Empower the Vision in You Coaching Tip #15

Welcome back to “Empower The Vision In You”coaching series of blogs. This is coaching tip #15 in a series over a 30 day period. Each one builds upon the one before it.

In the last coaching article, I described the Wheel of Life and how it is used to determine an area of your life whereby you can begin to design a goal. If you were to ask most people if they write their goals down, the majority or I’d go even as far as to say that few write them down. If you were ask most successful people if they wrote their goals down, it would be a resounding “YES”. Successful people write their goals down. There is also a psychological reason for writing a goal down as it creates a little anxiety and motivation to get the job done. It is tangible and visible and now you have made a commitment.

Coaching tip #15

I am going to give you the parts that make up the written goal and then I will explain why each part is important. Writing a goal is simple a “skill” and since a skill can be developed with practice, you can get very good at writing goals. You will have a 60-80% more chance of achieving a goal if it is written down. When you want to get from one destination to another, you have a road map. Think of a goal as your life map getting from point A to point B–getting from where you are to where you want to be.

First, you want to start your goal with the word “To” when you do that it makes it a bit easier with the flow of words that will come after it.

Second, the goal must be written very specifically. This is a critical step. Here is an example: If you want to lose weight, you can’t just write down, “I want to lose weight.” 
Well, how much weight do you want to lose, how are you going to lose it, and by when? So, a goal for weight would look like this: To lose 40 lbs. by exercising at least 3 times a week (M,W,F) and eating a healthy diet weighing in at 145 lbs. by (specific date) or before.

This way you have specified the amount, how you are achieving the goal, and when the goal is to be accomplished. You can measure and track your progress in this way. If you don’t weigh in at 145 by that date, you haven’t achieved the goal you set for yourself. Notice I put or before that date as you should always inspire yourself to try to achieve it ahead of time if possible. You are to write a specific priority goal using specific wording as I described above.

Let’s review coaching tip #15: Your goal must answer the following questions: To do what specifically? How will you do it? And by when will you do it? Here are a few other points to remember about the written goal. It can be changed when necessary and is not carved in stone as sometimes life gets in the way. All goals are stepping stones to something else. All goals should be reviewed or tracked at least once a week. Perhaps you may need to tweak it or modify it somehow. You definitely want to track it to make sure that you are on track.

Now that you have the written goal, you are to make a list of all the benefits you will gain from achieving that goal. The “WHY” you want to achieve the goal has to be big enough. The longer your benefit list is, the stronger your inspiration and motivation will be. Reading your reasons the first thing in the morning will keep you focused on it throughout the day.

Next, you need to develop the plan that goes along with the goal. The first part is the obstacles or challenges that you can foresee as getting in the way of the achievement of the goal.

You need to brainstorm and write down every roadblock or foreseeable obstacle that will get in the way of achieving your goal. For example, let’s take the weight goal one of my clients has used. Here is the first obstacle that Sydney came up with. She is unmotivated and lazy. So, right underneath the written goal, she writes unmotivated and lazy.

Next, she leaves around six lines of space and generates at least two other obstacles to achieving the goal. Depending upon the goal, you will decide how many obstacles you will need to overcome it. Also, when you go back to track the goal, you may decide that one obstacle is really not an obstacle or you may discover that you need to add another one that you didn’t think of.

For next time, have your goal and all obstacles ready. We will then design the last part, the action steps or the action plans, to overcoming the obstacles.

Be on the lookout for the final one–tip #16