Setting goals are an important part of the ICF coaching process, whether short or long-term. Reading this blog will help you increase your coaching impact -whether you are a life coach, business coach, or executive coach- when setting goals.
SMART goals re-framed: Use SSMMART Goals Instead
SMART goals are popular in all coaching relationships, whether business coaching, corporate, executive coaching, or life coaching. An ICF coaching relationship ideally begins with setting smart goals.
However, in real life, some of the original goals during the phase of the coaching relationship might later become cliché or irrelevant when the coach does not go deep with the client.
Having studied psychology behind happiness and experimented with my coaching clients, I know that when we help the person to find the meaning behind the goal and go deeper in their mind, heart, and body about this meaning, then the goal becomes more authentic and sustainable.
When goal setting, I give my clients enough space to reflect and process. Goal setting is a creative process, and it should involve mind-body and heart.
That's why, in this blog article, I would like to give you a useful framework that I use in my coaching. My secret ingredient is inquiring about asking thought-provoking questions about the ‘meaning’ behind the goal and whether it will bring a ‘sense of flow’. So instead of SMART goals, I use SSMMART goals.
SSMMART Coaching Questions:
- Specific – What specifically do you want to achieve?
- Sense of FLOW- What will FLOW look like when you achieve your goal?
- Measurable – How will you measure progress? What will progress look like?
- Meaningful – What about this goal is meaningful for you? Where do you feel it in your body?
- Achievable – On a scale of 1-10, 1 is lowest 10 is highest, what is the chance of success?
- Realistic – How will you know if the goal is realistic or not?
- Timebound – What's the time frame on this?