Building or Buying Your Dream Home

A Coaching Model for Preserving Your Relationship
as you embark on one of life’s greatest ventures!

Background:
Have you ever thought of getting that dream home? It’s pretty exciting to envision the perfect environment with everything just as you’ve always imagined! The beautifully landscaped winding path leading to a dramatic entryway with a clear view to the pool, bringing the outdoors into the home…… but wait! Before you get all too comfy in that little image, you can be awakened from that fantasy with a splash of icy cold water. Your partner’s dream is not necessarily yours..........your conceptual idea for a gym is his idea of the perfect room for a pool table; you like open spaces and she likes nooks and cranies……you envision gardens and he’s thinking of a putting green. There’s potential for the dream to become a nightmare! Add to that juggling contractors, decorators and budgets and we may have quite a challenge.

Hey, I’m not trying to talk you out of it! However, we do think we may have discovered an approach to simplify the whole process at the onset. My objective is to partner with my clients and make the process go as smoothly as it possible can. We’ve tried to look at all the potential roadblocks and help you circumvent them.

Buying, selling or designing a new home can be one of the most exciting and memorable and fun experiences in a family’s history; it can also be challenging, stressful and act as a “lightening rod” for the differences that exist between and among the people going through the process! There is a strong emotional basis for our attachment to our homes and underlying meanings that come into play in creating a “home.” The home is a reflection of our deepest sense of “who we are” and what we value. Moreover, our choices about our home, often have strong influential factors from our past and the places where we have lived as children and young adults. It’s likely that any changes we make in the place where we live, tap off conscious as well as unconscious factors, which when understood can make the process less stressful.

The Program:
In an attempt to maximize the pleasurable aspects of this process and minimize the potential negative issues, I’ve created a coaching model to provide clients with an opportunity to understand and gain clarity around the psychology of building a home. The purpose of this will be to provide an opportunity for couples to anticipate the full spectrum of the process and develop strategies to deal with issues in a planned, well thought out manner; one that focuses on understanding the individual differences of those participating in the process of building a dream home .

SESSION ONE:
Assessment of Personal Style/ Know Who You Are:

Participants will take The Print Survey, a rapid and informative means of understanding one’s personal style preferences. This is a great beginning in understand the factors that are most effective in working positively toward the manifestation of desired goals; helps warn against “triggers” to be avoided; establishes a basis for understanding, communication and minimization of conflict.

SESSION TWO:
Motives and values

Understand Housing Motivators:
Often people are unaware about the factors that govern their housing decisions. Through an extensive interview and use of questionnaires, these motivators will become more evident and used with greater consciousness as the process unfolds. Helping couples articulate these motives to one another, also helps the communication process move along more fluidly.

Understanding Values and How They Translate into Housing Choices:
A detailed exploration of housing related values can help couple cut through the maze of uncertainty related to their preferences. We often have gut level reactions to our housing values that evolve through our childhood into our adulthood. The process will help participants put “language” to their values and preferences so that they can be accurately communicated to their spouses in a manner that facilitates empathy rather than conflict.

SESSION THREE:
Communication

Arriving at Resolution of Differences:
A set of ground rules will be established to help couples focus on tasks, attending to the “end goals” that they have in mind. An orientation that retains focus on the “dream” component of this endeavor will be set in motion in order to avoid a potential “nightmare” that neither party wants. Methods for retaining the objective of the initial goal will be highlighted.

Providing Effective Feedback:
The importance of feedback as a component of communication will be reviewed and skills will be identified for accurate feedback delivery. Completing feedback loops is a skill that is very important for individuals to master in order to communicate accurately, gain insight and bring about change in a constructive manner.

SESSION FOUR:
Nuts and Bolts and Whose Gonna get this Done!

Identifying the “Building Team”
We’re not in this process alone! There will be contractors, landscapers, architects and interior designers and probably more. How do we choreograph this process so everyone is pulling for the same team and not getting in each other’s way. Let’s spend some time anticipating what we need to do, with whom and when.

Assigning “Leads” and Clarification of Responsibility:
As in any component of team development, efforts to determine the natural skills and talents of each individual in the partnership will be discerned. These skills will be incorporated into a plan in which shared leadership models will be introduced based on the unique gifts of each individual. This will help eliminate confusion regarding complex decision making processes.

Options for follow up Coaching through the building process can be negotiated on an individual basis.