This is the third part of a series of posts explaining the most powerful model I use with my life coaching clients. Read The GROW Model – Introduction to find out what it’s all about.
I will assume you now have an area of your life in mind, and you know what your ideal situation would be and what needs to happen to move from your current situation to the ideal.
In this step, you will come up with tons of actions you could take that will help you move towards your ideal goal.
Please note: It is crucial to separate this step, Options, from the next one – Way forward. Because even though they deal with the exact same thing – the actions that will help you move from where you are to where you want to be – they are fundamentally different.
GROW #3 – Options is all about getting creative, broadening your thinking and coming up with plans of action you might have never considered before. GROW #4 – Way forward is all about focusing, narrowing down your options, and setting clear deadlines for the actions you plan to take soon.
And you cannot be both creative and focused at the same time, because the two states of mind are directly contradictory. In fact, they are caused by contradictory brain chemicals, so you physically cannot be really focused and creative at the same time.
One of the biggest causes of overwhelm and getting stuck is when you try to do both steps at the same time. And it’s also one of the reasons why the GROW Model is so damn effective for helping you get unstuck and starting to move towards the life you want!
It’s brainstorming time!
You can either grab a pen and paper, or open up your favourite word processor or mindmapping software.
While I usually don’t have a strong preference for either method, for the brainstorming step I always go with using a pen and paper. It just works better for me.
Now, you can do this in two ways:
- make a long list of actions you could take
- turn the page sideways, and start with your central theme in a bubble at the centre. Then draw lines branching out to sub-themes and split those down until you get to specific actions
Neither is right with the other being wrong. They are just different approaches, and either of them might be better, depending on what you are applying the GROW Model to.
Just note one thing – it’s important to drill down until you get to specific actionable steps.
For example, “find out more about how to get life coaching clients” isn’t an actionable step. It’s a wish.
On the other hand:
- e-mail Eddy and ask to look at his materials regarding getting new clients
- google “how to get more life coaching clients”
- call up Chuck and ask him how he got his clients when he was starting out
Are all actionable steps. When you look at them, you don’t need to do any more thinking, you know exactly where to go and what to do. That’s what you want to drill down to.
…
Okay, time to get writing. Grab your piece of paper and pen, and get ready.
In this step, I won’t be able to give you much guidance, because it mostly comes down to you coming up with options. I’ll just throw out a couple of questions that might push you in new directions of thought:
- Who could you ask for help or information?
- Who in your life knows a lot about your chosen area to improve?
- What phrases could you search for online to get some more ideas?
- What could you do?
- If you weren’t afraid at all, if you were like James Bond, what would you do?
- If money weren’t an issue, what would you do?
- What would [insert any character you admire] do?
- What else could you do?
Go ahead, make your list!
For now, do NOT censor your list, or trim it down. That’s a focused thing to do, and would sabotage your creative thinking. Don’t worry about writing down crazy and stupid stuff, because we’ll trim that down in the next step. For now, just write 
…
And that’s all for today. In the next step, GROW #4 – Way forward, we will finally move from thinking and planning to setting clear goals and getting you to take action!
Next part: GROW #4 – Way forward
(Previous part: GROW #2 – Reality)
{ 2 trackbacks }