不会成长的目标 GOALS THAT DON’T DEVELOP

不会成长的目标

GOALS THAT DON’T DEVELOP

在教练中可能会出错的事情恰好是这一个：客户的目标不会成长。很明显，你从这个问题开始，「你想要什么？」，接着你用意向力问题来补充这个问题:「为什么这对你来说很重要？」事实上，你重复这个问题五次或更多，以确保提出的目标确实是一个真正的目标、一个重要的目标、一个与他生活有关的目标，一个与他价值观有关的目标。

然而……正如你所知道的，通常目标是小而自私的目标，对他生活的影响没什么差别。这时候，身为教练，你处于选择点。「我应该继续客户提出的这个目标，还是应该挑战他去得到真正重要的东西？」这里没有「正确」答案。对于某些不太相信的客户，他们可能要你先接受所提出的目标，而不要太多的质疑，这样他们先学会信任你并进入教练的体验。

然而，对于其他客户来说，直接着手他们先提出的目标，可能代表你不太相信他们，认为你可以接受他们没有大的野心，以及你不太在乎去挑战他们。这就是我为ACMC培训（培训大成教练们）的条件。我期待你利用练习节来提出你的目标，而且是足够大与重要的目标，让教练有真的东西可以操作。如果不这样做，那么真正的问题又来了：「身为教练的你，是否可被教练？」如果学员教练给的只是小小的目标，我们就无法判断他真的是不是一个自我实现的人，原意走出自己的舒适区。

这是一个点，但也是另外一个。健康的目标会成长。当你朝向一个重要的目标时，它会变大、进化与熟成一个更加重要的目标。客户通常从一个外在目标开始，减肥，开始锻炼，学习一项新技能等等。然后，在教练过程中，这个人开始成长和改变，当他们改变的时候，他们的目标也会改变。从一开始的短浅自私的目标，变成了实现更高尚的目标。

赚更多的钱变成了一种能丰富他人生活的业务。
减肥变成了有更多内在美的人。
戒烟变成了要更有活力，成为孩子的榜样。

客户通常进入教练节的时候，并没有想要达成一些崇高的目标，但在过程中，他们却得到了一个愿景。他们开始思考生活的更高、更多的崇高理由。他们的目标从外在目标转向内在目标，存在与成为的目标、如何由内而外生活的目标。他们现在要的是更多的韧性、更多的爱、更多的贡献、更多的耐心等等。

这就是我第一次设定财务目标时发生的事情。起初，它只是关于钱。这只是关于增加收入。后来，我的财务目标扩大到包括预算、储蓄、投资和后期被动收入等。后来，我的目标从金钱演变为创造价值、看到机会、抓住机会、成为一个内心富有的人：富有想法、时间、关系、健康、快乐等等。我从外在目标演变成一些自我实现的目标，关于存在与成为的目标。

我再次问：「客户的目标是否在成长中？那些目标是否逐渐成为自我实现的目标？它们是否让客户的生活变得更加自我实现？」当客户的目标在成长时，他会越来越朝向生成目标。他们的目标变得更「成为」（becoming）而不是专注于为生活的各种烦恼找解决方案或补救措施。现在他们的目标变成：

更韧性
很棒的学习者
当挫折时，更有魅力
当错误表达时，更宽恕
更多的贡献

如果这是另外一件可能会出错的事情，现在你知道有这个可能，因此身为教练，你知道可以怎么做了。

Here’s something else that could go wrong in coaching and this happens to be a subtle one— your client’s goals don’t develop. Obvious you begin with the question, “What do you want?” and you supplement that question with the intentionality question, “Why is that important to you?” In fact, you repeat that question five times or more to make sure that the goal presented is indeed a real goal, an important goal, a goal that is relevant to the person’s life, and a goal that’s connected to her values.

And yet … as you well know, often the goals are small selfish goals that won’t really make that much of a difference in the person’s life. At that point you, as the coach, are at a choice point. “Should I go with this goal that my client has presented or should I challenge him to get something really significant?” There is no one “right” answer to that. For some clients who are not very trusting, they may need you to first accept what they offer without much questioning so that they learn to trust you and enter into the experience of coaching.

Yet for other clients, to go with the goals they first present, could very well be a sign that you don’t believe in them very much, that you are okay with them thinking small, and that you don’t care enough to challenge them. That’s the condition I have set for ACMC training— for training Meta-Coaches. We expect that you use the practice sessions to present your goals and to make them big enough and significant enough to give the coach something real to work with. If you don’t, and a really important question arises again, “Are you, as a coach, coachable?” If a coach-to-be only gives minor little goals, we cannot tell if that person is actually a self-actualizing person willing to stretch out of his comfort zone or not.

That’s one point and yet this is another one. Healthy goals develop. As you are reaching forward to a significant goal, it will expand, evolve, develop, and become a much more significant goal. Clients normally start with an outer goal— lose weight, begin exercising, learn a new skill, etc. Then, within the coaching process itself, the person begins to grow and change and as they change, so do their goals. What started off as a shortsighted little selfish goal develops into a goal for achieving something much more noble.

Making more money becomes creating a business that will enrich the lives of many others.
Losing weight becomes wanting to become a more beautiful person on the inside.
Getting rid of the smoking habit becomes wanting to be energetic as a model for one’s children.

How often it is that a client enters coaching and has no intention of achieving some noble purpose, but in the process they catch a vision. They begin to think of higher and more noble reasons for living. Their goals change from outer goals to inner goals— goals of being and becoming, goals for how they live their lives from the inside-out. Now they want to be more resilient, more loving, more contributing, more patient, etc.

That’s what happened to me when I first set a financial goal. At first it was just about money. It was just about increasing income. Later, my financial goals expanded to include budgeting, saving, investing, and later passive income, etc. Later the goals evolved from money to creating value, to seeing opportunities, to seizing opportunities, to becoming a wealthy person within myself— wealthy in ideas, time, relationships, health, joy, etc. What started out as an external goal evolved into some self-actualization goals, goals about being and becoming.

So again, I ask: Are your client’s goals developing? Are they becoming self-actualization goals? Are they moving your client to living more of a self-actualizing life? When your client’s goals develop, the person moves more and more into generative goals. Instead of focusing on fixing problems and finding remedies for various hassles of life— the goals become about becoming. They become about becoming the very best version of the person. Now they have goals like: