Thinking about getting coaching? If so, you might be wondering what you could work on with a coach.

A coach will come along side you and empower you to:

1. Live your values
2. Build relationships
3. Communicate effectively
4. Balance home and work
5. Think big
6. Think outside the box
7. Think clearly
8. Get focused and stay focused
9. Get organized
10. Get resources
11. Get support, encouragement, and accountability
12. Get and give feedback
13. Lead organizational change
14. Lead by asking questions
15. Develop systems, processes, and policies
16. Define goals
17. Use calendar software to map out how to get your goals done
18. Use purpose, collaboration, and data to achieve your goals
19. Manage email
20. Facilitate effective meetings

Question: What are 3 things you could work on with a coach? 

Considering getting coaching? If so, be sure you know what coaching is.

Question: What is coaching?

To get an answer to this question, do 3 things:

(1) Clarify what coaching is and is not:

• It’s your coach drawing from you, not you drawing from an expert. So, it’s not mentoring.
• It’s focusing on improving the present, not focusing on healing the past. So, it’s not counseling.
• It’s you being in charge, not someone else being in charge.
• It’s you identifying your goals, not someone else identifying your goals.
• It’s you setting the agenda of your coaching sessions, not someone else setting the agenda.
• It’s a focused conversation with the purpose of you taking action, not a conversation with the purpose of you getting listened to.

(2) Experience a coaching session. You can do this by watching a 5-minute video of me getting coached. A coaching session usually takes 30-60 minutes and includes identifying a goal for the coaching session, exploring the current reality of the goal, brainstorming options for addressing the goal, and determining action steps. In this video, you’ll see me identify my goal and then begin exploring the current reality of my goal.



As you saw in the video, my coach asked questions (instead of giving advice).

(3) Familiarize yourself with 1 or more definitions of coaching:

• Coaching is a relationship in which you receive the support, encouragement, and accountability you need to achieve the mission God has given you.
• Coaching is the ministry of strategic encouragement (Romans 12:8).

Question: What would you say if someone asked you, “What is coaching?”

Three weeks ago, Tim was appointed as field director for his mission. Sitting across the table from you, he says, “Being a mission field director is challenging. I feel good about my new role. I’ve been asking God how He wants me to use the gifts He’s given me, and He answered—I’m now the field director.
 
“I feel like I can do a pretty good job of supporting people in our mission. But being responsible for carrying out our strategic plan feels a little overwhelming.
 
“Last year, we revised our mission statement. Then, we developed 6 strategic goals. These goals tell us what we need to do to carry out our mission statement. We have some pretty aggressive goals, and I’m not sure how we’re going to get them all done.”
 
Question: What can you ask Tim?
 
Answer: What’s already been accomplished?
 
In other words, get Tim to reflect on each of the 6 goals from the strategic plan. Getting Tim to reflect on the current achievement of each goal is vital. Why? Because reflecting on each goal gives Tim the opportunity to:

• Celebrate progress.
• Understand what still needs to be accomplished.
• Recognize what no longer needs to be addressed.

Empower your client to pursue God’s calling. Today.

You’re coaching Mark, a math teacher at an international Christian school in Korea. He wants to clarify God’s calling. In previous sessions, he identified the problems/opportunities he’s passionate about and blessed by God to address. He also drafted a personal mission statement: Equipping Christians to live for Jesus.
 
Says Mark, “I feel pretty good about my mission statement. It reflects who I am and the problems/opportunities I want to address. It’s already helped my focus. But as a statement, it’s fairly broad. I want to make it more specific, more concrete. That way I’ll be able to take action on my mission."
 
Question: What can you ask Mark?
 
Answer: “What’s it take to carry out your God-given mission?”
 
In other words, “What 5-10 areas do you need to be involved in to carry out your mission and, consequently, to address the problems and opportunities you identified?” (As necessary, give examples of area. *See list below.)
 
Once Mark has identified 5-10 areas, ask “What’s your goal for each area?” Here’s a sample: Coaching—Provide the support, encouragement, and accountability Christian leaders need to pursue God’s calling.
 
As Mark develops a goal for each area, he’ll be answering “What’s it take to carry out your God-given mission?” As Mark develops a goal for each area, he’ll be making his mission more specific, concrete, and actionable.
 
Empower your client to pursue God’s calling. Today.
 
*Sample areas:
Environment
Finances
Health/fitness
Leadership
Life balance
Personal growth
Recreation
Relationships
Spiritual/church
Work

Dr. Keith E. Webb 

Let's be honest, most training is full of knowledge, ideas, and "good stuff" but not much practice.

