or being a personal development coach always starts with helping clients set their goals. Many people think they are already setting goals. Your success coaching client may be one of those people. In this post, we will look at two reasons why many people don’t set goals. Your job as their personal development coach is to show them exactly how to set and achieve their goals.

Success Coaching Clients Usually Think Goal Setting Is Just Deciding What They Want

Most success coaching clients think they are already goal-setting. They think that if they know they want something, they are setting a goal. An example of this could be a high school student. This student could get a 4.0 Grade Point Average (GPA) if he applied himself. However, at the beginning of the semester, his parents ask him what his GPA goal is and he responds with, “3.5.” His parents are satisfied with the answer and move on to the next topic thinking that they’ve established his GPA goal. However, that is not goal setting. At the end of the story, the student may have finished the semester with a 3.0 GPA. While there is nothing wrong with the 3.0 he received, his original goal was to get at least 3.5. He could have even achieved a 4.0. If he had followed proper success coaching goal-setting techniques, he probably would have gotten a 3.5 or a 4.0. Instead, he gets a 3.0 and goes through the rest of his life with or without a personal development coach thinking that goal setting is just deciding what he wants.

If he had a personal development coach he would find out that there are more steps to goal-setting than just deciding what he wants. Success coaching clients learn that goals must be SMART: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Timely. The high school student in this example had a goal that was SMR and T, but not necessarily Attainable, because he could have done better. A good personal development coach would have seen that he could have achieved more and pushed him to attain a 4.0 GPA. This push could have been more motivating a goal that, in turn, could have helped him to push himself to reach it.

Clients Need Personal Development Coaching When They Don’t Have Any Goals

In success coaching, you will meet several clients that think they don’t have any goals. This is not really true, though. They do have goals. They have just never taken the time to think about what they really want in life. Much of the time of a personal development coach is spent asking clients the right questions. If you have a client that says they have no goals ask them questions like these:

• “Would you like to retire financially independent?”
• “Would you like to have more energy?”
• “Would you like to make more money?”

Your client will almost always respond by saying, “Yes,” to these questions and, when they do, they’ve discovered some of their goals and gained respect for you as their personal development coach.

Everyone has goals. Not everyone has taken the time to really think about what they want most in life, then write it down. That is going to be the first step to helping your success coaching client to get the results they want.

Kris Thompson
JTS Advisors Strategy Coach