1 - Intro - Module 1 - Lyndsey - Reading.docx

What You Can Expect to Get From This Program

1.       To expand your identity and develop the capacity to be an outstanding interventionist and coach and, in so doing, to overcome your own difficulties and challenges.

2.       A working knowledge of the core content of the Robbins-Madanes technologies.

3.       The skills to create strategic interventions and action plans for change in any area of people’s lives.

4.       The skills to understand, to connect and join with others.

5.       A system for coaching anyone on any of the core subjects of change: Health, Emotions, Relationships, Parenting, Finances, Time, Grief and Spirituality.

6.       A system for capturing and monitoring the progress of those you coach.

7.       A system of ongoing personal development and training.

Our approach is to help people understand what they want, why they want it, and then assist them in creating action plans to close the gap from where they are to where they want to be. We coach people to transform their lives and we believe in everyone’s ability to choose and to control their
destiny.

Through this program you will become outstanding at developing a winning game plan, bringing out the best in people, and helping them to turn their dreams into reality. You will become a trusted advisor who encourages people to perform at their best.

Our program is designed to provide the finest resources that exist for creating an extraordinary quality of life. Your job is to use these resources to help yourself and to help others to achieve what they want in life.

You will learn special ways of connecting and caring for others. You will be able to create strategic interventions and give directives so that they will be followed. You will assist in creating plans and make sure that they are followed through. You will help others in building an identity that will ensure that they produce results in the long term.

Some Of the Main Concepts, Distinctions, and Beliefs
We’ll Discuss Throughout the Program:

1.       The Unit:
We navigate a variety of scenarios ranging from individual problems to those of the family, the peer group, the organization and the larger social system. The basic tenet of the approach is that individuals, relationships, organizations and community can be directed toward positive change through the strategic planning of skillful interventions deployed in steps or stages.

2.       Interventions are Strategic:
Strategic Intervention encompasses:
strategic family therapy, brief strategic therapy, social action therapy, direct and indirect negotiation, the third side, Ericksonian therapy, structural family therapy, human needs psychology, life-cycle theory of business organizations, conflict resolution techniques, organizational psychology and community organization.

3.       Beliefs About Individuals:

1.       The quality of your life is found in meaning. Life is not the challenges that you face, but the meaning that you give to those challenges.

2.       Emotions are the fuel of life. The quality of your experiences depends on the quality of your emotions.

3.       Life is constant change.

4.       Life is constant growth.

5.       Emotions can be controlled and transformed from negative to positive.

6.       There are six universal human needs that can be satisfied in negative or positive ways. They are: Certainty, Significance, Uncertainty, Love/Connection, Growth and Contribution. The first four are essential to human survival. The last two are essential to human fulfillment.

7.       Focus, meaning and physiology are essential to understanding individual motivation.

8.       There are five stages to spiritual or moral development: the need to control; the need to be loved; the need to give love; the need
to repent and to forgive; and the need to contribute beyond onself.

4.       Beliefs About Interactions:

1.       Individuals, families and organizations have a life cycle with obstacles that are characteristic of each stage.

2.       People change when the social context changes and the social context changes when individuals change.

3.       Hierarchical incongruities (where two incompatible power structures are simultaneously defined) are common obstacles to the effective functioning of the family, the organization and the community.

4.       Metaphors, hierarchical structures and sequences of interaction repeat and replicate through different sub-systems of an organization.

5.       Strategies For Change:

1.       In every conflict situation it is possible to define a meta-frame of agreement.

2.       Responsibility, repentance and reparation are essential to sustaining peace within the family, the organization and the community.

3.       In every conflict situation there is a third side: those who value peace over and above a particular position. This third side must be identified, developed and supported.

4.       Interventions may take the form of directives about something that people are to do. Directives may be direct, indirect, metaphorical or paradoxical.

5.       Leverage must be obtained before giving a directive.

6.       A distinction is made between (a) identifying a problem and
(b) creating a problem by characterizing an individual or a group in a certain way.

7.       The way a problem is defined and how it is expressed metaphorically through problem behaviors is essential to its solutions

8.       Negotiations in conflict situations may be direct or indirect.

6. Achievement and Fulfillment
7. Achievement is the experience of accomplishing the things you want in life. This comes from mastering the skills necessary to produce results. Fulfillment is the power to understand, appreciate and enjoy your life, which comes from creating a life of meaning. A person may have all the success and money in the world but be internally bankrupt. You may have a loving spouse and wonderful children and still feel that life has no meaning. We want to help people not only to achieve what they want but to experience a sense of fulfillment, joy of life and meaning. This can only be accomplished by two things: continuous growth and continuous contribution beyond oneself. Pleasure can be achieved in the moment and achievement is pleasure. Fulfillment comes from a life of meaning – a life where you feel your life matters in some significant way. Life only matters and can continue to matter if we feel that we are still fully alive, which is what growth gives us, and that our life matters to something beyond our selves which is what contribution defines. Fulfillment is not just about celebrating, appreciating and enjoying your life. It’s about having a meaning. Some people who made important contributions didn’t enjoy their lives but they were fulfilled. They appreciated that their own suffering was making something better for someone else. Because of them, other people would not have to suffer.
8.  
9. Please complete the Homework 1 assignment

Suffering happens when two things occur: First, what’s happening in this area of your life does not match your model of the world. Second, you believe with absolute certainty that you are powerless to change it. Suffering occurs when you accept the limiting belief that you have no control over your life.

Dr. Martin Seligman coined the phrase “Learned Helplessness” to describe people who believe that they have no control over their life. There are three categories of belief that cause a person to experience learned helplessness:

1.      PERMANENCE – Have you ever felt like your problems will never go away? Once you believe that a problem is permanent, you tighten a noose around the neck of happiness.

2.      PERVASIVE – Has one problem ever dominated your life so much that it feels like your life is the problem? You are suffering because you’ve spread that problem into every area of your life.

3.      PERSONAL – Have you ever made “your problem” yourself? It’s easy to feel trapped when the problem is internalized.

Please complete the Homework 2 assignment