Coaching for Change

GOAL SETTING Goals are critical. They keep you focused on what’s important, and allow you to make the best use of your 24 hours each day. We all know that. And yet research shows only 20% of the population sets goals and 92% of those goals are never achieved. And it becomes more challenging when the person you want to set goal is an Adolescent! It is difficult for teens to see beyond the present. Goal setting challenges them psychologically because it involves having to wait for a long time to see the results, which, again, is a good lesson to teach as kids grow up. They should learn that anything good is worth working for and that it is only over time and effort that we see the true results of all of our hard work. Very few things come to us immediately. We all know without a goal in mind we can end up wasting time and energy and are finally left with nothing in hand. In a bid to demonstrate to them how gratifying, energizing and fulfilling goal setting and accomplishing can...

I dedicate this article to my favourite age group… the youth of today. This is a topic about which a lot has been said and written and yet it remains an enigma to most of us when it really shouldn’t be. It should be as easy as it is for a 4-year-old to tell a story. Recently I was invited to mentor a bunch of kids to polish their Public Speaking Skills. These kids were going to present their project to a group of judges and the best idea was to win an award to fund their idea. I first asked them to tell me about their project. As they told me about why they chose the project, the passion, enthusiasm, and energy in their gestures and body language was apparent. Then I asked them to present their idea to me as they would to the judges. Suddenly the whole dynamics changed, the same bubbly bunch became uptight, nervous and robotic. When I asked them what the reason was, they said:  -It’s a formal presentation so we need to look and feel serious. -It feels weird to stan...