Coaching is a lot like a roadmap.
It is important to know where we are driving. If you get in the car and you aren’t sure where you’re going, you might end up end up in Tennessee when you wanted to get to San Diego. Even if the journey was fun, and you saw some cool things along the way, it will feel like a loss.
That’s why I begin by asking, “What do you want to get out of this?”
As your coach, I need to know from the outset where it is that you want to be at the end of this journey. Where do you want to be at the end of a six month or one year contract?
Answers to this question vary greatly from client to client. You may want to find a better work/life balance, which means being able to take a certain amount of long weekends per month or work from home regularly. You may want to see growth in your business, which means adding a certain number of people to your team. You may want to be in a committed relationship by the end of 6 months, or improve your sex life with your partner.
Whatever it is, the destination becomes something we check in on every single time I get on the phone with a client. With the destination established, we can break the journey up into weekly and daily pieces. “Where do you want to be by the end of today?” We can celebrate being in Virginia now, because we’ll be in West Virginia by the end of today, and because we know that the roadmap leads to San Diego.
Originally published on Linked-In