Ah, the new year. It should come as little surprise to hear that coaching bears a faint resemblance to gyms when it comes to January, in that both institutions see a predictable uptick in participation, and it’s one which may or may not last through February.
And for good reason! At least, the uptick part. The New Year is a ripe time for new vision, new ambition, new goals worth pursuing and new games worth playing. And working with a coach is to set those goals and see them through is a hand-in-glove sort of fit.
When you predictably find yourself working with us clients (be we new or established) eager to create what our next year is going to be all about, certainly do the obvious thing, which is to provide a powerful listening that invites us to dream big and feel ourselves able, while asking good questions prompting us to expand whatever vision and make it more specific (and measurable!). Yes, do that. Lead us through that forward-facing creation and inquiry.
But before you do, before you allow us to get too far, either into the future or into the weeds of helping us distinguish what we really want and are really going to play at in the next 365? Invite us to look back. And by looking back, I mean reviewing and considering three things.
One, look back upon any such creations from last year. How did the last year go? Were there any games or goals that we resolved ourselves to the last time January came around? How did they turn out? Were ambitions fully realized? Or only partially so? Or perhaps even pathetically fizzled out, the stuff of idle, wishful thinking? Give us a moment to mark and complete on those, especially anything resembling the latter. And of course get us go beyond, and do better than, the comical old trope of “No, no, THIS TIME, I really mean it…” You want to give space to separate out anything being contemplated for this year from whatever went down last year.
Two, look back to establish the baseline of last year. The baseline of what? Whatever we, your client, want to create for the new year. If we’re looking to make more friends and cause more social occasions? Have us take stock of how many we had and how many we caused in the last year. If we’re looking to up the numbers for our business or work performance or the like? Have us record what they were over the runway up to the present moment. You get the idea. The point is to get present to that baseline, so that we’ll know if whatever efforts we’re making represent a meaningful and desirable departure from it.
Three, look back to name the predictable future. As in, ask us point blank: if we were to keep on keeping on as we have been, how would it likely turn out when the books were closed on THIS new year? Unless we’re kidding ourselves, this is probably the stuff of “more of the same”, which is why this exercise of predicting the future really is more a matter of looking back. The point of this is to (hopefully!) underscore why playing the game in the new year is worth doing. Staring down the barrel of “more of the same” should light a certain fire under our butts.
And that’s it, one, two, three: complete on last year, establish the baseline, and distinguish what’s predictable if we stay on autopilot. Do these three things of looking back FIRST, and I promise you’ll find our appetites well whetted for creating and playing a new game in the new year.
With Actions, Metrics, Whiteboards, structured prompts (in the form of Worksheets), CoachAccountable is all about documenting, tracking, measuring, and overall following through on whatever games and goals you create with your clients.
If you’re working with an established client when the new year rolls around, it’s going to be REAL easy to look back on earlier efforts.
With Metrics, establishing the baseline is elegant. Have them create a back-dated Metric to enter in whatever data points from the preceding months, and you’ll both have that as a visual point of reference as tracking continues on in the coming months.
Finally, either Whiteboards, Worksheets, or Journal Entries are suitable ways for your clients to ideate upon and capture the predictable future.
