Where you want to get to

Today: what to do after you decide to change something in a relationship, and four questions that turn a wish into a first step.

The situation

Two brothers, both around forty, grew up sharing a bedroom, a bicycle and most of their secrets. In their twenties, they still talked every week. Then each one got married, had children, moved to a different part of the city. Now they see each other at birthdays and at Christmas, and when they do, they talk about football, about traffic, about how big the kids are getting. Nothing else.

One of them has been bothered by this for a long time. A few months ago, at their father's seventieth birthday party, he watched his brother laughing with someone else across the room and thought: I don't know anything about his life anymore. That night, driving home, he made a decision. I want to be closer to my brother again.

It's a good decision. It's sincere. And three months later, nothing has changed.

Not because he doesn't care. He thinks about it often. It's just that "being closer to my brother" is not something you can do on a Tuesday. Every time he thinks about it, the decision is too big and too vague to turn into anything. Call him? And say what? Invite him to something? What? The decision points in a direction, and then it just sits there, pointing.

This is what happens to most of the decisions we make about relationships. "I want to be more patient with my daughter." "I want to be a better friend." "I want to stop fighting with my partner about money." They are good decisions, and they are directions. And a direction, on its own, never takes a step.

This episode is about turning a direction into a place: something concrete enough that you would recognize it if it happened, and close enough that you can start this week.

What the research says

The model we'll look at today comes from coaching, and it's worth being honest about what that means. It was created in the late nineteen-eighties and early nineties by John Whitmore and colleagues, and it spread widely through Whitmore's book Coaching for Performance, published in 1992. It is used around the world. But the sources we check describe what the model is, not a trial measuring its effect, and this episode will not claim more than that.

There is research, though, that helps explain why a model like this matters, and it comes from therapy. In cognitive behavioral therapy, people often leave a session with a small task to do during the week. In 2010, Nikolaos Kazantzis and colleagues brought together 46 studies, with 1,072 people, comparing the same therapy with and without these tasks. The version with the tasks had better results. And in 2016, another review by the same group, with 17 studies and 2,312 people in treatment, found that the more of the task people actually did, the better their results at the end of treatment, and the relationship still held at the follow-up afterwards.

Those are studies about therapy, and it would be dishonest to say they apply in the same way to a man who wants to be closer to his brother. But they point to something worth taking seriously: what happens on ordinary days, between one important moment and the next, weighs on the result. A decision made in a car on the way home from a birthday party is a beginning. What happens on the following Tuesday is the rest.

The tool

The model is called GROW. The four letters are the four questions: goal, reality, options and will. The idea is that a decision only becomes a step once it goes through all four, in this order, and that skipping any of them is the most common way for a decision to stall.

The first question is the goal. What would a good result be? Not the direction, but the place. Something you would recognize if it happened, within a short time. "Being closer to my brother" is a direction. "Two weeks from now, having had one conversation with him that wasn't about football" is a place. You'd know if you got there.

The second question is reality. Where are you today? Without softening it and without dramatizing it. A good way to answer is with a number, like the scale from last week's episode: from zero to ten, how much of this is already happening? Reality is the question people skip most, because it can hurt. And it's the one that makes everything else useful. Without it, you make a plan for a person who is not you, starting from a place you are not in.

The third question is options. What could you do? At least three, including the ones you think you would never do. The first option that comes to mind is usually the obvious one. The second is the reasonable one. The third is often the one nobody had thought of, and sometimes it's the best. Options are not commitments. They are just the list your choice will come from.

The fourth question is will. What will you do, and when? One of the options, with a when attached. "Now," "later today," "tomorrow," are answers. "Soon" is not. Soon is the polite way of not doing it.

Why the order matters

Each question prepares the next one. A small, concrete goal makes reality measurable: it's hard to put a number on "being closer," but easy to put one on "having had a real conversation in the last two weeks." An honest reality keeps the options from being fantasy. And a list of real options turns the final choice into an actual choice, instead of the first idea that happened to appear.

People who skip straight to will, straight to "I'm going to call him more," tend to choose an action that's too big, for a goal that doesn't really exist, from a starting point they imagined. And when that big action doesn't happen, they conclude that the decision was the problem, when the problem was the missing questions.

When the goal depends on someone else

There's a difference between goals about relationships and goals about, say, running or saving money. Relationship goals involve another person, and the other person didn't sign up for your plan.

You can decide to invite your brother for coffee. You can't decide that he'll say yes, or that the conversation will go deep. That's why the goals that work best here are written in two lines. On the first line, what depends on you: "having sent him a message," "having invited him," "having asked about his work." On the second line, what you hope will happen: "that we really talk."

