The GROW Model

The GROW Model is a tool which can help you or your coach to set goals and develop the action plan.  Whilst it is most commonly used in the context of one-on-one coaching, it can be employed in the context of personal goal setting too as a gauge to ensuring the goal is truly attainable. The GROW Model is essentially a framework for directing effective questions about the goal and its achievement.  It consists of 4 stages:

 

Goal: This stage involves us focusing your attention solely on the goal that you desire.  Here it is important that we employ all the tools and guidelines applicable to goals and the goal setting process.  The outcome of this stage should be a goal that is both clearly and precisely defined; accepting of course that it may well change in the future.  It will almost certainly require a self dialog and asking yourself questions, such as “what do I want to achieve”, “how might I make this goal more specific”, “how can I make this goal measurable” and “do I really think that my goal is achievable by me through my own efforts”?  We might also ask ourselves, “are there any sub-goals that I might include as milestones to reaching my goal” and “when do I want to have achieved my goal by”? Many of the questions can be formed though the SMART approach.

 

Reality: This stage involves us considering your current situation by reflecting upon where you are “now” in relation to the goal.  This must be done objectivity, however it is very easy at this stage to allow limiting beliefs to creep

in; be cautious.  Often people distort their reality with the opinions, judgements, expectations and beliefs of other people, in addition to those that they undoubtedly hold themselves.  For this reason it is important you maintain a degree of detachment and be descriptive rather than evaluative.  At the end of this stage it is usually worth checking that the original goal that we made is still valid and holds a level of priority, a solid reason why.  Many people find that they need to amend it in light of what they have learned about themselves during the reality stage.  The type of questions you ask yourself may include, “what is my current situation now with respect to my goal”, ”how close to my goal am I”, “what are the reasons for this” and “how do I think achieving my goal will make me think, feel and act in the future”? 

 

Options: Having looked at the reality of the current situation, this stage involves considering the options available in terms of how you might make the goal a reality.  It is important to recognise, however, that the purpose of this stage is not so much to find the “right” answer, as it is to create and list as many alternatives as possible.  In doing so, you should continually try to think “outside of the box”, whilst reflecting objectively on the relative strengths and weakness of each option, what things we might already have in support of each option, and yet other things you might need.  Throughout this stage you must

remain aware of negative assumptions such as “that option wouldn’t work” or “I wouldn’t be allowed to do that”.  By asking yourself effective questions, or better still getting other people to ask them, such as your coach, you can over-ride this negative and self-limiting tendency and challenge the reality of our situation by asking ourselves “what are the reasons for me thinking this way”.  Similarly, the “what if” approach often produces yet more options.  In this way you may ask yourself, “what if I had more time” or “what if this wasn’t the case”.  Often, however, you might be unable to see an option that someone else can, so be open to suggestion.  Here, you may ask others, “are there any options that I haven’t yet considered?”  But having asked the question we must at least be prepared to consider the answer!  Examples of other questions that you might ask during this stage might include “how might I achieve this goal”, “how have other people achieved similar goals” and “what other options might I have open to me”?

 

Will: Whilst the Options stage is about what you “could” do, the Will stage is about what you “will” do.  This is arguably the most important stage because it is the one in which decisions are made and from which action is derived.  It is during this stage that you ask yourself “what option/'s will I choose?”  Having run down our list of options and summarised them, you may well have just one preferred option that you wish to act upon or several that you wish to implement at once.  Alternatively you may prioritise several options on the basis of “if that doesn’t work then I’ll do this”.  Once you have made your choice, it is often a good idea to check that our chosen course of action will help achieve your goal.  It is then essential to commit to your time scale by asking ourselves, “when will I start working towards my goal?”  If we have employed the GROW Model properly, committing to our action plan in this way is the natural conclusion to the goal setting process.

This is a great web site