How to reach your goals and avoid burnout?

Most of you agree that through the helping of a coaching process you can set up your goals easily, and reach them faster. Actually, getting clear on your path (from/to) by setting up, planning accordingly and reaching your short, medium and long-term goals should be the main focus in a leadership coaching process.

However, one must be very careful in such journey, especially if you are dealing with a perfectionist type of client (Coachee), or even with a super ambitious one who wants to set and achieve major, perhaps unattainable, goals. Stress and anxiety can put you down in no time, making it so overwhelming on your side, that you may experience burnout.

I just welcomed this week a new member into one of my coaching trainings, who experienced something similar this past year in his career. Although this is one isolated case in my practice, my goal in this article is to prevent that may also happen to you, whether you are in the beginning or in late stages of your self-development in career and life.

Here it is the 3 main tips on how to stress less, and accomplish your goals easier and faster:

1. Pinpoint your strengths and your not so good habits: in order to understand better who you are and what exactly is potentially preventing you from being able to accomplish your goals, you got to pay attention to your routine and access your habits, especially the smallest ones, that in reality may be getting on your way, holding you back from success, day after day. Think about procrastination, for instance. Or maybe an excess in perfectionism? Is any of these habits on your way? Usually through a specific game plan in coaching, supported by a couple of profile assessments and exercises, and one of my best options in coaching tools – mindfulness (the practice of focusing your attention on your present experience, with as less judgment as possible) you can strive towards your goals feeling less anxious, and without leaving, supposedly unattended, other areas of your life. Getting to know yourself better, coupled with being in the moment, taking one step at a time, supports your progress in so many ways, as you focus in chunks along the path (reaching small goals rather than aiming at larger goals). On this, I strongly suggest a recent article: The Power of Chunking, by Tony Robbins.
2. Managing the game plan: when I mental coach high-performance athletes, this tip is a must. This should also be the case in leadership coaching: focus on the journey, one “point” at a time, rather than the endgame. In other words, you should always keep in mind the importance of smaller, attainable, time-frame goals rather than just wantting to reach the final results (larger goals) at the end line. Of course you should enter the game with the eyes on the prize, but make sure that dreaming big does not take you off path. Don’t get me wrong, dream big is part of the game, but keeping you well aligned with your goals and expectations, especially when the journey becomes more challenging than anticipated, must be top priority. Manage one day at a time, mindfully, and you may discover genuine happiness along the way as a bonus for you.
3. Celebrating along the way: following up tips 1 and 2, how you treat yourself on a daily basis says indeed a lot about your end result. Why Small Wins Matter, by Daniel Goleman is a brilliant article on this. In practice, I usually suggest my coachees to work with a milestone’s timeline that will allow them to celebrate accordingly as they reach certain benchmarks in their coaching planning. For instance, a nice and relaxed dinner with friends and family to celebrate a career promotion, could do wonders on the family, social and emotional areas of one’s lives.

Now, just make the link with your reality and go for it! Striving towards your goals and at the same time keeping balanced your well-being and the other areas of your life, are crucial for your long term success. Remember: you deserve the best!

Coach Fe Alem

Author’s note: this article was originally published on Pulse/LinkedIn platform.