Top Coaching Questions to Achieve Smart Goals

5 نوفمبر 2022

What are the best types of coaching questions to ask when using smart goals? This depends on the needs and conditions of your customer or colleague.

Are there principles that help you shape coaching questions that run in parallel with smart goals? Are there any important and fundamental strategic questions that can be used?

The answer is yes, so this article discusses the key coaching asking strategies to achieve smart goals that we define the questions as specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and Time-bound.

Unclear goals are one of the biggest obstacles to effective goal setting and performance. Effective goals are clear, specific, measurable, and time-bound, hence Measurable goals alert you to focus your efforts.

“Setting the goal right is halfway reached” said Zig Ziglar, the author of the bestselling book See You at the Top.

The importance of smart goals is that they are a tool that helps your customer set specific and measurable goals, and these are the types of goals that research is likely to achieve in 35 years.

A smart goal gives a clear result for what the customer wants to achieve, but remember that the goal process is at a later stage, so it is not about how.

Your job as a coach when helping a customer set smart goals is to make it easier for them to describe the destination they want to reach clearly, in a measurable way, and on a set deadline.

Coaching questions to achieve smart goals:

Below are coaches' favorite questions for achieving a smart goal, so always remember to tailor these questions to each customer:

1. Specific Questions:

Are you helping the customer to clearly identify his destination?
What in particular, do you want to achieve?
What can you say to describe the outcome you want more clearly?
Have you set a reasonable timeframe? Tell me in detail what you intend to accomplish by then.
Tell me what will it look like when you succeed in achieving this goal?

2. Measurable Questions:

Are you helping your customer determine the way they measure their progress?
How will you know that you have achieved your goal?
On a 10-point scale, which number represents your success in achieving the goal? And what's it going to look like when you get to this number?
What is one of the best ways to measure your success in achieving your goal?

3. Achievable Questions:

Can your customer achieve this goal?
How confident are you that this goal can actually be achieved?
On a scale of 1 to 10, where 10 means that achieving the goal is very possible, where do you put your goal on this scale?

4. Relative Questions:

Is this goal a top priority for your customer?
What is so important to you in this goal?
What would be different and particularly meaningful to you in achieving this goal?
How does this goal relate to your most important values?

5. Time-Bound Questions:

Does the customer have a set deadline to achieve their goal?
What is the deadline for achieving your goal?
When will you reach this goal feeling a high degree of satisfaction?
When do you want to make it happen?
At what date will you make significant progress in completing this milestone?

After setting smart goals, the next step is to help the customer take action to achieve their goal.