Reaching your goals

Goals are important for everyone, and vital for those moving through the process of divorce and co-parenting, and other seasons of extraordinary change. Today, we're talking about goals- setting them, making progress toward them, and creating a strategy to achieve them.

Have you heard this question before- "If you don't know where you're going, how will you know when you get there?" If we rearrange it a bit, we can ask a more productive question- "Where are you going, and how will you know when you've arrived." This is an important question for clients and coaches alike, and it's foundational to all of my coaching sessions. Coaching, especially Divorce and Co-Parent Coaching, is about clients moving toward specific goals, in a specific order, and with a specific strategy.

So why do so many of us struggle to reach our goals? I believe these three things play a large part in the struggle- overwhelm from working on too many goals at once, lack of specificity in defining goals, and failure to create a viable strategy to achieve goals.

Overwhelm is the enemy of forward progress toward goals. We want to do it all! We want to get healthy, we want to get organized, we want to manage our money, we want to be a better parent, an on and on it goes! Doing it all at once often means doing nothing at all. Instead, when we prioritize our goals, our progress snowballs as each success builds upon the last.

Coaching question: Which of these goals is the most important for you to work on right now?

Example: I need to work on so many things, but the piece that is having the most negative impact on my life is the continuous negative communication with my co-parent. I need effective boundaries around communication with my co-parent.

Goals have to be specific. Without a specific goal, there isn't a specific reward, and the motivation just isn't there. Goals should have an attached outcome that provides the energy needed to continue the work. If we can't answer the coaching question below, we need to work on focusing in on a specific goal.

Coaching question: When you achieve your goal, how will your life be different?

Example: When I achieve my goal of establishing effective boundaries in communication with my co-parent, I will have more time and energy to think about my life with the kids. I will have more focus without stress bombs getting dropped on me throughout the day, and I will have a more positive outlook on my co-parenting relationship because I won't be continually frustrated.

And finally, we have strategy. The most brilliant strategy is useless if it doesn't include steps that we will actually take. It might seem impossible, but creativity is our saving grace. It is almost always possible to create a strategy that we can work out in reality.

Coaching questions: What are my options? Which of these options are viable, and which are not? Based on the viable options available to me, which of these options will I choose to achieve my goal?

Example: I could go "no contact" and avoid my co-parent. I could explain to my co-parent that he stresses me out and ask my co-parent not to contact me so often. I could have a family member take over communication with my co-parent. I could manage the frequency, time, and place in which I engage with communications from my co-parent.

Outcome: I have effective boundaries around communication with my co-parent. I check for messages in my co-parenting app after I eat lunch. If the communication requires a response, I will respond immediately. If it does not require a response, I will not respond. If it requires a response that I cannot give quickly, I will schedule 15 minutes on Saturday morning to formulate a response. I will close my co-parenting app until tomorrow after I eat my lunch.

Simple, right?! Sometimes it is simple. Other times it's not, and we need support to achieve our goals. A professional coach is trained to support clients through the process of change, through the process of setting and achieving goals, through the process of creating strategies and effective boundaries, and through the conflict that arises when an individual decides to grow.

Go forth, achieve your goals, and grow!