Goal Setting #1

The first class of this course was held on Wednesday, February 28, 2007. The class began with discussion around why people don’t set goals. We talked about the aversion people may have to the connotation of the word ‘goal’. Some people are afraid of failure; therefore of they don’t set goals they can’t fail in achieving them. Some people just don’t want to be accountable to their goals and still others may just be too lazy to set goals for themselves. It was also brought up that some people may feel bogged down by goals and like to feel freedom in this area.

Joanne shared her 14 step model for setting goals. I missed a few steps but liked a lot of the steps that I was able to capture; determine values, determine desire, define belief system, what are the benefits, list of obstacles, identify other info client will need, organizations/people who can help, make a plan, visualize the goal, decide never to give up and set up rewards/celebration.

Some barriers to achieving goals may be; people may not feel deserving of reaching a goal, it may be someone else’s goal that they feel they should achieve or feeling overwhelmed by the goal.

I think this is an important aspect to coaching and I am looking forward to flushing this out even more at the next class. I hope to develop my own model for walking clients through their goals.