When you look back, you check both lines. If the first line happened and the second didn't, your plan worked. What's missing is another try, or another conversation, not more willpower. That small separation protects the goal from the most common reason people give up on relationship goals: doing their part, not getting the response they hoped for, and deciding the whole thing failed.

How to do it

Take the decision you've been carrying, and answer the four questions in writing, one at a time.

First, the goal. What would a good result be, two weeks from now? Write it as a place, something you'd recognize. And if it depends on another person, write it in two lines: what depends on you, and what you hope.

Second, reality. From zero to ten, how much of this is already happening today? And what happened the last time you tried?

Third, options. Three things you could do, including one you think you would never do.

Fourth, will. Which one will you do, and when: now, later today, or tomorrow?

If the goal seems too small when you write it, that's usually a good sign. Small goals get done. Big goals get admired.

Why write it down

It's tempting to answer the four questions in your head, on the way to work, and move on. It rarely works as well. Written down, a vague answer looks vague. "Be closer to him" on paper is obviously a direction, not a place, in a way it never is inside your head. Written down, the options stay in front of you when the first one doesn't work. And written down, the "when" becomes a small promise you made to yourself, in your own handwriting, which is surprisingly hard to ignore.

It doesn't need to be a special notebook. The back of an envelope works. A note on your phone works. What matters is that the four answers exist somewhere outside your head, where you can find them again in two weeks.

The example

Let's go back to the brothers.

On a quiet evening, the one who made the decision sits down and answers the four questions.

The goal: "Two weeks from now, having had one conversation with him that wasn't about football." And in two lines: "What depends on me: having reached out, twice. What I hope: that we talk about something real."

Reality: "A two, from zero to ten. Our last real conversation was about three years ago, when Dad got sick. Since then, birthday messages and football."

Options. The first one comes easily: "Send him an old photo of us, for no reason." The second: "Invite him for coffee, just the two of us." The third takes longer, and it's the one he wouldn't have thought of without the question: "Ask how he's doing at his new job, because I know it's been hard, and I've never asked."

Will: "Tonight, I'll send the photo. If he answers, I'll ask about his job."

That night, he sends a photo of the two of them at maybe ten and twelve, sitting on a wall, eating ice cream. His brother answers within the hour: a row of laughing faces, and then, "where did you find this?" They exchange a few messages. And then the brother asks about the job, and his brother answers with a long message, the longest he has sent in years. The job is heavy. His boss is difficult. He's been sleeping badly. They talk for half an hour.

Before he goes to sleep, his brother sends one more message: "we should get coffee sometime." He answers: "yes, let's." He writes it down, next to the four questions, as the first option for the next round.

None of this fixes three years of distance. It doesn't have to. The four questions traded a decision that had been sitting for months for an action that happened that same night.

Another example, with a teenager

The same four questions work for very different goals. A mother has decided that she wants "to be more patient" with her fifteen-year-old son. Every conversation about school seems to end with both of them shouting, and she hates how she sounds.

The goal, as a place: "Two weeks from now, having had two conversations with him about school that didn't end in shouting." What depends on her: "not raising my voice first."

Reality: "A three. Maybe one conversation in five goes well."

Options: "Talk about school on the drive to practice instead of at dinner, when we're both tired. Ask what he thinks about his grades before I say what I think. Agree with him on a word either of us can say when we need a pause."

Will: "The drive to practice on Thursday. I'll ask first."

On Thursday, she asks. He shrugs. She waits, which is the hardest part. After a long silence, he says he's worried about math, and that he didn't say anything because he thought she'd be angry. The conversation isn't perfect, but it doesn't end in shouting. It's the first one in weeks that doesn't.

Coming back to the four questions

The four questions are not a one-time exercise. They work best as a cycle: every couple of weeks, you go through them again, and each round starts where the last one ended.

Two weeks after the photo, the brother sits down with the questions again. The goal from the first round happened: they had a real conversation, about the job. Reality has moved: "a four, from zero to ten." So the new goal can be a little bigger: "two weeks from now, having had coffee together, just the two of us." New options: "invite him to the café near his office at lunch, where it's easy for him to say yes," "ask him to help me choose a gift for Dad," "suggest we take our kids to the park together on Saturday." Will: "I'll suggest the lunch on Monday."

This is how a direction actually gets walked: not in one big step, but in a series of small, concrete places, each one chosen from where you really are. The decision in the car, months ago, was "I want to be closer to my brother." The cycle is how that decision stops being a wish and becomes something that is happening.

When the other person doesn't respond

Sometimes you send the photo, and nothing comes back. Or the answer is a thumbs-up, and nothing more. This is the moment when relationship goals are most often abandoned.

