Coaching and TGROW - Part 2

Part 2: The “G” in TGROW

Welcome back! With your Topic in hand, it is time to move on to explore the Goal setting of the TGROW model.

Effective Goal Setting

Goal setting could be the most crucial and transformational step in the coaching process, it forms the heart of the coaching conversation and lays the groundwork for achieving meaningful results. I normally encourage clients to take as much time as they need during this part of the process.

The goal you choose must be concrete, actionable and tied to your deeper motivations. Through insightful questioning, coaches help you to tap into your desires and vision, ensuring that the goal resonates deeply with you and not just something imposed from outside. (I will explore this topic on conditioning, core values and deep fulfilment in a later post.)

I am sure you have heard of setting SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time Bound) goals. An example gold standard goal would look something like this:

“I aim to steadily lose 10% of my current body weight within 6 months, with a calorie deficit of 500 a day. With no consideration of body recomposition, how I look and fat loss. The only measure of success will be my total body weight.”

Be Aware of Feelings

I encourage clients to stay away from including feelings in their goal statements as feelings may be unpredictabl. It also complicates the action path toward the goal. For example, if my goal is, “I want to lose weight until I feel good about myself.” It could be me losing the actual weight or it could be me learning to accept my body the way it is, and I become happier by gaining weight. Also, I could have had a crappy week at work and even though I look great, I feel bad, what then? As you can see, it introduces a large degree of vagueness into the goal, so try not to have feelings as an end goal.

Is this the Right Goal for You

These are some open-ended questions we use to help you dig deeper into your aspirations to determine if the goal is what you really want.

• "Why is this goal important to you?"

• "What difference will achieving this goal make in your life?"

• "How does this goal align with your long-term vision?"

• “When you think of this goal, is it in your voice, or someone else’s?”

Self-Coaching

Here is a useful framework that I sometimes use to help in goal setting (Taken from the book, 50 Top Tools for Coaching):

1)        My outcome (goal) is:

2)        What specifically do I want?

3)        Where and with whom do I want it?

4)        When do I want to achieve it?

5)        What will be different when I get it; what will I see, hear and feel?

6)        How would I know if I was on track for achieving this outcome?

7)        How would I know if I was going off course?

8)        What resources can I activate to get this outcome?

9)        What resources might I need to acquire to achieve this outcome?

10)   Who do I need to support me and what do I need them to do?

(My favourite part and make sure it is a good one) How will I celebrate my success? 

Hopefully that has helped you narrow it down to 1-2 goals and now, it is time to face the reality process (Aw man) in the next post.