How to Set Goals With Life Coaching
Life coaches or mentors have the difficult task of helping people realize that goals drive daily life and provide direction and guidance for day-to-day activity. Goals provide purpose, direction and motivation, and the ability to manage these with positive life coaching determines the difference between a successful mentor and one who might not be as influential. To set goals with life coaching one must understand that those being coached might not realize the importance of goals. Some even consider goals as worthless.
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Instructions
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Set Goals with Life Coaching
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Reach small goals by establishing patterns of behavior. Ask the individual being coached about day- to-day life and their routine. Determine whether or not there are specific daily activities that challenge the individual, and use these to establish the most basic of goals known as daily essentials. An example of this is someone who struggles with getting out of bed each day. Without calling it a goal, work with the individual on establishing a routine of getting up at a specific time each day. Once this is accomplished, a life coach can reference this success as a goal and use it as an example of what the individual is able to accomplish. This provides credibility to other activities.
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Discuss the importance of goal setting and the role each goal plays. Coach the individual toward seeing this for themselves by helping them realize the small accomplishments made previously and how these have impacted their daily lives. The more an individual realizes for themselves, the more credibility and meaning goal setting receives.
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Categorize goals and write them down. Goals can be divided by career, spiritual, family, education and other areas important to the individual. Provide guidance by coaching the individual toward specific ideas or objectives that they wish to accomplish in each area of their life. An example of this might be education. An individual without a degree of higher education might want to earn a university degree. This constitutes itself as an educational goal.
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Plan goals individually. A life coach will take goal setting one step further by assisting in the realization of smaller tasks, which lead to each separate goal. These tasks, though seemingly small, are goals within themselves and should be treated with the same value as the larger objective. Referencing the university degree as an example, the individual being coached might first need to obtain a GED, followed by an associates degree, which then leads to a bachelor's degree. Upon receiving the GED, take time to celebrate the accomplishment as a task toward the larger objective. In time, the individual being coached will be setting goals for themselves allowing the life coach to advise and assist in maintaining momentum toward accomplishing satisfying life objectives.
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Tips & Warnings
As a life coach, always remain positive but understand that, in the beginning, tough love may be necessary.
Always avoid telling an individual what they should and should not do. This creates hostility and puts someone being mentored in a defensive position, which will prohibit effective counseling.
References
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