This is exactly why the goal is written in two lines. Look at the first line: what depended on you. You sent the message. That happened. Your plan worked. What didn't happen was the second line, and the second line was never yours to decide.

So the next step is not to try harder, and it's definitely not to conclude that your brother doesn't care. It's to choose another option from your list, a little later, maybe a different kind of step. People answer differently to different invitations. Some don't answer messages, but pick up the phone. Some don't talk on the phone, but will happily meet in person. Some need to be asked a question, not sent a photo. The list of options is there so that one silence doesn't end the whole plan.

And if, after several tries, there is still no answer, that's information too. Sometimes the other person isn't ready, or doesn't want the same thing you want. That's painful, and it's worth talking about with someone. But it doesn't mean you were wrong to try.

A goal is not the same as a value

There's one more distinction that helps, especially with relationship goals. "Being closer to my brother" is not really a goal. It's closer to a value: something that matters to you, a direction you want to keep walking in, that never really ends. You don't reach "being close to your brother" and then stop.

Goals are the steps you take in that direction. "Having had a real conversation in the next two weeks." "Having had coffee together this month." They get done, and then you choose the next one.

Keeping the two apart makes both of them work better. The value keeps the goals pointed somewhere meaningful. And the goals keep the value from staying a beautiful idea that never touches your week.

Asking the four questions to someone else

The model was born in coaching, where one person asks and the other answers. That makes it useful in a familiar situation: someone you love comes to you with a decision they can't turn into a step.

The natural reaction is advice. "Just call him." "You should quit." Advice is generous, and it can miss, because it answers the fourth question before the other person has been through the first three.

Try the questions instead, one at a time, in the same order. "What would a good result look like for you, a couple of weeks from now?" "Where are you with it today?" "What could you do? Anything, even the things you'd never do." And only at the end: "Which one feels possible, and when?"

Then listen more than you speak. Your job is not to know the answer. It's to keep the questions in order, and to let the silence after each one last a little longer than feels comfortable. That silence is where the third option has room to show up.

It works with a friend, with a partner, with a teenager. And the step they choose is theirs, which is the whole point: a step someone chose is easier to take than one they were handed.

The traps

The first trap is a goal that's really a direction. If you couldn't tell whether you got there, it's still a direction. The test is simple: "how would I know, two weeks from now, that it worked?"

The second trap is an optimistic reality. Giving a seven to something that's really a three makes the plan seem unnecessary. A low number is not a defeat. It's the starting point, and it's exactly what will show you, later, how far you came.

The third trap is having only one option. One option isn't a choice. It's an obligation, and we put obligations off. Three options give you back your freedom, and it's much easier to do something you chose than something you were left with.

And the fourth trap is a will without a when. Every time the answer to the last question has no day in it, go back to it. That's where most plans quietly die.

A note on the size of the first step

If there is one thing to take from this episode, it may be this: the first step should be almost embarrassingly small. A photo. One question. A message of one line. Not because small steps are all you're capable of, but because small steps are the ones that happen on a tired Tuesday, and a step that happens is worth more than a perfect step that waits for a better week. The bigger steps come later, built on the small ones, and they feel much less frightening when there's already something between the two of you to build on.

Your exercise this week

Choose a decision you've been carrying about a relationship, and write four things.

The goal, as a place, within two weeks, in two lines if it depends on someone else.

The reality, from zero to ten, and what happened the last time you tried.

Three options, including one you think you would never do.

The one you chose, and when.

Then, if you can, do it before the week is over. The first step doesn't need to be good. It needs to happen.

What to do with what you find

If the four questions came easily, and you already know what you'll do tonight, that's great. Go do it, and come back to the scale in two weeks.

If the goal was the hard part, if every version you wrote felt either too big or too small, it may be because you haven't decided yet what you really want from this relationship. That's worth a moment on its own. Sometimes the question isn't "how do I get closer to my brother," but "what kind of brother do I want to be?" That's a question about values, and it's a good place to start.

And if the options were the hard part, if you couldn't find three, notice what was stopping you. Often, there's something holding the decision in place that we haven't named yet: tiredness, fear of being rejected, the comfort of leaving things as they are. That's exactly what next week's episode is about.

Before you go

If you'd like company for this, Confidey has an exercise called Where you want to get to, which asks the four questions one at a time, about the part of your life you choose. And in the section called A goal of your own, you can pick an area to work on, and Confidey builds a path in stages, for as long as you choose. You can find both at confidey dot com.

Next week: what pushes and what holds back. A tool from one of the founders of social psychology, for understanding why a decision you really want to keep still isn't happening.

Thank you for listening. Take care of the conversations that matter.