Ep #63: Thinking Differently About Goals

Hey, this is Lindsay Dotzlaf and you are listening to Mastering Coaching Skills, episode 63.

To really compete in the coaching industry, you have to be great at coaching. That’s why every week, I will be answering your questions, sharing my stories, and offering tips and advice so you can be the best at what you do. Let’s get to work.

Hello, I am so happy you are here today. Happy New Year. I know that I said that on the last episode, but this is really the first full podcast episode that I’m recording in the new year. So it feels like this is the first time I’m with you in a long time.

So, today I want to talk a little more about goals. I started talking about that last week by replaying an old episode that’s one of my most popular episodes about goal setting and how to do it with your clients and how to think about it. But today I really want to dive into learning to think about goals a little differently.

And I’m probably going to say some things that you’ve maybe never thought of before. And maybe you have, but I just know a lot of my clients come to my mastermind with thoughts about goals that we end up working through and that I end up kind of showing them that they aren’t very useful thoughts to have. We’re going to go through some of those today.

So, this isn’t going to be a step-by-step how to set goals, we already did that. I talked about that actually a few times on here. Instead we’re really going to talk about the way you think about goals, the way you think about setting goals with your clients.

And the very first thing I want to address is that I know some of you hate the word goal, you just don’t like it. Guess what? Just pick another word, it’s not a big deal. If this is you, hopefully by the end of this episode I will maybe just poke some holes in whatever story you have about goals or the word goal.

But, one of my intentions here today is to really help you think differently about goals and to stop putting so much pressure maybe on yourself. Stop putting so much pressure possibly on your clients. And to just really develop a different relationship with the things you want in your life.

So, let’s just talk about the word goal. If you don’t like the word, like I said, find another word. I Googled it, of course, because that’s what you do when you’re like, “What other word is there to use for this word?” And some that I found that I love that you can replace goal with are intention, or dream, or objective, or plan.

And one, which I think is so funny it showed up on every list that I looked up, every list I clicked on. I mean there were only a few, but one of the top ones that kept showing up was holy grail. What? What if you just replace every time instead of saying goal, you just say holy grail. You tell your client, “Today, on this first call we’re just going to have a call really talking about what your holy grail is.”

Obviously, I’m kidding, I mean you can use that if you want. It feels a little out of place for me, that might not be the perfect word to replace goal with. But I do love the word intention. Like what is the intention of this work we’re doing together? What is the dream? What is the plan? How do you want to make a plan? What are your desires? These are all different things you can say instead of just saying let’s set a goal.

And when I think about what a goal is or what a goal means, the way I would define it in its most simple form, it is a thought that you have of something you would like. And it might be something tangible that you actually want. But it could also be something you want to achieve or create, something you want to work towards, someone you want to become. Someone you want to step into being. And hopefully, usually, it’s backed by reasons that resonate with you.

This is something we’re going to dive into a little bit today. But when you think about that, when you think about a goal being something you are just moving towards, working towards creating in your life, desiring, achieving, becoming, that’s so different. I want you to just kind of play around with all of these words because they can be so different than just thinking very black and white, here is my goal, I either hit it or I don’t.

If I hit it, that means I did it, I did a good job. I succeeded. If I didn’t, that means I failed and it’s no good and I just have to start over. That’s a very black and white way to think about a goal, and it’s probably the worst possible way you can think about any goal. Definitely not a great way to help your clients think about goals.

When I think about setting goals, and of course, there are different types of goals. I’ve talked about this on here before of like very extremely measurable goals, like a money goal. Something that you can label with a number or a very specific measurement. And then there are goals that are a little more abstract, that we might have to be creative and come up with a measurement for.

And when I think about any kind of goal I’m setting, even if it’s super measurable, even if it’s how much money am I going to make this year? How much money am I going to make next year? I love to think of it as more of a guidance. It’s almost like, I don’t think this is the right word, but it’s like a lighthouse.

A lighthouse is actually the example I was thinking of before I started recording this. So that’s, of course, what I’m going to say now. But as I’m saying it out loud, it’s not actually the perfect metaphor because a lighthouse is actually, I think, meant to keep you away from the shore.

But let’s just pretend for a second that the purpose of a lighthouse is that you see the light from far away and it just guides you in that direction. Let’s say you wanted to take your boat and you pull up right by a specific lighthouse because you know that there’s a pier in that direction. We’ll just pretend, I’m going to make up a whole story.

