Who Do You Want to Be: Advanced

This process is best worked through with a coach and may take several weeks of investment - it's a vital starting point if you need direction in your life.

Stage One

The first stage is to gather:

Write down on paper:

Write down all the concepts and ideas that you want to have, the, person you want to be, characteristics that you want to have and the things you want to own. EVERYTHING!
Let your imagination run wild. Get yourself a piece of paper and start writing and do not stop until you have run out of ideas.
Once your list is written, allow your mind to work on it over the next few days. You will have opened the floodgates of your subconscious mind which will continue to add to the list – so, keep it to hand at all times. When you think of another idea, add it to the list.

Include every idea you may have discussed with others.

After a few days, review your list and fill in anything else that has come into your mind and that you have not yet recorded. After that time, you will have a fairly full list of things you want.

Stage Two

The second stage is to start reducing the items on your list. This process will eventually give you a list of the things that are most important to you and that are in alignment with your values and beliefs.

For each item on the list, ask yourself the following questions:

Write each answer in one positive sentence

As you go through the list, cross out anything where you cannot answer, ‘I want this because’.

Do not destroy it completely because it may mean that you may be able to answer it later.

You now should have narrowed down your list a little bit.

Keep the goals that you can answer ‘why’ to, on a single list. This is the list you are going to work on.

Check each goal again, You should now have a list of goals that you want to achieve.
Make sure that you have answered ‘why you want this’ for very goal on the list.
Explain why it is a must for you. If you have not done it yet, do it now. It will make a real difference when examine your goals.

Stage Three

You are going to look at the different key areas of your life, using the categories in the ‘wheel of life’ exercise.
Look at the different areas of your life that you have given in your wheel at this point you may add, change or delete some ‘areas’. Include all the areas of life that are important to you.
At this stage, you need to consider what success in every one of the areas of life means to you.

Stage Four

Now, you are going to see how the goals you have listed match up to these important areas in your life.

Just ask yourself a simple question.

If I get this thing, if I become this person, will I be happier? Will it bring me peace? Is it going to improve my health? Is it gong to make me richer? Is it going to improve my financial situation, put more money in the bank? Will being this person, having this thing, doing this thing improve my environment? Will it give me better family relationships? Will it improve my social life? How is it going to impact upon my life?

Measure it up against each one of those areas of your life (from your wheel) that you have deemed important.

Every time that you can answer ‘yes, this goal will improve this area of my life’, give it a mark. It will enable you to see what is really important in your life.

Take each and every goal on your list and subject it to close scrutiny.

Ask yourself the questions in all the areas on your wheel. Will achieving the goals enhance my life in each of those areas?

Take the time to do it. Reflect upon the things that are important to you.

If you invest a week, including time to think, assimilate and get the best out of this process, it will have enormous benefits. Total up the marks for each goal now.

Which goals scored highly and which achieved a low score? Did you have any surprises? Some may have got full marks, others very few or none at all.

Stage Five

Now is the time to evaluate further.

People are very good at justifying and will make up all sorts of reasons why something is absolutely essential.

Set these two questions up in advance.

Stage Six

Select your top 10 goals. Look at what kind of goals they are. They will divide into 4 types.

First is the ongoing goal. This is something that you choose to do very day. For example, your goal may be to devote a certain number of hours per day to reading or practicing piano.
If to be ‘healthy’ is your goal, this will also need daily input. Be specific about your goals. Within this ‘being healthy’ goal you could include having a daily ‘workout’, eating healthy foods, drinking two litres of water and having a time of prayer or medication. It is entirely up to you to decide how you will achieve your goal on a daily basis.

Second is the short-term goal. These are goals that can be achieved within a week to a month. An example of a short-term goal would be to clear the clutter from your office or to contact your old friends.

Third are medium-term goals which take between a month to a year to achieve, such as reaching your target weight or sorting out your finances.

Finally, you will have long-term goals which can take a year or more to complete – for example, a change in career or location.
Most people overestimate what they can do in a year and underestimate what they can do in a decade.

All goals need to be set within a realistic time-scale for achievement.

Now, identify your goals as ongoing, short, medium or long-term.

Stage Seven

Take each one of the original sentences attached to your goal and expand them. Elaborate in more detail why you want to reach the goal. Get fully associated with each goal. Explain to yourself; sell yourself your dream in the first person. Do that now. It might take up to a week for you to have a story for each goal but it is a powerful process to complete.

90% of success in achieving you goals is all about the ‘why’. 10% is the ‘how’. People fail to achieve their goals because they have not fully explored the questions, ‘why do I want this? What will it mean for me? What will the benefits be?’ They have not become fully associated with and immersed in their goal.

Now you have created for yourself the ‘awesome’ list of reasons why you must have, do or become the things on your list. You have got to ‘be’ before you can ‘do’. You have got to ‘do’ before you can ‘have’.

Now you know why you want these things, you can go to the next stage.

Stage Eight

Take each of your top 10 goals in turn and create a ‘to do’ list. This will never get finished because, as soon as you take things off, more go back on. They are generally about activity They are very seldom about achievement. For each goal, get fully associated with the ‘why’ again and start to write down all of the actions that you would be a) prepared to take and b) must take to achieve that goal. This is a ‘green light’ thinking session. Don’t start judging whether you will or will not at this stage. Just write everything down. You’'ll find one thing triggers another and you will have a long list.

This stage can be very empowering. Certainly, some of your clients will as focused as they have even been in their lives.

Stage Nine

List all of the people you might need to get in touch with for help and advice, the people you need to work with, the skills you might need to develop, what you need to learn, what you need to understand.

Do this for each individual goal and the points of action. Start this now. It might take another 24 hours.

When all nine stages are completed, you will have an almost complete picture and a reasonably complete list of goals that are going to make up your next 30 days, 30 months and 30 years.

Finally – the rocking chair test.

This brings it all together and starts to make it whole.

Close your eyes, wander out into the future and sit down in your rocking chair at whatever age this new, healthy, hard-working, switched-on, happy, motivated, stress-free, family orientated person that you’ve become or want to become, is likely to be.

Whether you are 95, 102 or 120, whatever the age is for you, sit, gently rocking backwards and forwards ands go back over your life. Tell yourself what has and is still happening. Write down all the amazing things you did, became and things you managed to accumulate in your life that were important to you. Write it was thought it has happened or is real right now. The complete story of your life. This should take several pages to describe the awesome life you have led and the amazing things you have done, the fantastic places you have been, the people you have touched and the changes you have made in your own life. Do it now. Take as long as you need before continuing.

A goal is a dream with a date

You now have a complete picture of how you want your life to be. You have been away and designed an amazing life. You can now put a time frame onto each one of those goals.

Keep the momentum going; contact me for a no-obligation chat.

Ask Claire

Do you have a question about coaching or training? Send your questions to me and I will get back to you within two working days.

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We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts.
With our thoughts, we make our world. The Buddha