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Tomorrow, tomorrow, you’re always a day away! Annie’s anticipation of a better day in tomorrow is evidence of her optimistic outlook on life despite her dreary circumstances. And there’s nothing wrong in being optimistic, but when it comes to setting, planning and achieving goals in life, tomorrow can turn out to be our nemesis. Tomorrow holds idyllic promise and implies future. Tomorrow does not call for commitment and action. Tomorrow invites avoidance and delay. Carpe Diem! When you are really committed to change in your life, rather take up the call of “Carpe Diem” – Seize the day! Get stuck in there making consistent, sustainable change day after day until the change you wanted is part of your life. Start today! This every day thing is not the easy path but then again, nothing worthwhile just drops from the sky. Actually, when it is harder to get something, the achievement is all the more satisfactory. But, how do you get from where you are now to where you want to be? One way is to start with GROW, a model created by Sir John Witmore in the 1980s. The acronym stands for: Goals – start off by defining what you want to achieve, SMART goals obviously (Specific, Measurable, Achieveable, Realistic and Time Bound, and writing in the present tense) Reality – look at where you are today and identify obstacles preventing you from achieving your goal Options – brainstorm different solutions to overcome the obstacles in your reality Will – what do you need to do to take action and implement a plan (specific, detailed planning is not an option!) In summary,
How can a Life Coach help, you might ask? Firstly, a life coach will guide you through the process that I’ve outlined above. More importantly though, a life coach will be your support, your cheer leader, your adviser and your partner from start to finish. How can you be without one? There is a lot of information on social media about SMART goals; a concept that was introduced by George T. Doran in 1981. A goal written SMART-ly clearly and specifically states what you intend to achieve and by when. This approach creates focus and enables you to track how you are progressing towards what you want to achieve. Interestingly, a whopping 97% of people do not have goals and do not have a plan in place to successfully achieve their goals. This goes a long way to explain why so many people feel that they are stuck in a rut and not making headway in their lives. The acronym SMART, explained in the table below, is used to check that you described your goal in sufficient detail and specifies how you can track your progress towards successfully achieving your goal:  Most importantly, a goal is written in present tense. It is one of the ways to focus your mind on achieving the goal. When you are satisfied that your goal is written as a SMART goal, make sure that you visualize it and put it in a place where you will see it every day. This is another way to focus your mind on the goal. Here is a practical example using my avatar Pat: To achieve general good health and improve her energy levels, Pat decides to increase her fitness by doing some form of exercise 3 times a week for at least the next 6 months, working up to a duration of thirty minutes. She describes her goal, visualizing her future achievement making sure to write it in the present tense and include all aspects of a SMART goal (at the time of writing her goal it is January 2025) It is 1 July 2025, I walk or cycle for 30 minutes on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. Pat checks her goal against the SMART criteria and is satisfied that she has articulated a SMART goal! She is also happy that it is to the point and simple.  Pat writes out her goal in bright colours on a big piece of paper and pins it to the door of her fridge. She is also considering making an image of the goal to use as her screen saver on her cell phone. Talk about focusing the mind!
Creating a SMART goal is the first step to successfully attain what you want in your life. You can create goals to improve any area of your life. Pat chose to improve her health. You might want to improve a relationship, progress in your career, increase your wealth or just deliberately go about including some fun and adventure into your life. Start today by writing your own SMART goal – follow it up with a good plan to take you from today to your goal end day – and then do it! I love great questions.
This week I realized how great a question “what do you need?” is - I wasn’t really listening to the conversation between two colleagues until I heard Iqbal ask Janet: “What do you need?” There was a moment’s silence after which Janet succinctly described what she needed and Iqbal replied with constructive advice on how to approach the situation that they were discussing. My reflection has been on the subtle difference between asking “How can I help you?” and “What do you need?”. The second question moves the responsibility from me trying to figure out how I can make your situation better, to requiring you to be specific about what help is required. It removes the interpretation in my own mind of the situation to clarity for all parties about what is needed. From this, you are likely to find the answer for yourself or the discussion can move on to possible suggestions of how the need can be met. It ends up being a great engagement simply because of a great question. “What do you need?” can be an empowering, inquisitive question in the mix of all the other self-talk that goes on in your mind. It can be a split second of interrupting your thinking and getting clarity in your own mind. This enables you to share clearly with others what you need, not only helping you to articulate yourself clearly but also helping other understand you. Clearly, a win-win situation! Try out the question. Ask yourself. Ask other people. I think it will positively change the way you engage with others.  Looking for someone that will “complete you” must be the biggest illusion that has ever been sold! To think that we can become whole, complete and fulfilled because of someone else is a recipe for a relationship or friendship to end, most of the time in disaster. Let me explain: according to my friend Google, around 80% of people are growing up and becoming adults who subconsciously live day by day constrained by the belief that life happens to you. This leads to most people living out purpose-less “you should” kind of lives, giving away control of their circumstances and subconsciously living with weaknesses and limitations that they aren’t even aware of. Why? Because that’s just how things are. If I may liken such people to a jigsaw puzzle piece – they have ‘extensions’ and ‘holes’ on all sides of them. The natural tendency is to fill the holes (what we are lacking) and capitalize on the extensions (talents or excesses) by finding someone whose needs can be filled by what we can give ie. our ‘extensions’ but in turn has ‘extensions’ that complements our lack. Quite truly, they say that opposites attract. Voila, you get a completed puzzle! And this is where the story can end …….. as long as the extensions and the holes always stay as they are, we can continue to live purpose-less yet happy lives completing each other. As long as nothing changes. Thing is – we do change. Life happens and through experiences, moments of growth and reaching different levels of maturity, we change. An experience can have such an improving effect on us that where we are lacking is filled. Hmmm, now we no longer have a place for our puzzle partner to fill. This causes misalignment. It causes friction because there isn’t a perfect fit any more. This is also where the story can end ……. we settle for not fitting any more, because of many good rationalizations we continue to live purpose-less yet frustrating lives going with the flow because that’s how it is. Life certainly does not have to be like that. What if you were fulfilled as a complete, holistic person all on your own? What if you took control of your own life, trimmed down the excesses and filled up the lack – to become a perfect circle of self made you. Independent, in control, successful …. purposeful. That’s about you – and yes, through life coaching it can certainly be done. Fill out the form on this website or get hold of me on [email protected] to find out how! Where I am actually going with this is to wrap up my story about looking for someone to complete you – it’s nonsense. What is amazing though, is when you (leading a completely fulfilled purposeful life) find someone else (also leading a completely fulfilled purposeful life), the picture below visualizes the beauty of two whole people sharing their lives together. I don’t think we could wish for a better life! What is pretty cool, is that ME all on my own is living out your best life, consciously taking control of your destiny and living with purpose. Sharing an US with someone as fulfilled as you are is a great bonus.  |