And you know the lighthouse is there and you are very far away. But you can see the lighthouse and it’s super faint. You can see the light, and I think the lighthouse lights usually move. I should really think about coming up with metaphors that I know more about, but I digress.

But I think lighthouse lights usually move, they rotate so that no matter what direction you’re coming from you can see where the light is and where it’s coming from. And if you focus on that and you’re far away and the light is very faint, the closer you get, the brighter the light becomes. But at first it might just be like, okay, it’s that way. It’s that general direction, I’m just going to head that way.

And then along the way you might see, oh, okay, I have to go around this bank that comes out a little bit here. Or I have to go around this little island in the middle of the water here. But you can still see the light, you still know where you’re going.

And the closer and closer you get, the more exact you’re going to be of where the location is and how to get there. But when you’re really far away and that light is really faint, you aren’t going to know step by step every single thing you need to do to get yourself in your boat from where you are to where the light is coming from.

But as you go, you figure it out. You might think, okay, this is going to take me about three hours to go from where I am here to all the way over there. But then along the way, let’s say you’re a half hour in and all of a sudden you see ahead of you, land. But you can still see the lighthouse past that, you have to figure out how to get around the land.

Okay, this is going to be a little detour, that might add some time. It might take a little longer than I thought. Or maybe along the way a little current comes. And it’s working against you, you can’t go as fast as you thought you would be able to. Okay, no problem. I’m still going to get there; it’s just going to take a little longer.

Or even the opposite, right? Maybe a current comes in a helpful direction and you’re able to go a little faster. I could come up with so many, so many examples of what could happen to slow you down or to speed you up. But the point I’m trying to make is along the way you’re going to learn so much about the journey that you didn’t know beforehand.

You didn’t know beforehand that these things were going to happen or that they weren’t going to happen, and now you do. So you’re just gathering information along the way. But you still know the whole time you can see the light and you know where that light house is. This is exactly how I think about goals, especially goals that are further out.

So for example, something my coach teaches is to create a three-year plan in our businesses. Now, from where I am now when I look three years from now, I don’t know exactly what my business is going to look like. But at this point where I am in my business, because I’ve been doing it for a while and because I love what I sell, I’m very solid on it, I don’t see a lot of huge changes, like way outside, right?

I’m not going to change my niche. I’m not going to really divert from the path that I’m on as far as I know. So there won’t be major changes happening. But when I think about, let’s say, a financial goal three years from now, I might know, okay, here are the two offers, maybe three offers that are going to go into creating that amount. But I won’t know the step by step.

I won’t know the how. I might not even know, honestly, this is where I kind of am right now. I know, okay, here are the two offers that are going to get me close. And along the way, I’m going to have to figure out what is the other thing. Or do I make changes to these offers right now?

But I don’t have to know every single detail. I don’t have to know the step-by-step. I don’t have to make every decision. I just have to start planning, just keeping that vision there.

It’s like the lighthouse, right? I just keep it there just to know that I’m moving in the right direction. And that way, every time I’m making a decision now, in the today, I can zoom out, look at where I think I’m going. Look in the direction of the lighthouse and just see, is this decision I’m about to make right now for my business, is it helping me move in the right direction?

Because I can never know for sure is this the right decision? Is this the wrong decision? That’s not really a thing. There aren’t necessarily right or wrong decisions. But I can know, okay, I’m going to try this thing. How did it go? Am I still moving towards the light? Am I still moving in the right direction?

Now, as I zoom in a little bit to, let’s say, this year, 2022, which just started, I can feel a lot more clear about what that plan looks like. So there’s a goal for this year, I know exactly what I need to do to get there. Now I don’t know necessarily every how, like the step-by-step, but I know the math of it.

I know I need to sell this offer this many times at this price. I need to sell this other offer, my new program which is coming very soon. I know a lot of you have been reaching out to me about this, don’t you worry, it is coming. I’m so excited.

But I need to sell this second offer this many times at this price. Those two things added together will create the goal. Right? So that part feels very clear. Now, when I look at it and look at the numbers and selling this many of this and this many of this, is there some fear there? Of course, right? There is a little bit of like, do I know it’s going to happen? Am I 100% certain? No, not yet.

But I’ve spent lots of time thinking about it and selling myself on it and thinking about all the people I’m going to be able to help and thinking about just what a business looks like at that point. Thinking about some changes I’m going to have to make in my current business. And I get excited thinking about those things.

