower our clients to be creative and resourceful in accomplishing their goals, which is a big reason why we avoid giving advice and suggestions. We like to think that our client has all the answers inside them, to which most clients would disagree if you were to actually say that. So how can we help our client to be creative and resourceful in generating ideas and solutions when they are feeling stuck and uncreative? Here’s our primary tools for helping our clients generate ideas and solutions: “How” or “What” coaching questions ..read more

Here at Relationship Coaching Institute we provide the training, mentoring and support you need to become a successful and skilled coach, but how do you become a fantastic coach? Becoming a fantastic coach, as with most skills and professions, typically follows these Four Stages of Competence: Stage 1: Unconscious Incompetence The trainee does not understand or know how to do something, does not necessarily recognize the deficit and may even deny that they need to learn the skill. Becoming a fantastic coach starts with recognizing your own incompetence and the value of learning and practicing ..read more

Compromise should be a last resort for resolving differences in a relationship and here’s why: When you “compromise” you are giving up some of what you want/need to meet in the middle somewhere with your partner. If you do this often enough you will find yourself sacrificing too much to make the relationship work and will resent your partner and be unhappy. Here’s an example: In my first marriage my wife and I always compromised on movies. She loved “chick flicks” and heartwarming animal movies that bored me to tears. I loved war movies, action/adventure and science fiction, which she hated. S ..read more

In coaching we like to say “When in doubt, refer it out,” but how? A trainee of Relationship Coaching Institute with a client exhibiting symptoms of severe postpartum depression asked “How do you handle referrals when your client lives in another state and you don’t have any connections in their area?” and stimulated the following response addressing the nuances of making referrals for therapy as a coach. Most coaches work with clients from all over the world and making referrals from a distance can be a challenge. This client is a good example of not being ready for coaching and needing a hig ..read more

Co-creating a fulfilling sexual relationship incorporating physical and emotional limitations is absolutely possible but more easily accomplished in an Advanced Partnership. A survivor of sexual abuse can move beyond their past experiences and trauma to have a fulfilling sexual relationship within an Advanced Partnership of love, connection, trust, and building up positive emotional and physical experiences within their relationship over time. A post-menopausal woman with low sexual desire can have a fulfilling sexual relationship by combining conscious intention with the desire to please thei ..read more

The most common “uncoach-like” behavior displayed by trainees early in their coach training is to provide a suggestion or POV in response to their client’s situation. Why? I understand that you really want to help and empathize with the impulse to simply blurt out what you think your client needs to do or understand, but leaving your coaching lane and dis-empowering your client to do so is simply unskilled and ineffective coaching, and our trainees usually know that, but don’t know what else to do in the moment. Their plaintive response often is “I didn’t know what question to ask!” and then r ..read more

People who think they already know a lot about dating and relationships ask “Why do I need relationship coach training?” The short answer is that “Coaching” is a serious profession. The problem is that “coaching” is a common word in the English language that can mean many things and few outside of the coaching profession understand exactly what coaching is. A profession is commonly defined as an occupation requiring specialized education and/or training. Therefore, a professional coach is someone who has specialized education and/or training in coaching. Coaching is widely misunderstood by the ..read more

“A friend who knows I’m training to be a Relationship Coach referred a couple to me. Should I consider working with them before I start my training for coaching couples?” I wouldn’t, but if there are no red flags (consult with your mentor before accepting them) and you really WANT to work with this couple before your couples relationship coach training, you have three choices as I see it- Option 1. Disclose that you have no training for helping couples but commit to accessing and studying all RCI resources for coaching couples, including getting help from your mentors along the way. If they ar ..read more

1. Be mindful that you are coaching their RELATIONSHIP which is the space between them, and you can’t do so if each partner focuses on YOU. The easiest and most important strategy for facilitating dialogue is, whenever possible, to direct their attention AND responses to EACH OTHER and not to you. Be sure to discuss this during Intake when on-boarding your new clients so they know what to expect. It will take some practice to overcome the understandable habit developed when coaching individual clients who speak directly to you 100% of the time and it might feel weird at first to ask a questio ..read more

Here at Relationship Coaching Institute we provide the training, mentoring and support you need to become a successful and skilled coach, but how do you become a fantastic coach? Becoming a fantastic coach, as with most skills and professions, typically follows these Four Stages of Competence: Stage 1: Unconscious Incompetence The trainee does not understand or know how to do something, does not necessarily recognize the deficit and may even deny that they need to learn the skill. Becoming a fantastic coach starts with recognizing your own incompetence and the value of learning and practicing ..read more