Goal Setting in Coaching
Liberty University
Explain the importance of goal setting in Life Coaching.
By developing goals though Life Coaching, you are giving them focus which helps gives their
life meaning, and direction. There are big gaps between what we think we want and where we
want to go in life. Life Coaching helps you to really sit down and think about your life values
and decide what you really want to do. The goals that are set go a long way toward making
positive changes in their lives and helps in creating abundance and prosperity. Goal setting is a
small part of developing a broader overall plan of action (Collins, 2001).
Goal setting is an effective tool that can be used in various stages and areas of your life. You will
often find that successful people are goal driven. Whether in career, business, education, health,
or any other areas, this is true. The ability to set goals makes an enormous contribution to the
success of an individual. Most successful people are goal-orientated. Most successful people are
goal-orientated. They take time to identify what it is that they want and they build up a really
clear and detailed picture of what achieving the goal will look and feel like. They then take
regular action to move towards their goal. Sounds simple enough right? Well it is when you have
the right tools and techniques to guide you.
Step 1 towards setting and achieving a goal is to decide what it is you really want and then write
it down. If you don't know why you want to achieve your goal and you can't imagine what you
will feel, see and hear when you have achieved your goal, you're less likely to be able to tap in to
the motivation required to complete the goal. A good goal must be: ‘SMART’ that is it must
be;4Specific,4Measurable,4Agreed,Realistic and4Timed. A great acronym to remember to keep
you on track with goal success!4
WHY IS IT IMPORTANT TO SET REALISTIC GOALS?
Setting realistic goals will help you to manage your expectations. Having too high expectations
can easily become overwhelming and give you the feeling that your goal is out of reach. This is
one of the main reasons people have stopped pursuing their goals. The best way to make sure this
doesn't happen to you is to set realistic goals.
To be realistic, a goal also depends on inner and outer circumstances. If a goal is realistic for you
depends on your qualities. Is it realistic to become a famous speaker when you’ve been shy and
introvert your whole life and when you feel uncomfortable to talk to strangers?
External circumstances include the people around you and facts you can’t change. Is it realistic
to become a famous basketball player when you’re only 5 feet tall and don’t like team sports?
Setting realistic goals is crucial to keep up your motivation. It lets you know you can accomplish
it even if it might be a big challenge and take a lot of time. Choosing an unrealistic goal is the
best way to give up once the first hurdles and obstacles arise.
HOW TO SET AND ACHIEVE GOALS?
I want to become a successful businessman, or I want to live healthier is not a goal that is a
measurable or achievable target. In order to achieve your goals, you need to be clearing,
structured and trackable and therefore you can use the well-known goal setting method. A goal-
setting technique that you can use on your own but may also include questions like this in your
coaching.
◌ what do I want to achieve?
◌ Why do I want to achieve it?
◌ How will I know it’s accomplished?
◌ How realistic is the goal considering all my resources, abilities and circumstances?
◌ How motivating is this goal for me?
◌ Is it the right time to work on my goal?
◌ By when do I want/need to accomplish my goal?
◌ What can I do today to start?
Write down your goals as detailed as possible and use a life goal planner and goal setting
worksheets to answer specific questions about your goal, your motivation, and your intention. It
also enables you to visualize your goal and to get a feeling of how it would be to accomplish
your goal. Your notes allow you to step back at any moment during your process to reread and
recap your goals and milestones. You’ll focus on what’s important and get a clear picture of
which steps you’ve already taken towards your desired outcomes. As a Coach you can encourage
your clients to write down their goals and share with you. That allows you both to reread and
recap goals and milestones at any time during the coaching process.
Describe how life coach works to implement a plan to achieve goals
First, a Life Coach must find out what issues are the most important to the client and put God at
the center of the process. This involves clarifying goals, developing workable plans, and giving
guidance and encouragement as clients take action (Collins, 2001) . Plan goals individually and
write them down. It is smart to start with smaller issues, and then as they accomplished these
issues, implement bigger issues. A Life Coach must listen to the client as they explain their daily
routine, because usually this will be one of the small issues that they have to accomplish. The
coach will work with the client to establish a routine that will help motivate them into
accomplishing this small goal. Once they accomplish these small goals, it will provide them with
the motivation to complete other goals.
Goal Setting as a Life Coach
Marcia Reynolds says that coaches keep clients focused on goals and actions they’ll take to
achieve them.4Goal setting as a life coach provides a guiding light to aim for, decreasing the
likelihood of sessions turning into a laundry list review of clients’ surface-level problems.
Encouraging clients to articulate what they’ve learned during a session and commit to steps
they’ll take to achieve their goals leads to concrete, positive change.4In this article, we’ll describe
Reynolds’s advice for setting goals during a coaching session, based on the descriptions
in4Coach the Person, Not the Problem.
Help Clients Set Goals
When it comes to life coaching and setting goals, Reynolds argues thathelping clients identify
goals increases the probability that they’ll make longer-lasting change4than if you simply
assign them a goal. A goal can be as simple as addressing an obstacle that’s preventing the client
from making a decision or moving forward, such as an emotion, like fear, that has them feeling
stuck. She says coaches shouldn’t give clients goals because it may prompt resistance. This is
because change triggers a survival response in the brain that interprets doing things differently as
a threat. People are more likely to embrace change when they arrive at their own conclusions
about how and why that change is important—because it’s less threatening than if someone
imposes change on them.4
For example, if a new boss takes over an organization, employees may worry about the security
of their job, whether they’ll have to take on a different role or expanded responsibilities, and if
they’ll be able to manage these changes. To minimize discomfort that can come with this kind of
change, leaders can be honest and transparent about what workers can expect—for example, they
might announce early in their tenure that they don’t have plans to lay off workers.)
Though it’s ideal for clients to start each session with a goal, not every client has a clear goal
from the outset. Reynolds says it’s okay for goals to evolve over the course of a session. When
clients’ goals aren’t firm or shift over the course of a session, you can help tease out a direction
they might like to move in using the following tips:
Summarize and present choices of preferred outcomes. If your client appears lost, listing one
problem after another rather than stating a clear goal, you can sum up what you’ve heard them
say then present several options for direction they might take. For example, you might say, “I
understand that you’re unhappy at your job because your boss has unrealistic expectations of
you, but that you also enjoy your work. Do you want to leave your job or find ways to make
things more tolerable so you can stay?” Your client can then clarify that they prefer one option
over the other, or present a different option.
Listen for strong words and emotions that signal what your client really wants. Pay
attention to words and phrases that emphasize a client’s true desires, like “I wish” or “the worst
thing is.” Look, too, for strong body language, like slumping or a distressed facial expression.
These words and emotions are clues that, with additional probing, you can illuminate your
client’s fears or unmet needs, which can help you identify goals that your client wants to pursue.
Invite your client to change their goals if they have a revelation. If you notice that your client
has a sudden realization that shifts or changes their goal in the middle of a session, welcome the
change. A revelation might come in the form of a change of expression on your client’s face, a
long pause, or laughter. You can learn more about what they’re experiencing by asking what led
them to pause, or laugh. If that reveals that their thinking about their goal has changed, you can
invite them to consider whether they want to revise their current goal.4
If they say yes, ask how their new way of thinking differs from how they’ve thought about things
up to this point, acknowledge the change, then have them restate the new goal clearly so you’re
both on the same page about it moving forward. If your client knows their goal has shifted but
isn’t sure what new goal to focus on, get them to commit to at least one action they’ll take to
move forward, like setting aside a time to identify a new goal for your next session.4