So then keep thinking about the lighthouse, I’m still headed towards the bright light, towards the light of the lighthouse. So if I zoom out a little more, there’s two years, I can come up with a rough plan for that and feel like, okay, that can probably happen. I don’t need to know the how. I don’t really need to spend tons of time thinking about those numbers because I don’t want to freak my brain out of like, well, that feels impossible from where I am right now.

I can zoom out a little more and look at the three year. But that’s just like keeping your eye on that’s the direction I’m heading. And along the way, again, I’m going to learn more, I’m going to course correct. I’m going to shift this thing; I’m going to change this thing. I’m going to probably have to learn some new skills because I might come across something that I’ve never done before.

Now, if you think about this and think about how can you apply this to your client? Because if this isn’t how you’re thinking about goals, and really to yourself too. You can use this on yourself and on your clients when you think about goals.

The example I gave you just now was very specific. It’s very measurable, it’s an amount of money. When you think about working with your clients, depending on what type of coach you are, maybe you have clients that have goals that are really similar to what I was just saying.

Maybe you have clients who are just, they’ve already been working on the thing, they know what it’s going to take. They have big goals, they’re very excited about them. But maybe you don’t. Maybe just even thinking about setting goals with your clients freaks you out.

I’ve heard some other coaches say things like, oh, but my clients are really different. They have no idea what they want. They have spent the last 10 years taking care of other people, not thinking about what they want. My thought about that, they still want things. They still have goals, or intentions, or dreams, or whatever you want to call them, whatever they want to call them.

They still have those things, and your job as their coach isn’t to just quickly find the right goal so that you can set sail today working on them. It is really helping them learn to think about it. What if it’s the first time your clients have ever really just sat down and answered the question, what do you want?

When I was a newer coach and I had one on one clients and I was working with a lot of mostly entrepreneurs. Although that wasn’t my niche, it was just kind of the people who came to me, I think, because I was an entrepreneur and I had been for a long time. A lot of my clients were entrepreneurs and a lot of them were newer entrepreneurs. And we weren’t working on very specific money goals or business goals.

A lot of times what we were working on was just their thoughts about creating that identity of working for themselves. Or maybe going back to work. Maybe they’d been home for a while with kids. Maybe they had another job and they’re wanting to be an entrepreneur, but they had so many thoughts about what everyone was going to think about it. Their spouse, their partner, their family, their kids, their sister, their brother, their whoever, right?

I think as a coach, that’s one of the most fun things we get to do. We get to help our clients dream. We get to help our clients answer the question, what do you want? Even if you think about it right now, if you just stop– I do this every once in a while and it’s kind of still hard for me. If I just ask myself, what do I want?

This was an exercise that I did somewhere, and I cannot remember it, so I cannot take credit for this. Someone taught it to me and I don’t remember who it was. Possibly it was Danielle Savory, maybe. I did a retreat with her, we hosted a retreat at one point. And it was an exercise that I think she led, where we just had to answer the question, what do you want? And we just had to keep answering it. And it is so interesting how uncomfortable it feels.

Now, because I’ve taken my brain to that space so many times in my business, it’s a lot easier for me to answer that question if I just narrow the focus to what do I want to create in my business? I can answer that and just keep going. But then when I think, okay, what about my marriage? What about my relationship with my kids? What about my relationship to myself? What adventures do I want to take?

And I could go to any area of my life, and sometimes it gets a little trickier because I just don’t have that muscle developed of really naming what do I want? What do I desire in this part of my life? What do I want to create in this part of my life?

How amazing is it that you get to do that with your clients? And I think it’s so important for me to say this because I know on the last episode I talked a lot about– I know it was a replay, but I actually re-listened to it to hear what I was teaching in it because people love it. So I was curious about it. And it’s very prescriptive, right? It’s very kind of like this is how we do it. We set a goal, we create a measurement, we split it up if we can. And then we check in often along the way.

That’s great. But I know for sure that some of you have thoughts when you hear me say that, that are like, “Yeah, yeah, yeah, but what about when my clients don’t want to set goals? What about when my clients don’t know what they want? What about when my clients set a goal and then do nothing about it?”

And what I’m talking about today, I think, is the way to address those things. What if your clients don’t know how to set goals? What if they’re not used to thinking about what they want? That’s amazing news, you get to be the one to teach them. What? You should try it, it’s really fun.

Now, I know some of you are like, listen, my clients set goals all day, right? Some of you might be thinking the opposite, my clients love setting goals. They set huge goals. They set goals that are so huge, they have no idea how they’re going to hit them and they never do.