Paul wrote, "Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me - put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you" Philippians 4:9.

Too often, my problem is not a lack of knowledge; it is too little living out of that knowledge. Chinese philosopher Han Fei Tzu said it well: “It is not difficult to know a thing; what is difficult is to know how to use what you know.”

This is where Follow-Up Coaching comes in.

Follow-Up Coaching
Follow-Up coaching comes at the end of content-based training. Coaches use a series of (usually prepared) questions to move the client forward in implementing the training content over the weeks or months following the event.

For example, Focusing Leaders is a process designed by Terry Walling to help mid-career leaders to understand their calling and giftedness. There are group meetings every month with coaching appointments between the meetings. During the coaching appointment the coach will ask a series of set questions in line with the previous group meeting's subject. In this way, the group meeting content gets coached into the lives of the participants.

It's a powerful combination.

In fact, one organization studied the impact of only training vs. training with follow-up coaching. Training produced 23% better performance, but training with follow-up coaching produced 88% better performance. That's a significant difference!

Getting Follow-Up Coaching Going
One feature of organizations that are characterized as having a "coaching culture" is that all their training is followed by coaching. Doing this is actually easier than it may sound.

1. List up the application points of your training. How do you want participants to behave and think differently? Focusing on behavior makes things easier.
2. Take a look at the content of your training and edit it to focus on the behaviors you want to participants to adopt. Cut the extra "good" things, and focus.
3. Create time during the training so participants can plan their implementation. Have participants share that with somebody else.
4. Write up a set coaching questions to be asked to participants during the next couple of weeks or months. With these questions in hand, just about anybody can do the follow-up coaching.
5. Provide follow-up coaching at least 4 times over the next 3 months, beginning a week after the training. Coaches can meet with 1, 2, or 3 participants at a time. (More than that doesn't work as well.) We've also formed participants into groups of 3 and given them the follow-up coaching questions and allowed them to "peer coach" each other. Obviously, the more skilled your coaches are the better the outcome, but half the power is in the questions and the fact that the topic is brought up again 4 more times following the training.

I've implemented Follow-Up Coaching with the shorter training events I lead and have seen fabulous results. How about giving it a try? And let me know how it goes.

Copyright © 2008 Keith E. Webb & CRM
Dr. Keith E. Webb is a trainer and experienced cross-cultural leadership coach helping non-profit organizations, teams, and individuals multiply their cross-cultural impact. Find free articles at http://www.CreativeResultsManagement.com

Through coaching, you can empower others to grow. While effective coaching does involve technique, at a deeper level effective coaching is about your heart, about your beliefs, about who you are. Coach from your heart.

“What I want to do is to develop a personal mission statement,” says Mark, a high school math teacher at an international Christian school in Korea. “I’m fairly clear on the problems/opportunities God is calling me to address. Having a mission statement will help me focus on these problems/opportunities.”
 
Question: What can you ask Mark?
 
Answer: Ask these 5 questions:

1. What 5 or more verbs reflect God’s calling for you? (As necessary, give examples. *See list below.)
2. What will you say when asked, “What’s your mission?”
3. What word best describes your God-given mission?
4. What 2-3 words describe your God-given mission?
5. What 1 sentence do you want said about you at your funeral?

Once Mark has reflected on these 5 questions, ask “What’s your God-given mission?” Give Mark time to think—he may need paper and pen to put down his thoughts. Once Mark has a draft, ask questions to help him refine his mission statement:

• How does this mission statement address the problems and opportunities you identified?
• How does this mission statement help you understand God’s calling?
• What do you mean by ____?
• How easy is this for you to say?
• How does this mission statement help you focus?

Empower your client to pursue God’s calling. Today.
 
*Sample verb list:
Advance
Build
Collaborate
Disciple
Educate
Empower
Encourage
Equip
Evangelize
Heal
Improve
Innovate
Lead
Mobilize
Network
Nurture
Organize
Plant
Raise
Serve
Transform
Unite

Imagine that you are a church planter in Japan. Imagine that you want your church members to think about a current challenge. What can you do? You can use the GROW process:

• Goal: What’s our goal?
• Reality: What’s going on?
• Options: What can we do?
• Will do’s: What will we do?

