The Art of Goal Setting by a Life Coach

As an Executive and Life Coach, an integral part of the coaching engagement is goal setting. As an executive and life coach my job is to help my clients both set and achieve their goals.

We human beings are by nature, goal oriented. We thrive when we are consciously working towards a goal and feel demotivated and lack lustre when we have nothing to move towards. The nature of consciousness is growth, expansion, and evolution so if we don’t have goals, or don’t know what they are, then we are most definitely disengaged with life to some degree. Exceptions to this rule are enlightened beings, whose goal or purpose is to be always present and in the moment.

Most of us have some sort of goals or direction of movement, even if we haven’t become consciously aware of it. There are many latent desires in each of us. Yet, why do so few of us have the courage to clearly state our goals? And yet even fewer achieve them?

The main reason for this is that our goal setting and achieving process is not taking into consideration all that is needed for us to achieve our goal.

Research has shown that just writing your goal down, instead of just having it in your mind, significantly increases the chances of you achieving it!

Below are some of the most important understanding and strategies for setting and achieving goals.

1. Choose the right goal for you! What does this mean? This means that choose a goal, that is in alignment with your authentic self. Most people set goals that have little or nothing to do with their own authentic self. Spend some time in getting to know yourself so you can be sure you are choosing a goal that inspires your soul, and is not just coming from the ego, from watching others, or from a mere assumption of what might make you look successful. Only goals that take into consideration both your Values and your Strengths, are worth pursuing, and you will have enough motivation to see through them. This is because you will be interested in what you are doing or going after, and you will have the right values and strengths to make it happen! If you don’t want to get a coach, try Jasrin’s online coaching course “Blueprint of the authentic you” https://elearning.jasrinsingh.com/ to really get to know your authentic self
2. Involve both parts of your brain – unconscious and conscious. Logical and emotional. Let’s see how we can do that.Conscious Mind – Which is the logical mind is also the doing and decision-making mind. What we will do to involve the conscious mind, is that instead of writing out our goal as a statement we want to have, we will frame it as a question instead.
   Ex:
   I want to build a successful business focusing on relationships
   will turn into
   How can I build a successful business focusing on relationships?
   Now write down 5-10 ways daily on answering the question. This is called mind storming and will give you the actions you need to take to make this happen.Unconscious/ Subconscious Mind – This is our emotional, feeling mind. Its language is visualization, and it is trained by repetition, or habit. Unlike the conscious mind, it is not making decisions, or choosing, it is simply following orders and does what the habitual thoughts and feelings make it do. It is much more in charge of giving you the motivation and permission to take actions, instead of procrastinating. For this mind, to get involved in the process of goal achievement, we write down the goal statement like you have already achieved it. This mind oversees faith and conviction, that is the juice that really makes a goal happen.
   Ex:
   I want to build a successful business focusing on relationships
   Will turn into
   I am so excited and proud of myself now that I have built a successful business focusing on relationships.
   Infuse emotions, and feelings as you repeat the words daily. Better still write down and visualise the goal statement a few times a day.
3. Get rid of the emotional baggage – Now that we have the Conscious and Unconscious parts of our mind involved, there is one more thing left to do. We must face our demons! That is our fears, worries and limiting beliefs, the emotional baggage that we are/ have been carrying around for years. Our fear of failure, our deep sense of unworthiness, our belief in a competitive world etc. This work requires expert guidance, so best to involve a Life Coach or a therapist to assist you. Try her online course on “Emotional purification” https://elearning.jasrinsingh.com/

If we can see it in our mind, we can hold it in our hand! That is reality of life. We are only limited by what we can imagine, think and believe can be ours.

Photo by Alexa Williams on Unsplash