That’s like the complete opposite, right? And for that, I would say the answer, the solution to that is the same. Explore it with them. When your client sets a goal that’s so big that in your mind you’re like, what? I don’t even know if that’s possible in that amount of time. Explore it with them.

First of all, always looking at a measurement is super helpful. I think I’ve used this example before, but I remember when I was a new coach, I think it was like my first full year of coaching. And my coach at the time asked me, how much money are you going to make this year? And I said, $100,000.

That’s great, right? It’s like, I don’t know, it’s so arbitrary. It felt very like, yeah, that would feel exciting if I did that. I was already making that in another business that I had, or close to it. And so in my mind I was like, yeah, I could probably do that.

But I never did the math of it. I never broke it down and said, okay, at the price I’m charging right now, how many clients would I have to have to make that happen? If I had done that, I would have seen I’m not even going to come close. Even if I sell out my coaching today, right now, I am not even going to come close to that. But I didn’t.

And so as the end of the year kept getting closer and closer, it was just this, I always think of it as like clouds that just float in the sky. Like it was just a $100,000 cloud just floating by. Every once in a while, I would look at it and be like, oh, that cloud, that’s cool. It was very just– There wasn’t anything intentional about it.

Now, this was not my coach’s fault. I don’t even know if I told her that that was my goal. I can’t remember back to that time, really. But I remember just having that thought like, oh yeah, $100,000. I think I did tell her, but we just never dove into, okay, well, how’s it going to happen?

And sometimes that’s okay because for me, and at that time, it was very, like, let me just wrap my mind around creating this identity of I am a coach. I am a coach who makes money. So that was fine.

But it would have probably been very helpful for me to say, okay, let’s break this down. How many coaching packages do I need to sell to create this goal? If I had done that I would have been like, oh yeah, okay, well, that’s probably an unrealistic goal. Or I need to change my structure of my business, which I didn’t want to do.

So to bring it back to what I was talking about, which is when you have clients who want to set huge goals, really diving into first the measurement, how are you going to do it? Not how, like the steps, but what’s the measurement? If let’s say they’re selling something, how many units do you have to sell at what price to create that amount of money? And then also really diving in with this client into the why? Why do you want this?

If I think back, again, to my first full year of coaching and I can go back and ask myself like, why do you want to make $100,000? I think the main reason I didn’t, I don’t remember how much I made. Maybe like 30, I think it was like $35,000 or something in my first full 12 months of coaching.

I never really dove into why I wanted to make the $100,000. It was like if I had just asked myself at the time I probably would have said, well because it would be fun. And I don’t know, it just sounds like an easy goal to set. I’ve heard other people say it and that feels kind of like the benchmark. And I know I can do it in other places, so maybe I can.

But I didn’t really truly dive into why. And this is really important to do with the clients who just set these big, huge goals and then you can tell they’re just not super connected to them.

Now, you can also do this with the clients who are resistant to setting goals or have never really thought about it. Okay, well, let’s think about– They might just throw out something also very arbitrary. And you can still just dive into tell me why you want that. What is it going to change in your life?

I’m going to throw out some other examples because I’ve been using some of my own examples and money. But let’s just say a client hires you as their coach. And they say, “I don’t really know what I want. I just know something needs to change.” And you as their coach spend maybe possibly weeks, maybe a month talking to them about what they want. Just exploring it, not setting any concrete goals for a whole month.

I know this because some of you are my clients and I know right now you’re like, “Lindsey, don’t say it. This is terrible, it sounds awful. We’re supposed to pick a goal and get there as fast as we can.” But that’s not true, right? It’s not always true. It depends on your clients and what you’re working on. And actually, I would say 100% of the time it’s not true. It’s just not a useful thing to think I need to get there as fast as I can.

You might have clients who come to you and they might not know this, but maybe their number one intention of having a coach is to learn to be the person that knows what they want. What if the only thing your client does with you the whole time they work with you is learns how to think about and how to talk about what they want? What if they learn how to say things out loud that they’ve never told anyone before?

What if most of your job as their coach is to just listen. Just your presence, and your curiosity, and your love and compassion for them as your client is exactly what they need and that’s all. Think about how much you could let go of. All the stuff that you stress about that you think, oh my gosh, I have to have this specific process, and this, and I have to have this, and all these tools, and all these blah.

What if you could just let go of all of that, because all your client needs, the main thing they need– This isn’t true for all of you, but for some of you, for some of your clients, all they need you to do is listen to them and allow them to say things out loud that they’ve never said before.

