Contents
A variety of people come to the training: some for the first time in their lives, and some have already been to trainings. Some participants experience some difficulties in life and want to resolve them, while others are more or less okay and even good. Someone will feel at the training like a fish in water, and someone will need time to get used to the group, leader, atmosphere and content of the training.
At the beginning of the 1st session, the facilitator may invite participants to set goals for the training.
Coaches (and their assistants) can be roughly divided into two categories:
- Those who remind the participants of the training about the benefits of formulating goals for the training and encourage them to write down these goals.
- For those who do not talk about this directly, but rather take an interest in the expectations of the participants from the training.
The former argue that by setting goals for the training, the participant increases the opportunity to get the most out of the training, to go through it more effectively, with greater benefit and return for himself. The latter rather orient the group to what expectations of the participants correspond to the topic of the training, and which ones do not fit into its content; what to expect and what not to.
Training expectations and training goals
Personal growth training has its own peculiarity, which can be expressed in two facts:
- Most of the participants in the training have their personal expectations from the training.
- Most of the participants do not have clearly defined goals for the training.
Almost all people have expectations from the training, except, perhaps, by chance. Almost any participant in the training can quite clearly formulate their expectations from the training.
Examples of typical expectations:
- I expect that the training will be interesting for me, I will have fun.
- I look forward to learning something new for myself. Perhaps I will hear “revelations” on some questions that concern me.
- I hope to meet new people, expand my social circle, etc.
With the goals for the training, not everything is so clear: on the one hand, the participant may still have goals that are important for him, which he plans to achieve during the training; on the other hand, the coach also has goals. Are these goals compatible? Do they relate to each other in any way? Do they lie in different planes?
Usually, people do not prescribe goals for themselves before training, but come for various reasons: out of curiosity, friends advised, the topic is fashionable, advertising is delicious, they read an interesting book and wanted to look at its author, etc. In this situation, the coach may draw attention to the importance of goal setting or coaching.
Formal goal setting for training
When the trainer motivated the group to write down their goals for the training, a “pitfall” arises: for many participants, the formulation of training goals turns into a formal procedure. It seems like decent people just don’t go to trainings, but come exclusively with goals. Setting a goal is a kind of right and noble occupation. And whoever has not found and written a goal for himself, he does not act quite right. Most people want to have a reputation as “decent” people and therefore they try to come up with a goal, that is, formally they do the Task. And it turns out a paradoxical situation: some participants who did not set goals for the training (did not formulate), at the end of the training, sometimes take a lot more into life than those who honestly (as instructed by the facilitator) formulated and wrote down the goals for the training.
Typical formal training goals are those that the participant literally sucked out of their finger because the trainer (or assistant trainer) said «It’s useful to write.»
Conscious goal setting for training
This is when I clearly know and imagine what will help me to successfully pass the training and what needs to be done for this.
For example, I went to a public speaking training and at the first lesson I realized that those who regularly go out at the suggestion of a trainer among the first three volunteers are most likely to develop the skill of public speaking. After all, the coach gives the first three (the most daring) the opportunity to speak to a large audience, and offers everyone else to work in mini-groups, which in some cases is less effective. I formulate a goal for myself: «at every lesson, to go into the top three of the most daring.» At the same time, I can be very scared — when I go out to a large group, my knees are shaking, my voice is trembling, I don’t know what to say and my face turns red. But time after time I resolutely extend my hand (albeit scary), jump out enthusiastically to the center of the group and find myself in the top three of the daredevils. And I get great pleasure from the fact that each time I go out to the group more and more confidently, I speak even brighter, I become more experienced. I’m done! I work! I’m trying! I am developing!
Adequate goal setting for training
This is, firstly, when the goal of the participant fits into the thematic framework of the training.
For example, the goal of “Learning to look people in the eye with ease and pleasure when communicating” is a perfectly adequate goal for Communication Mastery. But the goal of “Learn to firmly defend my interests” is rather closer to the topic of the “Winners” training. Setting such a goal for yourself at the Basic training will hardly be adequate.
The goal “Become more self-confident” is specially worked out at the “Confidence Training”, but can also be achieved at the Basic, if the participant has a clear idea of what exactly he will have to do during the training.
In addition, an adequate goal is one that the training participant:
- I realized how important it is for me personally. (Not for the coach or his assistant.)
- Wants to reach it. (And it is not guided by the fact that the goal, it seems, should be, and towards it, it seems, you have to go — after all, I’m a decent person.)
- He sees that this goal can be worked out at this training, there are conditions for this.
- Understands how to do this in the conditions of this training or knows whom to contact for advice on this matter.
- Provided self-motivation to achieve it.