Coaching a client to set a goal that survives a real week
This is for you if a client leaves a session lit up, names a real goal, and by Wednesday it has quietly vanished. You can feel the pull to blame their motivation, or to reach for a reminder that nags. The goal was a wish, and a wish has no plan for Monday.
A goal set in the warmth of a good session is a wish. It has direction and no trigger, so a loud week rolls right over it. What holds is different: hold the wished result against the real obstacle, then bind the next step to a moment that already happens.
You'll work from two parts of their results. Discovering Your Strengths, to root the goal in how they're already built. Uncovering Your Blind Spots, to find the real thing in the way. About thirty minutes.
- Sharpen the wish. Ask for the one goal they'd be sorry to lose by month's end. Tie it to a strength they already own in Discovering Your Strengths, so the goal leans on how they work, not a borrowed ideal.
- Make the win concrete. Have them picture the best result in real detail. Where are they, what is different, how does it feel? One or two vivid images, not a speech.
- Name the real obstacle. This is the hinge, so slow down. Ask what actually stops them, and push past "I'll be too busy" to the fear or habit underneath. It usually shows up in Uncovering Your Blind Spots as a strength turned up too high.
- Hold both at once. Have them keep the wished result and the real obstacle in mind together for a moment. The dream sets the direction; the obstacle tells the truth about what blocks it. That side-by-side is what does the work.
- Turn the obstacle into a cue. Build one if-then line: when [the obstacle hits, at this exact moment], then [one small action]. Hang the "when" on something that already happens in their week: opening the laptop, the Monday standup, the 3pm slump.
Have them write the line where they'll see it, in their own words. That one line is what they hold. When it rings true, stop. The questions below are for drawing out the real obstacle and testing the cue.
The client owns the goal. You own the structure that lets it survive Monday.
Coaching questions
This isn't a worksheet to run in order. Pull what the room needs and follow it.
Sharpening the wish
- Which goal here would you be sorry to lose by month's end?
- What strength of yours does this one lean on?
Finding the real obstacle
- When you picture doing this, where exactly does it stall?
- "Too busy" is true. What is it also covering for?
- What would you have to feel or risk to actually do it?
Building the cue
- What already happens in your week that we could hang this on?
- What is the smallest version you'd still be glad you did?
- In one line, how will you know it happened this week?
