Where Focus Goes, Energy Flows.. 4 steps to Validate your Focus!

As Tony Robbins says, energy flows where attention goes. To get what you really want in life, you need a clear goal that has purpose and meaning behind it. Once this is in place, you can focus your energy on the goal and become obsessive about it. BUT.. how do I make sure I am focusing on the right goal? that I am not living a life of someone else’s design?

Identifying clearly your Goal is the first step and definitely the most important step of the GROW Model (Goal — Reality — Options — Way Forward), THE most popular coaching frameworks. If you are a Coach, how do you make sure your Client is focusing on the right Goal?

Here is a simple 4-step approach from GoMasterCoach.

Step 1: Take an helicopter view through a Wheel

One of my clients asked to be coached on her next career move. She wanted to relocate from Singapore to France, but wasn’t sure what should be the next step in her career. When we did the wheel of life, she realised the biggest gap was on romance. She was actually relocating to find a partner, as was struggling in Singapore to find someone.

In a nutshell, a wheel is a very effective way to take an helicopter and validate the goal. With GoMasterCoach’s toolbox, you can have access to 20+ coaching tools, including Wheel of Life, Wheel of Happiness, Wheel of Management and Wheel of Entrepreneurship.

Step 2: Validate the underlying reasons: the 3 Whys

Am I living a life of someone else’s design? or is it a true intrinsic goal?

Dig deeper to understand the intrinsic reason: Why is this goal important to you? Why does it matter to you? For each reason, ask again why does this reason matter to you? Asking 3 times why, in a subtle way.

For example:

Client: — My goal is to lose 10 kilos in 3 months.

Coach: — Why is this goal important to you?

Client: — I want to look good and be athletic

Coach: -Why is it important for you to look good and be athletic?

Client: — I want to be have a high energy level

Coach: — Why is it important to you to have a high energy level?

Client: — I want to be able to go cycling with my little one when she grows up, and have high energy to play with her.

Step 3: The PAWM model: Possibility, Ability, Worthiness, Motivation

On a scale from 1 to 10:

- How possible it is for you to achieve your goal?

- How able are you to achieve your goal? in terms of skills

- How worthy are you to achieve your goal?

- How motivated are you to achieve your goal?

This exercise allows to uncover blockers, limiting beliefs and/or validate if the goal is the real goal. For example, if your client is at a 4 on motivation, is the coach’s work truly on motivation or on validating the client is focusing on the right goal?

Step 4: Anchor the goal through visualisation

Jim Carrey explained to Oprah Winfrey how he used the power of visualisation when he was not known at all. He wrote himself a $10 million check and put it in his wallet. After months and years, the check would be quite teared down. He would still keep visualising his first big check as an actor, which happened with Dumber & Dumber.

As a Coach, help your Client visualise and anchor their Goal.

“Imagine you have reached your Goal, what do you see? how do you feel? what is the impact on your life? what is the impact on people around you?”

They can do this visualisation closing their eyes with you guiding the visualisation, or this can be done through journaling.

It can also be even more powerful to combine it with a negative anchor before this positive anchor (this combination is called collapse anchoring). What I mean by negative anchor is: “Imagine you have not done anything to go to your goal. You are still stuck in 1 year from now. How do you feel? What do you see?.. [pause] Now 3 years from now, you still haven’t done anything to get to your goal: How do you feel? What do you see? .. now 10 years from now, you still haven’t done anything: you look at yourself in the mirror, what do you tell yourself? How do you feel? What do you see in that mirror? What do people say / feel?”

This negative anchor can be extremely powerful to give a sense of urgency, especially when stuck. Combining just after with a positive anchor makes it even more powerful.

Feel free to reach out to info@gomastercoach.com if you have any questions / feedback.