Effective Goals & Striving Overview

Having a goal-orientation is a form of problem-focused coping associated with positive stress and positive outcomes, if we’re setting them effectively.

Clients come into the coaching engagement with varying degrees of clarity, confidence, motivation, and commitment to their goals. All four of these – self-discovery, self-efficacy, self-concordant goals, and self-management are part of enhancing the client’s likelihood of achieving the goals they set.

We’ll do some level of work in all of these areas with all clients. How much of each will be tailored to the needs of the client. 

• Those who lack clarity, of their goals or resources to achieve them can use more work in self-discovery.
• Those who have clarity of their goals, but lack confidence in their ability to achieve them can use more work on self-efficacy. 
• Those who have goals but lack motivation, can use work on ensuring their goals are self-concordant.
• Those who struggle with commitment and the ongoing effort required to achieve their goals can use work on self-management. 

Our focus is self-concordant goals because studies show when we pursue goals that are aligned with our core values, we put more sustained effort into achieving them and are more likely to achieve them (Folkman & Moskowitz, 2007). 

Those who achieve self-concordant goals experience greater well-being than those who achieve goals that are not self-concordant. (Folkman & Moskowitz, 2007).

Goal researchers have broken down goal pursuit into four stages that help activate our unconscious – automatic processes to support success (Dijksterhuis, 2010).

• Goal adoption – this happens when the goal is self-endorsed and internally accepted by the person
• Goal activation – unconsciously primed to trigger goal-oriented behavior
• Planning – strategy development 
• Goal striving and monitoring – those are goal directed behaviors and unconscious monitoring that support our success

Goal adoption matters because the approach or avoidance behaviors serve the individual from the inside out. Those processes are highly automatic and subconscious first. We have psychophysiological needs to feel safe and capable enough to approach the goal. 

This research has found a goal is adopted when it’s endorsed by the individual
Once the goal is adopted by the individual. We have unconscious processes that activate to promote goal-oriented behavior. 

If the goal is not chosen by the individual and aligned with who they are and what they believe they can do, the likelihood that they’ll engage in the behaviors necessary to achieve it are slim.