CoachOiseau Life & Leadership Coaching
Coaching today’s students into tomorrow’s leaders
“I want to lose 20 pounds by the end of the year,” you tell yourself.
“In three years from now, I’d like to be on a 3-month backpacking trip around Europe,” comes another objective from your mouth.
“When my Corolla’s lease ends in two years, I’d like to upgrade to a BMW sedan!”
These all seem like fairly simple outcome goals on the surface, but are they really?
Goal setting is a topic that gets a lot of attention in the personal and professional development space. It was one of many areas of focus when I was becoming a certified coach, and goals themselves often become key points of importance for leaders of teams and organizations.
It makes sense, right? Goals can help to move people in a certain direction that aligns with the interests of the greater good.
But goals often end up being better in theory than in practice. And part of that often comes from not understanding the difference between outcome and process goals.
A couple of weeks ago, I was walking through the general store of a small, rural Ontario town. It was amazing to see the variety of products in this one-person shop.
Non-perishable groceries, household hardware, beer…even a 16-flavour ice cream stand!
I stopped for a moment to pay particular attention to what the store was offering in terms of plumbing parts. The selection sat on a stack of three shelves, about one metre wide.
“Interesting,” I said to myself, “I could maybe fix a few basic plumbing issues with this gear, but would struggle to tackle the bigger, more expensive issues.”
More advanced parts would have to be bought elsewhere. And with my (very) limited plumbing skills, the more complex, valuable and expensive work would have to be done through someone else. I’d need the help of a true hardware store and a real plumber in a lot of cases.
Here’s the $64 000 question: does your career resemble the general store, or is it a specialty store?
“Profit” can be a polarizing word. It excites some, and repels others. But whether you realize it or not, we’re all involved when it comes to profit.
Harry Browne’s amazing book on sales, The Secret of Selling Anything, has really opened my eyes to this amazing truth.
Job hunting. Dating. Sales. Making the basketball team (especially when you’re not that tall). What do these all have in common?
For 99% of us, they’re all low-percentage plays. We have little-to-no-chance of immediate, overnight success in any of these arenas. “Winning” in these areas of life takes resilience. A thick skin and a good sense of humour.
My first leadership position in my career came to me when I was 23. I was just coming out of university, and was all too excited to being my role. Sadly, I couldn’t hold it down for even two full years.
Wrong. The above statement is inaccurate 99.99% of the time.
That was pretty judgmental of me to say, right? Let me elaborate for a couple of minutes.