II. Planning
I find it fascinating that most people plan their vacations with better care that they do their lives Jim Rohn
Next the ‘aware’ client gets into planning his/her life across key areas like health, finances, relationships, career/business, spiritual growth et al. At this stage it’s important to help the client get multiple perspectives on where they currently are, where they wish to go and what it will take to get there. Richer the perspective, better the planning.
As a coach, I would challenge the client to stretch, look beyond what’s visible, be okay with not knowing everything, get them to commit to move forward, to figure out ways to stay motivated. My effort all along is to help improve the quality of the client’s thinking. The three parts that need planning and the likely questions that could help are:
Where am I/Where do I want to go/How do I get there
III. Action
You can’t cross the sea by merely staring at the water. Rabindranath Tagore
The client has made a plan to move forward to achieve his/her goals. I now nudge them to take small steps, little actions that will help create new, empowering habits, actions that will move them towards their goals and strengthen their self-belief.
Breaking down the plan into easily acceptable chunks helps, supporting the client in breaking those chunks further into specific actions for the day, weeks, month and years helps even more.
Throughout this stage, I gently move the client from vague self promises to specific commitments. Client would work on answers for the following: