As you move into the year 2003, take stock of all aspects of your life. What do you want more of in your life? Perhaps you want more success, more happiness, more time, or more vitality? Whatever you want, here are 4 ways in which personal coaching can assist you to get it!

First, coaching assists you to become crystal clear about what is really important for you. If you already have a set of goals, that’s great! Look carefully at your goals. Are they motivating or are they simply obligations masquerading as goals? Consider the difference between "I want a mutually good relationship with my wife" and "I want a whoop-de-doo relationship with my wife!". Perhaps you’re at a crossroads in your life now and your goals lack clarity. With deep listening and dialog, your coach can help you tap into what’s really important for you now. The more you can see, touch, taste and feel what it would be like to achieve your goal, the more they will fuel you.

Once you have a clear picture of what you want, the next step is creating strategies to get there. Most of us tend to think of only one or two ways to get what we want. Then we choose one that seems like it might work, maybe because we’ve used it before. Your coach will challenge you to develop lots of ideas, including some outrageous ones, to assist you to break out of your normal ways of thinking and behaving. For example, a client wanted to know where he stood financially. He was convinced that he would need to track every single expense and he just didn’t want to do that. As he talked about this with his coach, he discovered that he could get what he wanted in much less time, by simply developing an accurate overview of his assets, liabilities and expenses. As you partner with your coach in creative problem solving, your creativity will be catalyzed and you will discover answers and solutions you didn’t know you had.

Even if you are already skilled at creating motivating goals and creative strategies to achieve them, coaching can benefit you by encouraging you to take the actions necessary to achieve your goals. Through coaching, you can learn to be more comfortable with risk and to take action in new ways. From celebrating your wins to brainstorming about how to handle an unexpected situation to dealing with a temporary reversal, your coach will stay focused with you on what it is you want.

What coaching clients value most is knowing that their coach is their unabashed advocate. Through coaching, you learn to orient your life around leveraging your strengths, rather than "fixing" your weaknesses. You have an unbiased, attentive listener to explore ideas with, before putting them into action.

A coach will always believe in your brilliance, tell you the truth, and assist to expand your view of what’s possible.