Over the past months I’ve come to realize that much of my process with my clients is this three step plan:
- Figure out what you really want
- Decide on a strategy of how to get it
- Work on that
That’s it. That’s the whole thing.
Step 1: Figuring out what you want
This could be anything. For a person, this is where they want to go in life. It could be a promotion, a raise, a new house, moving to a new location, anything. Many people are reactive, they just chase whatever opportunity is in front of them rather than setting a course for what they really want.
For business metrics this can be easy as good and great are typically well defined for every stage and industry. For personal goals it can be tougher because happiness and joy are often afterthoughts.
Figuring out what’s worth wanting is part of this discovery. Knowing what’s ego (i.e. the desire to look good or wanting to be right) and what’s truly valuable is important here.
Some tactics I like to help suss this out:
- Putting together a 10 year plan for individuals to help them flush out where they want to be and what they’d like to be doing
- Asking that question of “if you made $20m, what would you do next?” This is related to “what would you do if you knew it would succeed?” Take away constraints. Sometimes a founder will respond that they want to keep building, often they want to do something completely different.
- Experimentation. Sometimes you don’t have enough data or what feels good or what doesn’t. Thus, if you don’t know, it helps to try something lightweight and see how it feels or the result it gets. For work, spend $1000 to try some absurd marketing tactics. For personal goals, rent a mountain bike, hire a guide and go on one ride before you pay $2k to buy one that might sit unused in your garage.
My insight here is that often the problems people bring to coaching are misaligned desires. They don’t really know yet what they want.
Step 2: Decide on a strategy
Often the answer to the first question is an outcome. Something like, “I want my company to grow to $3m in revenue” or “I want to be happy”. Those are outcomes. We need to identify a strategy of how we’re going to make that happen. If there no strategy, it’s just a wish or a hope.
How are you going to get to $3m in revenue? What would make you happy? This is often the hardest part. People can think of what they want, but they don’t know what to do.
My insight here is that many people hide behind busyness or indecision. The “I just need to think more” trap or victim behavior of knowing what they want but for some reason it’s not happening for them.
Step 3: Working on that
People can get stuck. You know what you want and you have a plan of how to get it but you work on everything except that goal. The reasons are often fear or the first step is too much (or unknown). In my experience, fear is the biggest reason. Doing something new and or unfamiliar or it requires someone to judge them. It’s hard.
My insight here is that just having a strategy does not guarantee action — discipline, accountability, emotion, and courage are need to climb the mountain and make it happen.
I also like thinking about this as
- Step 1 = Vision (Soul)
- Step 2 = Design (Mind)
- Step 3 = Action (Body)