When doing coaching workshops for CAJ staff and for missionaries, I teach the GROW process. I was really encouraged by the following email from a church planter who used the GROW process:
 
“I thought you would be interested in what our church did yesterday after worship. We are trying to sell our land and move to an area of Fujisawa that has no church to plant a church there. The denomination hasn’t given their blessing yet on the sale of the land, so we needed to think through things we could do until we get their blessing for selling the land and moving forward.
 
“I led a discussion for about 10 church members using GROW to think through ideas and options. It was fun to do, and interesting to do it in Japanese! The GROW concept worked, and helped to structure a very helpful discussion. I heard the following comments from people:

• ‘This was the first time that I could really say what was on my heart.’
• ‘This gives me hope that there are things that we can be doing and not be stuck in a rut.’
• ‘It was helpful to get things out on the white board to help get my thinking sorted out.’

“Thought you would want to know that your coach training helped a Japanese church to process things.”

You’re listening to Carla, a 43-year-old office worker. She’s experiencing significant change, including a new home, a new pastor at church, and her youngest child starting high school. Carla tells you that as a result of the changes she’s experiencing, she’s more sensitive to her own needs and the needs of others.
 
Says Carla, “There are a lot of problems and opportunities around me. I can’t address all of them, but I can address some of them. I want to pursue my calling, so I want to think about which problems and opportunities are part of my calling.”
 
Question: What can you ask Carla?
 
Answer: I believe that God gives us passions for certain problems/opportunities and that He blesses us to address certain problems/opportunities. So ask Carla, “What problems and opportunities are you passionate about?”
 
As necessary, give examples to clarify what you mean by problems and opportunities:

• Sample problems: poverty, discouragement, racism, drugs, poor education, unemployment, underperformance, few Christians, Christians not growing/being discipled, church life not vibrant, lack of leaders, lack of innovation, lack of collaboration, people working without necessary tools and systems, lack of training, dysfunctional relationships
• Sample opportunities: develop leaders, help youth develop a Christian worldview, focus staff energy, support and encourage others, build networks, increase staff effectiveness through consulting and training, model innovation, increase mission achievement through consulting and building systems

Once Carla has brainstormed the problems/opportunities she’s passionate about, ask her, “Which of these has God blessed you to address?” Help Carla focus on identifying 5-15 problems/opportunities she’s passionate about and blessed by God to address.
 
Empower your client to pursue God’s calling. Today.

The point is not to have goals. The point is to achieve goals. To achieve your goals, take 4 steps: pray, put, take, and reflect.

(1) Want to celebrate progress?
(2) Feel like reflecting on a current challenge?
(3) Going crazy due to a job change?
(4) Or need to talk through something unexpected?

If so, get a coach!

Want to empower others? Provoke them to reflect. How? By asking open-ended questions.

You’re pursuing God’s calling. Good. Three weeks ago, you developed a list 5 goals that are part of pursuing God’s calling:

1. Pray more.
2. Make spouse happy.
3. Answer email immediately.
4. Coach students.
5. Provide training for Christian schools.

Now, you’re seated at your desk, reflecting on your goals. Good. You notice that you haven’t made any progress. You’re puzzled. You want to work on your goals—so motivation is not the issue. Yes, you have been busy the past 3 weeks, but you did have time to work on your goals—so time is not the issue. You just feel like it’s hard to get started. You look at your goals, and you find it hard to get traction.
 
Question: What can you do?
 
Answer: Make each of your goals SMART. What do I mean by SMART?
 
A SMART goal is:

1. Specific: A specific goal identifies a concrete task. Instead of having the general goal of praying more, use the specific goal of praying 15 minutes each weekday morning.
2. Measurable: Progress on a measurable goal can be readily tracked. Instead of having a general goal of making your spouse happy, use a measurable goal like going out for monthly dates with your spouse.
3. Attainable: An attainable goal is a challenging goal that you can accomplish. Instead of setting an unattainable goal like answering all your email immediately, set an attainable goal of answering all email within 48 hours.
4. Relevant: A relevant goal is one that is aligned with your values and mission. If you value empowering others and your mission is to empower leaders of Christian organizations, focus on coaching leaders of Christian organizations, not students.
5. Time-bound: A time-bound goal is one that has a realistic deadline. Instead of having an open-ended goal of providing training for Christian schools, use the measurable, time-bound goal of providing 5 workshops by April 30.

Situation: You have 30 minutes to work on a goal. Which goal is easier to get started on?

• Goal A: Write an article.
• Goal B: By the 22nd of this month, write a 500-word article for Christian school teachers on SMART goals.

