Today in a training session I was working with a coach who has several clients that they are currently coaching. One of the common problems that was brought up is, “how do you get your clients to stay focused and disciplined to focus on the prescribed strategy?”
Many people have given this very common challenge that new entrepreneurs and goal seekers have different names. The most common name is the “shiny object syndrome.” Whatever you want to call it, the number one challenge everyone faces who try to achieve a new level in their journey is focus.
John Lee Dumas has an acronym that I’ve used before because I think it’s illustrative of the remedy people who lack focus need. Follow One Course Until Successful
My suggestion when bringing on any new client is have a contract to coach agreement set up. It’s basically an agreement between the two parties that states, “You are wanting to achieve this goal and I in good faith plan on helping you achieve it. HOWEVER you have to agree to verifiably execute with 100% full intentions and effort on the strategies I prescribe only or agree that I am completely and totally indemnified from any and all results you incur.” Now those words may be a bit too high brow to convey the message to most, so you may just want to say, “do you want to make money or feel good about being broke?” That is if you are in the business coaching area. If you are in health it could be, “do you want to get healthy or just feel good about being fat?” Yeah I know that’s a bit crude. However most people need to be rhetorically woke up sometimes to understand you are here to help them. And helping someone and making someone feel good about the status quo are two different jobs. I’d rather make someone feel good from their results they achieve rather than a faux effort they perceive.
I’d rather make someone feel good from their results they achieve rather than a faux effort they perceive.
I think putting the responsibility of who does what on the front end of any business engagement is just good business. Talk to any coach or consultant that has worked with more than 20 people over anytime and they will tell you, people have a hard time of getting out of their own way. This doesn’t make them bad people. It makes them human. We all have habits that have produced the present realities we are experiencing. If you truly are going to help someone you have to be willing to be the bad guy and say no. You are going to have to be the one that does the math for them and show that nothing right of the equal sign changes until the variables left of the equal sign change. Beliefs + Behavior = Results. If I don’t like my results then I need to isolate what part of my beliefs which modify my behaviors is causing the results I currently have.
Be willing to be the bad guy on the front end. Your client will be better for it and you will have more clients knocking the door down to help them get the same results.
Absolute truth!