POINT OF VIEW * This is a space for sharing our point of view about big things, little things, and everything in between.

9/30/2010

Coaching tip: the difference between a dream and a goal is a date.

By now, almost everybody knows that in order to live the life we want, first we have to imagine it. To have dreams and longings is not only beautiful and pleasurable, it is also necessary. Dreams are the engine of the world, the force behind creation. The problem is that we often keep them in the "Dreams" file forever. 

The first step towards manifesting a dream is to make a goal of it. What is the difference? The date. Goals have a date. It does not need to be set in stone, but to have a date means that we pass the dream from the "Ideal but it's never going to happen" file to "One day it will be a reality". The easier example I can think of is a trip. One has in mind an image of a place that wants to visit. The image can be for years in our mind, our desk or our kitchen wall, until
we decide to make the trip and set a date, even if is only a general one (like next summer, this Christmas or in September). At this moment it becomes a goal. 

The Coach's job often is to apply this kind of general theories to other more specific and mundane issues, and that is what I want to share with you today. When we find a situation that is far from ideal, but we are not in a position to modify it soon, a way of improving it is to determine the solution or the factors that can take us to the change that we are looking for, and set up a date to implement them. For instance, it is not the same to be in an accident thinking that the emergency services exist and eventually will help us, than knowing that they are on their way and they will arrive in a few minutes. The pain we endure may be the same, but our overall state will not. Equally, it is not the same not been able to delegate any of our tasks due to our lack of resources, than thinking that next month we will start to delegate the ones that take more effort or the ones that we dislike more. We may still have the same situation, but knowing that a solution is in the way makes it much more bearable. 

A couple of months ago one of my clients was quite stressful. Focusing almost exclusively on his professional life, he was not giving enough time to other important aspects of his life, thus he couldn't find the necessary balance. Of course he does not need to visit a coach to listen that he has to delegate, nor I need to visit an economist to know that he couldn't do it at the moment. Our job, then, was to determine which tasks were the least important, the last ones in his priority lists. Moreover, he determined his priorities in life other than work. By doing this, he was keeping his life goals clear. It equals to point where we want to go in a map. We just need to see where we are and we can trace the way that will take us from point A to point B. 

My client ended the session making two decisions: First, in six weeks he will delegate two of the tasks he was doing now; the two that he disliked more. At the moment he did not know how will he be able to find the appropriate person or how will he deal with the related expense, but he decided to do so anyway. From that moment on, he KNEW in his mind that in a few weeks he will not have to do those chores any more. His second decision during that session was to dedicate more time at one of his other priorities. He chose the one that he felt stronger about, he specify the amount of time he will invest in it and the time of the week he will be more likely to do it. He then decided on a date to start: two weeks ahead. Notice that at that time, it was not for discussion how will all be possible. Only what was going to be done. 

In one of our recent sessions we went over these issues. He found somebody in practice for the first task he delegate, and he couldn't solve it for the second tasks on the expected time, but he did it a little bit later. Now he has planned to delegate the next tasks in the list. He is investing part of the extra time that he has in the creative tasks that are the core of his role, making the company more profitable as a result of it. He noticed that he is happier, more content, more centered and he has more energy due to the time that he enjoys in his other priorities out of work; therefore, he has increased the moments that he spends attending those areas of his life. However, this is not the most important point here. The most important fact is that, in his own words, his stress level were dramatically reduced from the moment he made those decisions. Not when there were achieved, but when he decided to act upon them. In his mind, knowing that everything was in its way to improvement made a tremendous shift. As he himself explained, it is like seeing the light at the end of a tunnel. Even if one still inside and far from the exit, knowing that the gateway is there and we are walking towards it makes a world of a difference. After all, as we say in metaphysics, the Universe is mental. 

So what dreams are you going to transform in goals?  What can you improve in your life or the life of others? Remember, the first step to create a goal is to set up a date. 

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