Answer: I picked Goal B. I think you did, too. Why didn’t I pick Goal A? Because I needed answers to the following questions before I could get started: What’s the topic? Who’s the audience? How many words? When’s it due?
 
I didn’t pick Goal A because it wasn’t SMART.
 
Question: Does making goals SMART really help?
 
Answer: Yes. Here’s what staff at Christian Academy in Japan have to say:

1. Kim Essenburg (English 10): SMART goals help me focus. For example, last year our English Department had a goal of meeting every other month to discuss teaching reading strategies—because we wanted to help our students improve their reading skills. Having a goal that specified the purpose and frequency of our meetings helped us get started and stay with it.
2. Jennifer Robinson (curriculum coordinator): We use the SMART-goal format when presenting our school improvement goals. We do this because we want to provide our staff with clear expectations—including by when we want to accomplish our goals.
3. Stephen Willson (facilities manager): The SMARTer the goals are, the easier it to understand and complete the task. For example, when someone brings a broken desk to our shop and doesn’t specify where the desk should be returned to, it’s harder to achieve the goal of having the fixed desk returned to the right room.

Bottom line: Making your goals SMART helps you clarify what you want to achieve and, consequently, helps you get started more quickly. 
 
SMARTen up your goals. Today.

You’re coaching Bob. He shares that he’s turning 47, his oldest child is now a freshman in college, his best friend recently moved to the United Kingdom, and he’s thinking about changing careers. As Bob talks about what’s he’s experiencing, it becomes clear that Bob wants to clarify God’s calling in his life. He wants to develop a personal mission statement and to design goals to achieve that mission statement.
 
Question: What can you ask Bob to help him get started?
 
Answer: Start by asking Bob a question that will provoke him to reflect on his current situation. Start by asking Bob, “How has God blessed you to pursue His calling?” To help Bob reflect on this question, ask:

• How’s God working in your life?
• What Relationships has God blessed you with?
• What Abilities has God blessed you with?
• What Character qualities has God blessed you with?
• What Experiences has God blessed you with?

In other words, ask Bob, “What GRACE has God given you to pursue His calling?”
 
Benefit: As Bob reflects on how God has blessed him, he’ll think about how God has been with him each day. And he’ll inventory God’s blessings—and that will prepare him to clarify God’s calling.

Empower your client to pursue God’s calling. Today.

Want to promote reflection in your organization? Design sets of questions and have partners use them as they dialog. Here are 3 sets of questions I designed and then had our mission's EurAsia Team use:
 
Personal life

1. When you were in 4th grade, where did you live? What did you enjoy doing?
2. What’s easy/challenging about living in your country of service?
3. In your recent personal life, what’s been encouraging/discouraging?
4. Overall, how are you feeling?
5. How can I pray for you?

Ministry overview

1. What people/projects are you investing your energy in?
2. Whom do you talk to about your ministry? What do you talk about?
3. In terms of ministry, what’s been satisfying/frustrating?
4. What are the reasons for your feelings of satisfaction/frustration?
5. You talked about ___ today. What do you think you’ll do?

 Ministry goals

1. What are your ministry goals?
2. What progress on your goals have you experienced? What’s been satisfying?
3. What roadblocks have you experienced? What’s been frustrating?
4. How can you leverage your progress and minimize your roadblocks?
5. You talked about ___ today. What do you think you’ll do?

Your client wants clarify God’s calling. Asking questions will help.
 
Here are 10 questions you can ask:

1. How has God blessed you to pursue His calling?”
2. What problems and opportunities are you passionate about & blessed by God to address?
3. What’s your mission?
4. What’s it take to carry out your God-given mission?
5. What’s already been accomplished?
6. What helps/hinders you in achieving your goals?
7. What are your options for achieving your goals?
8. What will you do to achieve your goals?
9. What will you do this week?
10. How can you continue to make progress?

Goals help. Goals help you get focused, get energized, get organized, and know what to say “yes” and “no” to.
 
But having goals is not enough. You don’t just want to have goals—you want to achieve goals. You want to achieve your goals in order to pursue your God-given calling. Is there something you can to do increase the likelihood that you’ll achieve your goals? Yes!
 
