Gaining Traction: Reach Your Goals with Coaching

Gaining Traction: Reach Your Goals with Coaching

By Caroline Godin

You’re driving along an unknown road; in a place you’ve never been. You have a vague idea of where to go, but you have no idea what turns to take, how to get there, or what there looks like. To reach your goal, you need a GPS.

Poof! A coach appears in the passenger seat.

“Hi, let’s do this together. Tell me about where you want to be, and I’ll help you navigate.”

OK, that’s not exactly how it works, and no one wants a random person appearing in their vehicle. Still, coaching is all about helping you reach your goals.

So how does it work, and what if you don’t even know what your goals are? Can a coach still help? The answer is yes, coaches are a great help in determining your goals.

But what if you don’t like someone telling you what to do? That’s good, because coaches don’t do that. So, how does coaching work? Let’s get into it.

Determining Your Destination

Coaching is not like therapy, in that you dive into your past or discuss the cause of feelings or the root of your trauma. While those things can come up, they’re not the focus.

Coaching is also not like mentoring. Your life coach won’t tell you what to do or about their experience.

So, what exactly is coaching?

Life Coaching Defined

In a nutshell, life coaching is 20 per cent asking powerful questions and 80 per cent listening. A coach may ask about your values or ask you to rank priorities in your life. Based on your answers, which your coach will remind you of, your coach will ask about areas you want to improve, what the road looks like to you, and about perspectives you probably haven’t thought about. 

Your coach will not ask you why you feel a certain way or did a certain thing. Your coach also won’t make suggestions, but for those who feel stuck, there’s actually no need. Coaches have a way of pulling the answers from you without you realizing it.

Ever ask a teacher a question and get a question for an answer? If that teacher was any good, they waited until you came around to the solution and smiled at your aha moment. Coaches love that aha moment. It’s the moment when you see the light and know your way from there. It’s like a person asking for a fish and then remembering how to fish and suddenly becoming self-sufficient. When a coach supports you, the ultimate goal is guiding you to learn to support yourself.

It looks like this:

Coach: What would you like to talk about today?

Guy: I don’t know. I’m feeling stuck.

Coach: Stuck how?

Guy: I like my job, but I feel like I could do more. But I don’t want to do more hours, just … I’m bored.

Coach: What do you like about your job?

Guy: I like leadership roles, and I get to do that when my boss is out. I like leading a team.

Coach: Is there a way you could do that more?

Guy: I’d have to get a higher position, but there isn’t one open.

Coach: How could you do more of what you enjoy without a higher position?

Guy: I guess, sometimes, my boss is too busy and could delegate the role. It wouldn’t be all the time.

Coach: Have you spoken to him about what you want?

Guy: Definitely not. He’s too busy.

Coach: When he’s out, are you the only one that takes that role?

Guy: Not always, but usually. (Pause) I guess … I guess I could let him know I’m willing to do that more. Maybe if he knows, I’ll get more opportunities.

Coach: When will you talk to him?

Guy: He’s back tomorrow. I can grab him in the afternoon before my shift ends.

Coach: I look forward to hearing how it went.

Navigating Towards Success

Reaching your goals isn’t a short journey, unless your goals are small. In order to navigate towards success, you need to gain some traction.

If you want a tuna fish sandwich, you’ll likely reach your goal that day. But if you want a raise, or a new house, or a whole new career, it’s going to take time and some smaller steps.

Small Successes

To get from point A to point B on a map, you need to navigate the road. To do that, you need to determine where you’re going. Before you can do that, you first need to get out on the road. And before any of that, you need to turn the vehicle on. Each step leads to the next. Before you start heading to a new destination, you need to determine how to get there.

Let’s say you have this dream of running a marathon. It seems impossible because you don’t even run, but it’s a thing you’ve always wanted to do. You decide a smaller goal would be to run a 5K. Before you can do that, you need to start training. For your training, you decide you’re going to go for a jog every morning. Your schedule seems too tight, so you narrow it down to three days a week. 

Jogging the whole time seems too much at first, so you resolve to jog half the time, alternating every few blocks. You even buy new running shoes and break them in while walking around the house. With your favorite playlist, a water bottle, and a reminder of the marathon on your bathroom mirror, you head out the first day. You jog maybe a quarter of the time, and you’re exhausted when you get back, but you mark the calendar “Day 1” and share it with a friend.

New Paths Forward

Celebrating your small successes builds you up for new paths forward. You could easily get overwhelmed looking at all the steps. You could get frustrated knowing you didn’t reach your small goal on Day 1, but with the right motivation and determination, you can keep plowing forward. 

It also helps to have someone hold you accountable, someone who you know won’t judge you but encourages you. Coaches are great about that. They don’t merely throw an empty, “You can do it!” phrases at you. A coach will ask you, “How’d you do?” And instead of something like, “Aw, that’s OK,” when you don’t do it, they’ll likely say, “When will you try again?”

Whether you’re training to run a marathon or looking for a promotion, having a path to success and someone to hold you accountable leads to new ideas and new perspectives. You’ll start to see things in a new light and new paths will start to emerge.

Reaching Your Goals

Life coaching is taking a journey with a reliable companion. A life coach will hold you accountable for the things you set out to do, ask you what step you want to take next, help you navigate both successes and failures, and never judge either.

Every time you reach a small goal, your coach will guide you in determining the next step, even if it’s to stay there for a moment. It’s really all up to you. As you work your way along the road, you gain traction, finding just how much you can accomplish with a navigator at your side. The path doesn’t seem so daunting when you’re taking it one step at a time. Soon, your goal is in sight, and far more achievable than when you started out.

Ready to Try Something New?

Having a coach helps guide you to success, and there’s life coaches for all walks of life and all types of lifestyles. There are spiritual coaches, leadership coaches, business coaches, and coaches dedicated to first responders. It’s not because coaches are going to tell you about their experiences, but because they know the job, and you can talk shop without losing them in translation (or shock factor.)

Are you ready to try something new? Do you have a goal you don’t know how to achieve, or that you feel is unachievable? Are you feeling stuck?

Toss those inhibitions aside and give coaching a try. You have nothing to lose. After a session or two, you’ll find yourself gaining traction and navigating towards success.

Caroline Godin is the First Responder Coaching publicist and a certified life coach. She can be reached at [email protected] and her articles can be found at The First Responder Coaching blog.