And then ask questions and poke holes in their stories. And just be a little curious and ask questions in ways that no one else would. That their friends wouldn’t, that their family wouldn’t, because their friends and family are going to be totally in their story. And they’re going to be like, “This is so scary, you should never try to do that. You can’t possibly want that.”

The second thing I want to say about goals, the first thing was how to really think about the goal like the lighthouse. It’s like the thing that’s guiding you, it is not black and white. It is not like this is where we’re going, we have to be there in the exact amount of time. The truth is, you can’t actually know that 100% of the time ever. Anything could happen.

I could set a goal for my business this year, I could set like the same goal I had this last year. And my thought would be, “Yeah, I could definitely do that. That’s done. No problem.” I could do that if I wanted to and it would probably be fun, I would love it. And something could happen this year that I don’t know is going to happen at this point that derails me for a while. That disrupts the goal, that gets in the way. That is true for every single goal.

Maybe you’re a marriage coach and you are working with your clients on creating the most loving, amazing relationships with their partners. And then you have a client whose partner leaves them. That’s totally out of your client’s control.

No matter what goals you set, there’s always a chance they’re going to be disrupted and you might have to work towards them in a way that you didn’t know yet. That you can’t know now, because you didn’t know the thing was going to happen.

Okay, so that’s the first one, is thinking about the goal like a lighthouse. The second thing is thinking about really learning to question your clients on what do they want working towards this direction? What else do they want to come along with it?

So I’ll tell you a funny story. Last year, or I guess 2020 I had surgery, I had gallbladder surgery. But before I had the surgery, I was pretty sick and just feeling not great. And I had some blood tests and they were normal. And it’s like I was doing the things I was supposed to be doing and everything for a while was coming back normal. And I just thought, I don’t know, something’s just off. I don’t know.

And I was talking to one of my colleagues and I was joking, we were talking about our business goals. And I don’t remember the exact context of it, but I said, “Wouldn’t it be funny if part of my goal was to schedule time every afternoon from like two to three where I just lay flat in my bed and either take a nap, or read or listen to an audiobook, or play a game on my phone if that’s what I want to do. But I just have like an hour of rest every day.

And I was joking and I was laughing. And she said, why wouldn’t you make that part of your goal if that’s what you want? I was like, wait, what? No, that’s not, that’s not a goal. That’s not what you’re supposed to do.

And then we had this whole conversation about it. And she showed me how that could actually be part of my goal. That could be part of the way that I created what I wanted to create that year. It’s not just about– This kind of goes back to the it’s not black and white, right?

It’s not just the one measurement. So think about that for you, for your goal for this year, if you think about maybe your business goal. Spend some time after this podcast thinking what do I want to come along with that goal?

Now to be clear, after I had my gallbladder out, I didn’t feel that way. But I did actually build that into my business at the time. And it was so helpful. And then I would come back and I would work for another hour or two after that time. Some days I felt really bad and I would just rest and then get up and it was almost dinnertime, and kids, and all the things. But I did actually end up making that part of my goal.

Luckily, then I found out what was wrong. And then I had surgery and everything fixed itself. But leading up to it, it’s just so interesting for me to think back on that and to think about how funny I thought that was. I really thought I was just saying it to be funny. And I’m very sarcastic and I think I’m pretty funny sometimes. And I really just thought I was being funny. Like when it’d be funny if part of my goal was to just take a nap every day?

But what if it was? And then I made it part of my goal, and it blew my whole mind. So when you think about your goal, what do you want to come with it? Do you want more rest? Do you want more time to just do things that you love? Do you want more time with your kids? Do you want more time with your partner? Do you want more time hiking in the woods? Those are all, obviously, like time things that you can add in.

But just really asking yourself what do you want? How do you want to balance out your big goals? Because for me, I know what I have learned is when I push, push, push myself, which I’m really good at when I want to be, I shut down.

I become exhausted, I’m worn out, I don’t want to do it anymore. And then I have to take a break. I know I have the ability to achieve big things, but now the thing I’m always working on is how do I do that with more rest? More taking care of myself. More giving myself the things I need and want. I want you to think about that for you. And I want you to start doing that with your clients.

So whatever their goal is, why they hire you, whatever their intentions, or plans, or desires, or dreams, whatever those things are, what do they want to come with them? Maybe they want to be a more present parent, let’s say. But what do they want to come with that? Explore what do they want that to mean? Because that might be different for everyone.

I could be talking to a friend and they might say, “I want that to me and I am 100% present for my kids from the time they get home from school until they go to bed. And then I’m up before they’re up in the morning and with them until they head out the door for school.”

