How to Be More Audacious About Your Goals

Podcast 181

Helping clients reach their goals is a common challenge for health coaches. Michael Bungay Stainer explains why it’s time to move away from SMART goals. Stainer also spells out why curiosity is crucial for health coaches, and how worthy goals can help clients achieve what they want! 

In this episode, Cathy and Michael discuss: 

• What’s wrong with how we set goals and acronyms like SMART goals  
• 3 elements of a worthy plan: thrilling, important, daunting 
• Suggestions for devoting time to worthy goals, taking time off, reorienting as needed
• The best way for a coach to work with somebody on worthy goals 
• The power of curiosity and asking questions to help people reshape their goals 
• Facilitating a worthy goal for a group of people vs. individual worthy goals 
• Details about the How to Begin book and Coaching Habit book

• “I want people to be working on the hard stuff because people unlock their greatness when they’re working on the hard stuff.” 
• “Staying really curious about the goal and how to make sure that we’re working on the right thing slows down the initial rush to action, but sets up a much more successful working relationship because you’re both deeply grounded in what really matters and what we’re really trying to achieve here.”
• “As coaches we all know that the longer we can resist giving the advice and sharing the opinion and the more we can help people figure this stuff out for themselves, the more powers will be inside.”