In part 3, we looked at life balance, an area that often yields significant progress for a client in the early days of a coaching relationship. Having achieved a degree of clarity on priority areas for change, and identified a few specific steps that they should take, the next logical task is to set goals and make action plans. I suspect this is an area where most coaches don their mentor's hat, and do a bit of teaching. Despite the fact that we are the most educated generation in history, surprising few have ever been taught how to set goals.
There are variations on the theme, but the general formula is that goals must be SMART: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Time-bound. With the definition explained and a few examples given, the lesson is over, and we're back to coaching mode, the client setting their own goals and plans of action to achieve them. One of the keys to actually achieving the goals we set, is to make ourselves accountable to someone who will help us keep our word to ourselves when we say, “I will do, become or have ... by this date … .” Here a coach can play a vital role, as an “outsider” who we've actually paid to help us set goals and to hold us accountable for taking the necessary action. We're often more likely to “perform” for this uninvolved outsider, than we would be for friends or family.
Of course whole books have been written about goal setting, project planning etc, but there, in a nutshell is the role a coach can play in helping us prioritise, set goals, make plans and carry them out. While I've presented the process in, perhaps deceptively simple terms, the value and importance of this process can not be overstated. For most people, the failure to carry out this process, means a life lived well below its potential, and for many it is the cause of the proverbial “life of quiet desperation” we so often hear about.
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