Coaching Yourself to Your Career Goals and Life Dreams

I’m fortunate to have a diverse group of executive coaching clients. Although why they come to coaching may be similar, such as accelerate their career goals, workplace issues, and challenges with leadership and managing people, their expectations and stated outcomes are always varied. By necessity coaching has to be customized; never relying on any sort of template to suit everyone. Never, until I was introduced to the grape cluster.

Don Clarkson is a colleague, friend, and mentor of mine. He’s a man of many talents with an interesting career trajectory. He once insisted that I “do a grape cluster” on a challenge I can’t even remember at this point. What I did retain was the usefulness of the exercise and I now use it with almost every executive, leader, or professional who comes to me for coaching.

The premise is quite simple — you know where you want to go and what you need to get out of an experience or action. The problem is you have trouble accessing a detailed picture. Why?

Negative self-talk is one of the problems. It’s the voice (often not even your own) that tells you, “It will never work,” “Who do you think you are?” or “Watch what you ask for!” At some level it is trying to protect you but more often it is preventing you from taking the risk and reaching your life and career goals, and dreams.

Another obstacle is what I call brain clutter. Keeping all of the day-to-day thoughts and ideas live and accessible. Technology can help alleviate some of this but technology also gives all of us a means of accumulating more information for our short-term memory. The end result is brain clog; difficulty focusing on the big picture, hearing the tidbits of an idea that has the potential for expansion but is dwarfed by the sheer amount of facts and half-baked notions spinning in our heads. Brain clutter sabotages priorities, encouraging us to address tasks and details rather than take in the big picture and assess the need. It all falls into the bin labeled, “It’s not too hard it’s too much.”

This is when the grape cluster seems like magic, helping you attain your career goals and life dreams.

I like the low tech approach of a giant Post-it stuck to a very visible wall and a chunky marker but it would work equally well on your tablet or desktop. Essential you begin with a blank page. Next, state the challenge or desire as a question, and write it on the top “What Should the Next Six Months Look Like?” “What Would the Perfect Assignment Have to Have?” “Who Would the Perfect Boss/Assistant be for Me?” You get the idea. It’s a question or statement demanding details and lots of them.

Then you start drawing circles to form what looks like a bunch of grapes.

Out loud, yes, even if you’re alone, start saying and writing down what comes to mind challenging each point with a demand for more detail. If it’s a new assignment get down to the specifics of the project — time, length, outcome; along with partners, resources, highlights, gainers, and how it must personally and professionally help you now and in the future. You’ll be surprised with the order things flow out and at times your hesitancy to be honest with yourself, fearing you’ll seem selfish, unreasonable, or even delusional. My clusters often have 25+ grapes and look unreadable to anyone but myself. Give yourself a good fifteen minutes. Work fast ignoring lapses in logic or continuity. Stand back and read your new map.

I like to leave the work up for at least a week, so I can absorb and add new thoughts or insights. Sometimes I highlight or apply color to show previously unknown relationships. Often I save them and refer back.

Personally, I designed a website, found a great partner, designed my two-year work plan, and made a housing decision using separate grape clusters. Can you imagine what might be in-store for you?