All tagged how to achieve your goals
If you're thinking about hiring a coach but don't know where to start, then you're not alone. The coaching landscape is incredibly confusing and extremely competitive. I posted on Facebook this week to do a bit of research on how people choose coaches and it garnered nearly 40 comments, many of which had various different descriptions of what coaching even is. It also attracted several other coaches trying to sell their services!
One of the main issues is that coaching seems to be a bit of a buzz word at the moment. The problem with that is, when people realise that they can add credibility to their offering by adding a word like coach, it becomes misappropriated time and time again. When everyone’s a coach, no one is a coach. I imagine it won’t be long before McDonalds rename their servers food selection coaches.
So if you think you might benefit from the help of a coach, but you don't know where to start, let me help you to cut through some of the crap!
Most people have given up on theirs by the end of Jan and a measly 8% of people actually ever achieve them.
I’ve never met anyone who made a resolution because they thought that the change they wanted to make was a bad idea. I think it’s safe to say we make resolutions because they are things we want to make happen. We make them for the right reasons, we start off with the best intentions but something happens to the vast majority of us along the way.
So what’s going on? Why is it so difficult to make change stick? As a behavioural change expert, I though I might step in with helpful tips to help you make sure this year is the year you really see things through.
How are you feeling today? Let me guess... It's the second week back after the New Year, the Christmas tree has come down and the routine you thought you craved post Christmas is starting to feel a bit, well, routine. Already. The resolutions or intentions you set are starting to feel a bit too hard.
I like to call this the 'doubt dip'. The initial wave of enthusiasm you surfed in on is starting to ebb away as the reality of your calendar and your inbox take over again. AND, you haven't yet got far enough into your plan to give you the momentum to keep going. Your energy levels start to dip and you begin to doubt whether you're ever going to get there. Another few half hearted attempts await you before you give up altogether along with everyone else on the 17th Jan. The same goes for business, getting it right in the first few weeks are key to feeling like you've had a fast start.
I wrote a post last week asking working mothers what they struggle with most. It got nearly 200 responses, I couldn't keep up. As the responses started to roll in and I got chance to read them all, I noticed they fell into three main themes: mum guilt, time and focus, finances and childcare. It's time to drop the excuses ladies, if you want to take control of your career, you need to FIND A WAY.
July and August are difficult months from the point of view of how we feel about work. They're months of closing things down. Working in specific chunks of time before holidays, yours or other people's, or before the schools break up. This sort of mood tends to bleed into our own thinking whether we're constricted by holiday dates or not. There's a general feeling of waiting until everything gets going again in September. The sense of urgency that working in specific chunks of time can, at times, be hugely helpful, but there's something about this time of year specifically that just doesn't have that vibe.
Quite often I get half way through writing a blog post and realise I’m writing it as much to myself as anyone else. This week is no different, and you’re getting this late for precisely that reason! This week I’m writing about fear. It’s the ONE thing that stops you getting what you want. This week it was the one thing that stopped me writing this sooner, I was scared of getting it wrong, scared of not hitting the high standards I set for myself and scared that I wouldn’t be able to tackle this huge subject in few enough words to keep you interested. But here goes...
Think about what you most want in life, or for your career? Why don’t you have it yet?
These are questions I ask a lot. They kick off the coaching relationship. The responses I get are diverse and varied. Financial constraints, concern over what other people might think, a lack of experience or skills, low confidence, a feeling of trepidation, self doubt... no crystal ball!
