Having an effective coaching experience is all about accomplishing the goals you’ve set out. Here are a few tips inspired by Notion’s guide on keeping your New Years Resolutions (or any goals you set)!
1. Have a strong retrospective approach
It’s important to anchor your goals in truly understanding what has happened prior to setting your new goals. This could be an annual retrospective, a quarterly one, or simply a project or existing one.
For each of the following areas, you should explore some key questions to ensure you’re getting the right foundation of understanding in order to create your goals for the future:
- Success and growth: What am I most proud of in this past period? What did I learn or grow from those experiences? What was something I didn’t expect to accomplish but actually did?
- Falling short: What do I wish I accomplished but didn’t? What came up unexpectedly that limited my ability to accomplish my goals? How would a third party view my challenges?
- People and relationships: How did your relationships and the people around you change and evolve? Who did you get to know better or continued to build relationships with? Who did you grow more distant with? Why?
- Health and wellness: Where on the spectrum would you rate your overall wellness and satisfaction with your current physical, psychological, and emotional state? What was good? What was bad?
- Lessons and themes: What did you learn? Are there any repeating themes, within or across categories?
The above questions and similar questions will help you more systematically explore your current state and what led you to today. More importantly, this exploration will help you set the stage for your goals going forward.
2. Translate your retrospectives into goals
In taking a look at each broad category, come up with a list of goals for each in the following format:
- Stop Doing – what habits, actions, or decisions do you want to stop doing
- Start Doing – what habits, actions, or decisions do you want to start doing (and likely replace what you plan on stopping)
- Keep Doing – what habits, actions, or decisions you should keep doing as they represent the momentum you have going forward
But it’s not enough to just have a list of goals, you have to also think about how you can achieve these goals? What are the small habits, decisions, changes you have to do each month, each week, each day, and each moment in your life to start having the small changes that will achieve your goals?
We recommend for each goal you set, you should think about:
- Measurement: How do I know I’ve achieved this goal?
- Habits: What behavior changes do I need to make in order to achieve this goal? How frequently do I need to check to ensure I’m achieving those changes?
- Accountability: Who is within my support network that I can trust to hold me accountable to these changes and help be a positive external influence in creating change?
3. Set up an accountability framework and team
Create systems for accountability, such as consistently measuring what you need to accomplish each day, week, and month. It’s important to constantly review your goals and have a clear eyed understanding of your progress.
What’s even more helpful is to have a team around you who understands your goals and can help support you on the journey. In many ways, a coach is the perfect partner help you move towards your goals as an accountability partner and key part of your accountability team.
Continue your coaching journey on Skye today.
