Below I give the steps to making an agreement that addresses the needs or desires of both people.

• What rule or need do I want honored? 
• How can I make this rule or need into a request?  
• What need does the other person, have in this situation?
• What makes this request important to them? 
• Then I acknowledge my main underlying need, and talk with the other person about their needs in this situation.
• Then we explore the feelings under the need.
• We get creative and explore different ways of meeting the needs involved. 
• If/when we find a possibility where we get both our needs get met and we both feel positive about this experiment, we detail our agreement as best as we can, write it down and try it out. 
• Do we find that this agreement fulfills our physical, emotional, or any other important needs,or not.
• If we find it does not go as we imagined, we explore new possibilities until we create a win/win situation that satisfies both of us.

 

See an example of making an agreement

See complaints into requests