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Goal Setting
Goals for your new life.
After all the sadness and trauma of your separation, now can also be the time to make a fresh new start.
Why not take this time as an opportunity to create a life you have always dreamed about.
Why not turn this into a positive beginning of a new and exciting life.
Professional Life Coach Roland Hanekroot from New Perspectives Coaching shares a simple and powerful method to set and achieve inspiring goals for this new phase of your life.
First, take some time by yourself, for yourself. Go away somewhere, even if it is only for a weekend, alone. Take the time to reflect, work out what is really important to you.
Have a look at all the things you do in your life, write a list of all the things that make up your life, everything that is in it, and maybe all the things that you would like to be in your life from now. Don’t go into to much detail; write the list as if they are the contents page of a book about your life.
Now go through this list and decide which of these chapter headings you are happy with as they are, and which of them you would really like to make some big changes in.
Narrow that down to the 3 or 4 most important areas. The areas that if you were to make a big change in them you would feel you have really achieved something and you are on the way to having the life you dream of.
Look at the first area and think about what you would really like that area to look like in 3 months or six months or a year, don’t worry about the obstacles, just imagine that all obstacles can be overcome somehow.
Now describe that vision for yourself in these terms: lets say it is 1 June and you want to set a plan for the next 3 months for your fitness for example, start like this: “It is now 1 September 2005. I have just climbed out of the pool; it is amazing I feel phenomenal because I have just completed 20 laps of the Olympic pool in less than 25 minutes”!
The first thing to do with this inspiring goal is to print it out nicely in a large format font and hang it above your desk or on the fridge or wherever you will see it every day.
Now you do the same with the other two or three areas that are really important for you.
Once you have these goals or visions defined, take each one and read it again, now picture yourself in that actual moment, the moment you get out of the pool and look at the clock on the wall, and say to your self, wow that is incredible, I did it! Make that image appear in front of your eyes. If you need to change it a bit to make it more real, do so, turn the volume up or down, listen to the sounds, wind the image forward a bit or back a little, change the colours if you like to. Take note of the people around you the time of day, what is the weather like; just make it as real as it can be for you.
Now think of a word that captures the emotion or the feeling of that image for you. This is called an “anchor”.
Look at the goal, repeat this anchor to yourself, feel how the anchor brings up the picture in your mind. And let the picture sit there for a little while.
Now it is time two write down the major strategies to get to this goal, design the road map as it were. What are the major directions you are going to have to take, maybe one of the strategies is to get support, you don’t think you will be able to pull it off by yourself, so write that down. Maybe there is a half way point; to be able to swim 20 laps in any time might be a half way point for example.
Once you have the road map in place, what are you going to do to get under way? Maybe the strategy of getting your support in place means that you want to do some research on swimming squads or stroke improvement classes at your local pool, for example, so write that down as an action to get under way. How are you going to take the first step that means that in 3 months you will get out of the pool and feel exactly like you have just described.
This was a simplified exercise in goal setting incorporating some of the principles of coaching, Neuro Linguistic Programming and Neuro Semantics.
Roland Hanekroot, of New Perspectives Coaching. |