Facilitating Learning, Awareness, and Goal Setting
This domain tests how you help clients convert vague dissatisfaction into owned, meaningful goals and the awareness needed to pursue them.
Raising awareness
Use specific observations, feedback, reframing, and carefully chosen questions. Invite the client to interpret; do not diagnose or label. Awareness is useful when it connects to something the client can act on.
Goal quality
- Owned by the client, not the sponsor, coach, or family.
- Stated in positive terms: what they want, not only what they want to stop.
- Specific enough to recognize, with evidence of success.
- Realistic and ecological: fits their time, values, health, and relationships.
- Time-bound where useful, with a review date.
- Distinguish goal from strategy: 'delegate two reports' is a strategy for 'reclaim strategic thinking time.'
Worked example
Client: 'I want to be less stressed.' Coach asks: 'If you were less stressed, what would be different on a Tuesday?' Client: 'I'd stop checking email after 8 pm.' Coach: 'How would you know it was working, and what might get in the way?' The goal becomes a two-week experiment with a daily cutoff and a review. Reasoning: it is observable, client-controlled, and testable; 'less stressed' alone cannot be verified or planned.
Traps
Accepting the first stated goal; setting goals for the client; confusing a feeling with a measurable outcome; overusing SMART to produce brittle goals; skipping the client's ambivalence.