These four steps can help:

1. Pray. Ask God to guide you as you select goals and to provide the support, encouragement, and accountability you need to achieve your goals.
2. Put your goals on paper. Write them down. The act of writing your goals down will deepen your commitment to them. And if you write your goals down, you can easily review them.
3. Take one or more action steps on each goal every week. And make sure each action step is SMART (Specific • Measurable • Attainable • Relevant • Timebound). The SMARTer your action step, the more likely you’ll complete it. For example, imagine your goal is managing your email. Instead of identifying your action step as “only working on email at certain times,” identify your action step as “doing email for 30 minutes two times per day (11:30-12:00, 4:00-4:30), starting Wednesday.”
4. Reflect on your progress with a friend each week. Tell your friend the progress you’ve made on each action step and what your action steps are for the coming week.

People grow as they take responsibility by defining, committing to, and achieving goals. I know I grow when I take responsibility. I’ll bet you do, too.
 
As a coach, you can empower others to take responsibility. To empower others:

• Listen to them. Listen in order to help them talk through what their goals are. Help them take responsibility by listening, instead of talking.
• Inquire about their goals. Help them take responsibility by asking questions, instead of suggesting goals.
• Focus them on their goals. Help them take responsibility by asking them to define their goals and take SMART action.
• Encourage them to achieve their goals. Help them take responsibility by having them talk about progress on their goals.

Leaders grow as they take action to achieve their goals. Taking action is more about being motivated than about having information. If I’m not motivated, I won’t take action—even if I have good information.
 
Here’s how this plays out in my life: To achieve my goal of getting regular exercise, I do something I’m motivated to do—walk for 15-30 minutes several times a week. I have information about other exercise plans—lifting weights and jogging on a treadmill. But having this information doesn’t result in me getting exercise because I not motivated to lift weights or jog on a treadmill.
 
The point: Since leaders grow as they take action, growing is more about motivation than information.
 
Application? When coaching, target motivation by:

1. Listening to others. Really listen. When people feel listened to, they share. And as they share, they clarify their motivations.
2. Inquiring: What’s your goal? What’s your motivation? What 3 dreams do you want to make real?
3. Focusing others on their passions and empower them to turn their passions into defined goals.
4. Encouraging others to talk about their interests and dreams. As they talk, say things like, “Tell me more.”

 
Remember: It’s motivation, not information.

Coaching is a conversation, in which the coach provokes the client to reflect by asking questions. But asking questions doesn't always work, as the video demonstrates.

What's a good way to cultivate a coaching culture? Having staff members ask each other a prescribed set of questions. Doing this results in staff members coaching and receiving coaching—without being trained in coaching.

Here's a sample set of questions for a coaching session:

1. What’s going on in your work?
   
2. What people/projects are you spending your time/energy on?
   
3. What are your goals for this next week/month?
   
4. Whom do you talk to about your work? What do you talk about?
   
5. What progress on your goals have you experienced? What’s been satisfying?
   
6. What roadblocks have you experienced? What’s been frustrating?
   
7. What are the reasons for your feelings of satisfaction and frustration?
   
8. What can you do to build on your progress/minimize your roadblocks? Who can help you?
   
9. You talked about ___ today. What do you think you’ll do?
   
10. How can I pray for you?

Pursuing my calling is both exciting and frustrating. My calling simultaneously feels like a significant way to help others and a massive, unsolvable problem. How about you? How do you feel about your calling?

I want to pursue my calling, and I find that when someone believes in me, I feel encouraged, energized, and blessed.

People who believe in me do 4 things:

1. They listen, instead of talking.
   
2. They inquire, instead of advising.
   
3. They focus on drawing out, instead of putting in.
   
4. They encourage, instead of critiquing.

Encourage God’s people to pursue their calling. Believe in someone. Today.

Because God is at work in each of His people (Romans 8:28-29), you’re free. Because God is at work, you’re free not to give suggestions or advice to God’s people.

Because God is at work, you’re free:

• To listen for what God wants you to ask His people and to focus them on listening to the Holy Spirit.
  
• To inquire about how God is working in others’ lives and what the Holy Spirit is saying to them.
  
• To focus God’s people on what the Holy Spirit wants them to do.
  
• To encourage others to consider their goals in light of God’s Word and leading.

Remember: As a Christian coach, you’re free!

I like being listened to. When someone really listens to me, I feel heard, understood, and affirmed—and consequently, encouraged and empowered to pursue God’s calling. How about you? How do you feel when someone really listens to you?

I think you’re like me—you like to be listened to. And as missionaries, we both understand that in ministry, listening to others is vital. When we listen to others, they feel understood, encouraged, and empowered. When we listen, relationships deepen. But listening is hard; talking seems easier. So, we sometimes are quick to speak and slow to listen, something James challenges us not to be.

