Here's how you can help your clients set realistic goals when solving problems.

From my experience, I feel that an additional layer of consideration could probably be the emotional and psychological state of the client. When clients feel overwhelmed or stressed, it’s crucial to create a supportive environment that fosters openness and trust. This emotional support helps clients engage more deeply with the goal-setting process. Moreover, integrating regular check-ins and reviews to reassess and adjust goals ensures they remain aligned and updated with the client’s evolving circumstances and capacities along with the fast changing external market. By blending clarity with empathy and adaptability, the goal-setting process becomes not only effective but also sustainable.

Create a detailed plan that has sorted activities and break-even points within the stipulated time frames, create a structure for routine tracking and adjustments where necessary including solving emerging problems. All this is aimed at helping someone move on by offering different kinds of marketing, providing tools for development as well as networking access among others; each step should be recognized as an achievement through reflection on what should be done differently as well as what has been done well enough grow constantly and become flexible.

Here are some of my key takeaways from my experience in dealing with a lot of students of varying age and daily commitments. 1. Learn from the process and not the product: I continuously see people obsessing over one part of the goal and trying to perfect it. If it's good enough, move on to the next step. Improve it on the second iteration or come back to it later. 2. Be prepared to fail. You always fail your way to success. Break down your goals into mini goals and get to them. You will often fail at some of them that's where magic happens. 3. Finally, use technology to your advantage: Use Notion, Obsidian and other organisational apps that will help you track your goals, their progress, identify roadblocks and solve them promptly.

In addition to a SMART goal, I added 2 more factors in my practice to make it more effective and transformative. It is a SMARTER goal. Empowerment and Reconsider. Part of planning is identifying what EMPOWERMENT is needed by the client to stay consistent in pursuing his goal. This is crucial especialy on times when the client fail to see progress on his journey. It becomes the anchor of the client to bounce back and get on track. RECONSIDER the challenges the client may encounter based on his patterns of behavior. This will be helpful in planning how to create the right mindsets, belief system of the client to cut the patterns of behavior that are not helpful for him. Be SMARTER in creating a transformative goal. ????

SMART just got SMARTER. My Spiritually S.M.A.R.T.E.R.?? path is a seven-step guide helping clients connect deeply with their inner wisdom. By following these steps, they learn to trust their inner guidance, making decisions that truly reflect who they are, and fostering significant personal growth. Through personalized introspection questions I help my clients discover what truly matters to them and how it fits with their thoughts and goals. This approach empowers them to align their deepest aspirations with practical steps, bringing clarity and fulfillment to their journey.

One thing I've found helpful in addition to setting up the SMART goals is to gamify the entire process. You can use apps for that or create your own system where each small win is rewarded with points and each lose is tracked and a punishment accompanies it. It can be anything from a 30 min episode of your favourite show as a reward to an extra set of pushups at the gym. But measure the progress and gamify, it keeps things interesting and allows you to measure real progress and setbacks.

By exploring self-awareness through spiritual practices like my Spiritually S.M.A.R.T.E.R. ?? path, my clients gain grounding and confidence. Taking small steps helps reveal deeper insights into themselves and their purpose. This journey boosts clarity in decision-making and empowers them to align actions with their values authentically. As they grow spiritually, they find deeper fulfillment and live with greater purpose daily.

Consistency over anything. You have to understand that big goals require small actions spread over a long time frame. It has to be about small steps, break down your goals into simple actions and tie them to things you are already doing. For example, I wanted to make sure I get sun exposure everyday, so I combined with my habit of reading everyday and now my morning reads are while basking in the Sun. This has allowed me to improve and stay consistent at both habits. So, choose a habit or action you do anyway and tie a new habit to it.

As the client evolve in the process it is important to guide the client on how to adapt to changes through flexiblity. Being able to help the client create transitions from every milestone will help the client stay aligned and grounded. This will empower the client to appreciate his progress more resulting to trust his decisions and have better perspective on seeing failure as stepping stone for more learning and self improvement. In the end, flexibility is a powerful skill to harness to develop confidence to achieve a goal..

The beauty in goal setting is the opportunity it provides you to take a path. Starting to move forward toward something you want, with a desired outcome in mind begins the process. The journey reveals so much, contributes to learning about a topic and yourself, and forks in the road will present themselves. There are decisions to make and variables to consider throughout. Without flexibility you may put on blinders and miss some exceptional ways forward or even unplanned outcomes. Being curious, open minded and conscious of the opportunities ( or threats) makes reaching goals less about the goal and more about where the process might take you next. Every goal is a building block to new possibilities that you can only see when flexible.

Yes, you will fail a couple of times, miss your daily tasks, miss deadlines, you cannot avoid it. What changes all of it is your mindset and perspective towards it. Most people get discouraged and stop the activity all together. The real skill is in getting back at it again and again and then again with almost a mad man's outlook. Develop the skill of getting back on the tasks again for the Nth time. That's how you build lasting change and learn a skill that makes you invincible.

Gratitude is a powerful tool in achieving anything. This is the reason behind the importance of celebrating wins, big or small. It keeps the client focused on empowerment and building self-confidence. Having a gratidute journal helps the client focus on the good he does for himself and others. This serves as an achor for resilience and positive mindsets. Writing and reading what the client is thankful for helps him evaluate his progress and motivate him towards consistency.

Before anything else, have the client assess the space he/she is in so that you would know if he/she is in the right state to even come up with one. Remember, for someone who is going through difficult times, it’s quite hard to even focus and come up with a goal so just let your client take the lead and allow him/her to offload first before prying deeper on what he/she wants.????