There are many things that distract us and get in the way of creating positive relationships - however, we can learn to change these unhelpful patterns.

The quality of your life is mirrored by the depth of the people you connect with; because relationships are at the crux of both home life and work life.

Busy lives, limited resources, incessant deadlines, competitive workplaces and financial pressures can all drain our energy and constrict our clear thinking.

It is not uncommon for each of us to become either overloaded, complacent, burnt out – or even depressed!

The Importance of Creating Positive Relationships

One of the most damaging costs associated with such a pattern, is that we take for granted the interactions we have with significant other people in our busy lives.

Although we may intellectually understand the importance of seeing the world through another person’s eyes, often people identify (upon mindful reflection in the consultation room) that they have typically defaulted to responding to others as if on autopilot. 

Gain a Fresh Perspective on Relationships

At Guidelight Psychology Gold Coast, we know how important it is to take time to pause occasionally, to gain a fresh perspective on relationships, and our lives in general.

That's why we regularly host a one day retreat, "Wellness in the Wilderness" - to give busy people the chance to:

• pause and reflect in a pristine natural environment
• learn useful strategies and tools from positive psychology
• and enjoy nourishing food that pleases the taste buds.

Our next one day retreat will be held on the Gold Coast Hinterland on Sunday 15 October, and you are warmly invited to enjoy a peace filled day of simply working on yourself. You can find out more at: https://www.guidelight.com.au/wellness-in-the-wilderness/.

However even if you can't take advantage of this one day retreat, here are some tips to help you to improve the quality and depth of your interactions with the significant people in your personal and professional life.

Handling a Difference of Opinions

One of the challenges in building positive relationships, is learning how to handle differences in opinion.

A great place to start is by becoming mindful and focused, and choosing to describe situations that you perceive differently from the other person, without injecting blame, judgement or criticism of them, into your conversation.

This way, the other person will not feel threatened or need to become defensive, making them much more likely to process your perspective and give you an open response.

Strategies for Building Positive Relationships

Feelings: Explain the feelings that have been generated for you by that particular situation, without expecting/assuming that the other person must feel the same way about the situation as you do.

Focus: Focus on solutions and positive steps that you and the other person can collaborate upon and create together into the future, rather than struggling to make the other person adapt/conform to your own perspective.

Explore: Explore the positive consequences and verbalise the benefits for you and the other people involved, in implementing the solutions your open conversation with them has generated. You may also want to articulate the negative consequences in not adopting collaborative solutions, and the risks of staying stuck in an old negative mindset or pattern together.

Encourage: Finally, go out of your way to choose words of affirmation, praise and encouragement for the other person in your communication.  This could mean that rather than highlighting a handful of matters that did not go so well, you instead put a joyful spotlight on one particular positive aspect of the relationship, and build upon this as the focus.

At Guidelight, we are passionate about helping people like you with building successful relationships both personally and professionally.

If you would like to find out more about building better relationships in your life, please call our Gold Coast psychologist clinic on (07) 5527 0123 to make an appointment.