Quiz results: Are you ready for a relationship

Find out what your score means

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Who's OK?

Position 1:  I'm OK, You're OK
This is the best place to be for healthy relationships. With barely a bad egg in sight, people in this position start off with the assumption that everyone - including themselves - is inherently good.

When in this position people tend to be logical and understanding, they take emotion into account, but they're not ruled by it. They're self-aware and tolerant, understanding that people can behave irrationally but looking for the positive motives behind other people's behaviour. When things go wrong they give the benefit of the doubt and do their best to work collaboratively.

People with an I'm OK/You're OK attitude are perceived by others as being open, direct and honest.

If you are in this position you are likely have a good sense of self worth and to be trusting of others. As a result, you're likely to be at ease around other people and feel comfortable about having close relationships.


Position 2:  I'm OK, You're not OK
When people take the I'm OK / You're not OK perspective they experience a sense of superiority. They believe that they're better or smarter than all the idiots around them. People are failing them (in their opinion) and not delivering what they should. And so they criticise and reprimand, zooming in on the failings and shortcomings of others, usually without noticing the errors that they may have made themselves.

Being on the receiving end of people who take the I'm OK /You're not OK position is not pleasant. They can come across as argumentative, sniping and dismissive ('they know best').  As a result people may avoid them, leaving them feeling unsupported - which simply reinforces their view that others are not-OK.  Although they come across as high status, people in this position often feel threatened and isolated.

A score that lands you in this position suggests that, while you may feel good about yourself, you don't have a lot of faith in other people at the moment. You may have found that other people are unreliable and so you're protecting yourself by not allowing others to get too close.

This will put other people off forming strong relationships with you.

Position 3:  I'm not OK, you're OK
People in this position feel rotten about themselves. They sense that they are at fault, that they are less competent, successful or significant than other people. They may lack confidence or feel that they don't fit in.  

They are continually on the lookout for evidence of their own shortcomings - highlighting the areas where they compare unfavourably with others - ‘he is cleverer, more stylish or fitter than me' - whilst ignoring the fact that they themselves may be streets ahead in other areas.

People who get stuck in this position can start to feel helpless and, as a result, they tend not to make the best of situations and often let opportunities pass them by.

To those around them, people who take this position can be exhausting. Compliant, lacking in confidence and short on motivation, they can seem dependent, vulnerable and a bit weak. And whilst friendly, they can be hyper negative complainers who can never get enough support and encouragement. A bit of a victim.

If your score put you in this position you're probably being very hard on yourself right now, whilst putting others on a pedestal. You may think that you would feel happy if only you could get people around you to respond properly to you. But in this state of mind you won't. And whatever support they do give you, it still won't be enough.

Position 4 I'm not OK, You're not OK
I'm not OK/You're not OK is not a nice place to be. People who are here have usually been dragged here by others (uncaring parents, cruel lovers, bullying employers), or events may have damaged their faith in people and left them feeling helpless.   

If you know your Winnie-the-Pooh, think Eeyore.

When holding the ‘I'm not OK /You're not OK' attitude people expect the worst - they expect to fail, they expect to be let down. This becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy (as they seek out the pitfalls) and a self-reinforcing one (see, I knew they'd let me down).

People in this position are low on confidence and high on negativity, pessimism and cynicism. Being around them can be a demoralising experience.

If you're in this position, you don't have high hopes of others and you're not feeling good about yourself, either. As a result, you may sometimes behave in a rejecting way towards others as a way of protecting yourself from being hurt by them.

A-OK
When we are being kind to ourselves and generous spirited with others, relationships are likely to flourish. When coming from this position we're much more likely to solve problems than apportion blame, take responsibility rather than play the victim, deal with the issue instead of giving up.

Ideally we'd spend all of our time in I'm OK/You're OK. In reality most of us move around the quadrants as get buffeted by events, situations and people. Equally, we all have an anchor quadrant, one where we spend most of our time.

If your current mood and situation is fairly typical then the place you've plotted is likely to be fairly representative. If not, come back to the questionnaire another time.

Knowing where we are is half the journey. Knowing what to do about it is the next challenge.


5 tips for getting into 'I'm OK'
The motto here is 'I see the best in me'. Here are five practical ways to help live the motto and restore faith in yourself.

1 Talk yourself up
Write down 20 things you've done well in the last month. Review the list. What does this tell you that you're good at (other than writing lists)? Try to find at least 10 significant things.

Keep a diary every day of 5 things you've done well from the momentous (at least momentous for you: worked out hard in the gym, won the account) to the miniature (mowed the lawn, completed the Su Doku). And once a week look at the list and identify 10 more things that you're good at.

Writing it down may seem unnecessary. It isn't. Those who do the writing report a much bigger benefit, especially if they stick at it. If you want to move out of 'I'm not OK', get a notebook and start scribbling.  

Even better is to write down the part you played in making these good things happen. So if I've written 'had a good workout in the gym' - I need to add, for example, 'this happened because I set myself the goal to leave work at 6.30pm, I avoided the strong temptation to crawl home to the sofa and instead reminded myself how good I would feel." Psychologist Christopher Peterson found that explicitly acknowledging our part in making good things happen helps shift us to a more I'm ok way of thinking.

2 Focus on solutions
When the problem seems big, it's easy to feel helpless. Work on what you can do that will make a difference, however small. Then do it. Concentrating on action (and then recognising when we've completed it) is a productive way for all of us to appreciate our value a little bit more.

3 Do what you do best
As one successful entrepreneur explained, "I worked out what I like doing and then found someone to pay me to do it".

The kitchen, the pitch (football or client), designing or dancing, most of us have somewhere to shine. Our challenge is to spend more time there.

Write down the five places or things you do where you are at your best.  And then work out how you can re-organise your life so you spend more time doing them.  

4 Hear the praise
There are people out there who like you, rate you and appreciate you.  They may not be making this crystal clear and you may not be picking up all their signals. From the smiling lady on the bus to the client who doesn't complain (which is rather out of character for him) look out for the small signs that have large meanings about the good you're spreading.

5 Minimise the rubbish
Things go wrong. They do to all of us. The difference is in how we think about them.

To get into 'I'm OK', put the rubbish in the bin. This means seeing negative experiences as temporary - one missed deadline, the occasional memory lapse - and specific to a particular situation - playing squash with Roger, last year's performance review.

It also means making little of these daily upsets. So what if you forgot to buy milk? Or source the data? Does it really matter?

Taken from 'The Mind Gym: Relationships' (Sphere, £12.99)

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