How can you listen more effectively? Read the 3 guidelines for listening given below. For each guideline, ask yourself, “How am I doing?” Then, identify and commit to taking one concrete step to improve your listening.

1. Guideline #1: Be, look, and sound interested. In other words, find the person interesting and use culturally appropriate posture, facial expressions, and tone of voice.
   
2. Guideline #2: Target understanding the person, not judging what’s being said. Listen deeply. Listen to what’s on her heart.
   
3. Guideline #3: Use the 80/20 Rule. Listen 80% of the time; talk 20% of the time. To keep the person talking so you can listen, ask open-ended questions. Ask questions like: What is God calling you to be? If you accomplished your goal, what would it look like? How do you feel? What can you do?

Take action to be a better listener. Use listening to encourage and empower others.

Three weeks ago, Tim was appointed as field director for his mission. Sitting across the table from you, he says, “Being a mission field director is challenging. I feel good about my new role. I’ve been asking God how He wants me to use the gifts He’s given me, and He answered—I’m now the field director.
 
“I feel like I can do a pretty good job of supporting people in our mission. But being responsible for carrying out our strategic plan feels a little overwhelming.
 
“Last year, we revised our mission statement. Then, we developed 6 strategic goals. These goals tell us what we need to do to carry out our mission statement. We have some pretty aggressive goals, and I’m not sure how we’re going to get them all done.”
 
Question: What can you ask Tim?
 
Answer: What’s already been accomplished?
 
In other words, get Tim to reflect on each of the 6 goals from the strategic plan. Getting Tim to reflect on the current achievement of each goal is vital. Why? Because reflecting on each goal gives Tim the opportunity to:

• Celebrate progress.
• Understand what still needs to be accomplished.
• Recognize what no longer needs to be addressed.

Empower your client to pursue God’s calling. Today.

If you want to achieve your goals, get a coach. Your coach will listen, ask questions, and provide the support, encouragement, and accountability you need to achieve your goals.

Church planters work hard and need support, encouragement, and accountability. They also need someone to provoke them to reflect.

You can help by asking church planters questions like...

• What's a church?
  
• What are the practical implications of Christians being a priesthood of believers?
  
• Within a church, what's the role of the missionary? the laity?
  
• What's success?

Everyone needs encouragement. You. Me. Everyone.

How can you encourage others? Here’s a starter list:

• Listen. Really listen. When someone really listens to me, I feel heard. Feeling heard is encouraging.
  
• Ask questions. When people ask me questions, they demonstrate respect for what I think. That’s encouraging.
  
• Focus on others. When someone focuses on me, I feel energized and encouraged. It’s as if there is an energy flow from the person to me.
  
• Believe in others. When others think positively about me and help me find my own solutions (instead of suggesting or advising), I feel great.
  
• Celebrate progress. In the press of things, I lose perspective and forget the progress I’ve made. When someone reminds of the progress I’ve made, I feel encouraged.
  
• Affirm character. When someone affirms me in terms of my character, in terms of who I am, I feel good.
  
• Share from your heart. When others share from their heart, for example, by telling their story, I feel freed to tell my story. Telling my story encourages me because I get to share from my heart.
  
• Use “encouragers.” When people say, “Yes…I see...Tell me more…” I feel encouraged to continue sharing.

Encourage someone. Today.

I like daily conversation. It flows freely, covers a range of topics, is not too focused, and is relaxing. How about you?

But when I want to achieve a goal, I need a focused conversation. I need a conversation focuses me on:

1. Talking about a goal, instead of a topic.
   
2. Talking only about my goal, instead of talking about a range of topics.
   
3. Brainstorming options for taking action on my goal, instead of shooting the breeze.
   
4. Developing SMART actions I’ll take to achieve my goal, instead of tossing around ideas.

Coaching conversations help me do these 4 things. In a coaching conversation:

1. A coach asks, “What’s your goal?” He listens to my response and asks additional questions to help me clarify my goal, to bring it into focus.
   
2. A coach asks, “What’s going on?” to help focus on the current status of my goal. And if I start to get off topic, he helps me get back on track.
   
3. A coach asks, “What are your options?” He encourages me to brainstorm 5 or more options. As a result of focusing on developing a range of options, I can see more clearly how I can move forward on my goal.
   
4. A coach asks, “What 2-3 SMART actions will you take?” This helps me focus on achieving my goal. After all, to achieve a goal, I have to do something.

To what extent would a coaching conversation help you focus on achieving your goal?