As a personal coach, you want to help your clients achieve their physical health goals and feel more confident, energized, and happy. But how do you help them set realistic goals that are challenging, measurable, and attainable? Here are some tips to guide you and your clients through the process of goal setting and action planning.
Before setting any goals, you need to understand where your clients are starting from and what they want to change or improve. You can use various tools and methods to assess their current physical health, such as questionnaires, fitness tests, body measurements, or health screenings. You can also ask them about their motivation, expectations, challenges, and preferences. This will help you identify their strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, and create a baseline for measuring progress.
Once you have a clear picture of their current situation, you can help them define their desired outcomes. What do they want to achieve in terms of physical health? How will they know when they have reached their goals? How will achieving their goals benefit them in other areas of their life? You can use the SMART criteria to help them formulate specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound goals. For example, instead of saying "I want to lose weight", they can say "I want to lose 10 pounds in 3 months by following a balanced diet and exercising 3 times a week".
Once your clients have defined their goals, you can help them break them down into manageable steps. This will make their goals more realistic and achievable, and reduce the risk of overwhelm, frustration, or disappointment. You can use the GROW model to help them create an action plan that covers their goals, reality, options, and will. For each goal, you can ask them: What is the goal? What is the current reality? What are the possible options or strategies to achieve the goal? What are the actions, resources, and support needed to implement the chosen option? What is the commitment level and the timeline for each action?
As your clients work on their action plan, you need to monitor and review their progress regularly. This will help you and your clients evaluate their performance, celebrate their achievements, identify any challenges or obstacles, and adjust their plan if needed. You can use various tools and methods to monitor and review their progress, such as feedback, check-ins, tracking sheets, journals, or apps. You can also use the COACH model to help them reflect on their progress and learn from their experience. For each action, you can ask them: What did you do? What was the outcome? What did you learn? What can you do differently? What is your next step?
Tracking data is the most important part of the journey for you and the client. If you can show real time improvement as well as help them to monitor progress as they feel it, it’s all benefit. The client is happy, you’re happy, the client is more likely to stay and refer to you. It’s also social proof that you can use to grow.
As a personal coach, you play a vital role in supporting and motivating your clients along the way. You can use various techniques and skills to help them overcome any challenges, doubts, or fears, and to boost their confidence, resilience, and self-efficacy. You can use active listening, powerful questioning, positive feedback, empathy, encouragement, accountability, and recognition to help them stay focused, inspired, and committed to their goals. You can also help them create a supportive environment and network that will facilitate their success and well-being.
By following these tips, you can help your clients set realistic goals for improving their physical health and guide them through the process of achieving them. You can also help them enjoy the journey and the results, and empower them to take charge of their own health and happiness.