And my thought would be, gross. No, I love my kids so much. So, so much. And I love when they go do things on their own. And I love spending time with them. For me, it’s a balance. But I don’t make it mean good or bad things about me the more and more and more time I spend with them or undivided attention.

So exploring that with your client. Like what does that mean for you? What do you want? How do you want to create that? What do you want it to look like? Those are so many good questions you can ask your clients, and yourself.

One of my favorite questions to ask my clients when they are just deep in a story and they’re just telling me all the things like they are facts. And they just say something that they are just positive is the fact of the universe. And I just say why? In the most loving way, of course, right? But they’ll just deliver something like it’s just obvious and clear, and I’ll say, “But why?” With so much curiosity, kind of like a little kid. Why?

And sometimes it can be very jarring to our clients, like what do you mean, why? I don’t know, I’ve never thought about it. Jarring in the best way of course. And you can be there for them to help them explore why. There’s no right answer. They don’t have to have some magical right answer. But we’re just not used to asking ourselves why when it comes to thoughts that we think are just facts.

And then the last thing I want to leave you with when it comes to goals, and I’m going to keep this one short because I want to do an entire podcast on this, is what are you going to make it mean when you get there? When you hit it or when you don’t?

This is the reason that so many of you listening, and maybe some of your clients, have a hard time with even the word goal. Because your brain goes to all the times that you’ve set them and not hit them, or set them and then gave up halfway through, or whatever you did.

And what I want you to see is that who cares if you hit them exactly or not? Truly, who cares? That is not the point of it. You do not have more worth as a human when you hit a goal. I have been reading this book called the Gap and the Gain. The book is by Dan Sullivan, highly recommend, it’s very good. And he talks about the gap and the gain.

So the gain, let’s say you’re working towards a goal. The gain is how far have you come. And then the gap is where you are until where you hit the goal, right? Like the gap that you have to make up to hit the goal. And what I love about the way he describes it, and he kind of said something that I’ve never really thought of in this way before, there’s always a gap.

Think about that for a second. There’s always that space between where we are now and where we want to be. In so many parts of our life, right? Any part of our life that we’re being intentional about creating something different. And if you measure yourself on your ability to not have that space, so just think if you’re like, I just want to be the person who always hits my goals. You measure your worth on did I hit the goal or did I not hit the goal? It really doesn’t make sense because there’s always a gap.

You might have that momentary pleasure, right? Let’s say for 2021, let’s say you hit your business goal, or you passed it, or whatever happened. And you’re like, “Yes, this is amazing.” Right? And you make it mean all these great things about yourself. Then guess what? The new year starts, now you’re back at zero. Now you have a brand-new goal. And it’s very short lived.

Let’s say you have monthly goals. And every month you’re measuring yourself, right? Like, how much money did I make this month? How much money did I plan on making? And every month you start over at zero, which is totally arbitrary and made up by the way, you don’t have to do that.

But let’s say you do. The part where you have actually met the goal before you move on to whatever the next thing is, is usually very short lived. So if you only love yourself, if you only think you’ve achieved all the things and you’re so proud of yourself and all the things, if that only happens when you hit the goal, think about how much time you’re spending not thinking good things about yourself.

What if you just always were allowed to think good things about yourself, no matter what? I don’t care if you fall on your face, fail, like the worst fail you could ever think of, you could still love yourself. The same is true for your clients. What if you’re the first person who’s ever shown them that? What? If you really believed that you would have no problem setting goals and setting goals with your clients.

Now, again, you can use a different word, that’s fine. But truly the main reason anyone has an issue with thinking about goals or with setting goals is because they’re afraid of what’s going to happen if and or when they don’t hit the goal, or how hard they’re going to have to work to do it or whatever, right? Just all the thoughts that you have about it.

Okay, I’m going to leave it there for now and I will be back probably next week with an entire episode on this because I think it’s just so good to think about when it comes to goals and or intentions, or desires, or whatever you would like to call them. And I’m so glad that you were here today. I am a little hoarse, I do apologize for that.

The reason there was a replay last week is I’ve been pretty sick and I still just can’t quite get over this hoarseness. So that’s just where we are. I tried to do my best and I hope you still love me. I will see you next week. Goodbye.

Thanks for listening to this episode of Mastering Coaching Skills. If you want to learn more about my work, come visit me at lindsaydotzlafcoaching.com. That’s Lindsay with an A, D-O-T-Z-L-A-F.com. see you next week.