Live a Life that Matters

image

Our funeral is one event where we are the guest of honour, yet our name will not be in the guest list. A rather morbid start, but it's for a good cause, so I hope your curiosity keeps you reading.

One of the values I remember adopting from a rather young age is to live a life of no regrets. It is a value that has served me very well. My decisions of doing something, or not doing something has been very much calibrated against this deep rooted belief. The way I measure it is against the moment of my death; whether such a thing would matter, or would I regret not doing something. Sometimes, it doesn't necessarily have to be all the way at the point of death, but when I am old and grey.

In my opinion there are two ways to live life. One is to wake up each day full of appreciation for the time we have been given and focusing on investing our time in the things that matter the most. The other is to wake up each day thinking, here's yet another day to get through and we can start flicking through our list of items to complete.

image

The difference between the two is how the day is approached. To be more specific, it is the purpose and intent that determines which tasks get completed.

In the former scenario, such a life would likely be quite a satisfying one to live. The latter may not be bad, but it certainly would leave a lot to be desired for at best, and a complete drudgery at worst. I too sometimes struggle to keep myself oriented in the former. Fortunately my earlier mentioned value doesn't permit me to stay too long in the latter state. I call this a Divine Gift, because if I had been given the ability to tolerate such drudgery, I can't imagine where my life would be. In a sense, my impatience in this area of life has served me well.

If you look at a child however, they need not have such deep dialogues. They simply live life with excitement and wonder. Everything is a possibility. Their ambitions can be to be an astronaut, the leader of a nation, a famous movie star, a superhero, a purple unicorn ... you get the point. The possibilities are ENDLESS.

So what happened to us? Did we "grow-up"? Does growing up mean losing that sense of adventure? Does it mean living life of mediocrity. Does it mean living a life of drudgery? Does it mean it's a great accomplishment to just get through the year, being able to celebrate a holiday with the family OR getting an increment at the end of the year? Perhaps this is someone's actual dream come true, OR perhaps it is what they see as their POSSIBILITY based on their circumstances.

As a coach we are not here to say you can have the moon and the stars, and you will immediately wake up into your dream life. No! As a coach, we are here to empower the Neo's of the world to take the RED PILL and find out just how far down the rabbit hole they can go. Only here, the rabbit hole is not a hole, but THE WHOLE.

The WHOLE is looking at the client's life HOLISTICALLY, the WHOLE is the process of creating a spark to the point of celebrating the success, the WHOLE is looking at the complete personhood of the client. The adventure begins from creating a sense of wonderment, to then honing in on their deepest desires, to then unlocking their passion, then setting the wheels in motion towards that BEST version of themselves and finally LIVING the LIFE that they have envisioned.

The fact that we read and see success stories everyday PROVES that this is POSSIBLE. The only question that remains is HOW?

The answer is through GOOD planning and goal setting. Though a coach can be skilled at helping a client plan and creating great winning strategies; it is ONLY possible if the coachee takes FULL OWNERSHIP of the process. As ultimately, the idea is about creating a sustainable change that alters the direction of a CLIENT's life, challenging them to BE MORE than they consider possible now. It is about transformation that will continue to inspire the client and help them achieve more from there.

GOALS helps a client choose:

1. WHO they want to BE
2. WHAT they want to DO
3. WHERE they will head in LIFE

Goals that are aligned with the coachees thoughts, emotions, inner drives and external desires create purposeful and intentional actions that form habits. These habit are integrated into their daily routines and helps them continue building upon a transformational system of growth and development.

Goals that answer, in a powerful and significant way as to WHY they want to engage in that particular goal, will determine HOW successful they are at achieving it. The bigger the WHY the greater the drive, and the more meaningful the WHY the more sustainable the change. The WHY helps one align with their core values, deepest desires and empowers one to strive for and attain goals that help them LIVE by these VALUES. It is not just about the goals, it is about living a life that matters.

There are ways to BUILD on this system, but the first step is to identify the KEY areas they wish to focus on. Given an opportunity to explore with the same wonderment of a child, we could come up with 20 goals that matter to us. Though these are exciting, not all the goals are something we WISH to, or can REALISTICALLY reach immediately.

It helps to NARROW down a TIME frame in which we would like to achieve these goals. We can then pick out the three most immediate, achievable and relevant goals to help us move forward. As the saying goes, "Rome wasn't built in a day", similarly the dream we envision does take time to achieve. There may be some goals that are more aligned to our present growth. There may be some that would be better achieved first. There are some that would create an IMPACT immediately in the areas that matter the most.

Then it is time to create a measurable progress chart for it. Starting from where we are, setting small milestones till we get to the final point. Here's how one can even refine each goal to make it S.M.A.R.T.er: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, Time Bound, ex-CITING!

"People are not lazy, they simply have impotent goals. That is goals that do not inspire them." - Tony Robbins

So, I ask YOU not WHAT your GOALS are, but WHY your GOALS MATTER?

For your GOALS determine WHO you become, HOW you LIVE, and WHERE and how far you GO in life.

---

**Note: This blog entry is to meet Catalyst Coaching Certification program module completion of ICF Core Competency 10: Planning & Goal Setting

This piece has been posted from my blog Coach Chitrah if you wish to stay up to date with my content please consider subscribing.