Coaching practices for Goal Clarification Therapy

Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For Goal Clarification Therapy, these are the strongest matches in the current practice library.

Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?

• When I try to untangle one of these convictions in my head it just spins
• Everything I say I want is really a thing I want to stop
• I go in to ask for one clear thing and the other person throws out a counter-grievance or an old argument, and suddenly we’re ten miles off topic
• All day my attention goes straight to what went wrong
• When someone I’m coaching brings me a topic, we just end up circling it and venting

Practices that may help

1. Use a challenging beliefs worksheet to work a stuck point completely
   The CPT challenging beliefs worksheet is a structured, written process for examining one stuck point at a time.
   Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT): Unsticking the Meanings That Maintain PTSD
2. Using the Miracle Question for Goal Clarification
   Apply the miracle question to clarify the real goal underneath an initially stated complaint or problem.
   The Miracle Question: Designing Your Life Without the Problem
3. Stay mindful of your goal when the conversation gets difficult
   Keep returning to your goal and resist being pulled into side arguments or emotional spirals.
   DEAR MAN: DBT’s Skill for Asking for What You Want Effectively
4. The Formula First-Session Task and Between-Session Noticing
   Assign between-session observation tasks that direct attention toward what’s already working.
   Solution-Focused Brief Therapy: Building On What Works
5. Clarify the Goal with precision
   Establish exactly what the person wants to achieve — not the presenting topic, but the specific, owned outcome.
   The GROW Coaching Model, Made Practical
6. Values clarification
   Name the directions you want your life to move in, distinct from goals you can check off.
   Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), Made Practical
7. Make process goals behaviorally specific enough to direct attention
   A vague process goal ("try harder") is not a process goal — it must specify what to do with your body and attention.
   Process Goals, Made Practical
8. Set the Goal — establish what the conversation is for
   Begin every coaching conversation by clarifying what the person wants to achieve in this session.
   The GROW Model: Coaching Conversations That Actually Move People
9. Preferred Future: Describing Life When the Problem Is Solved
   Ask the person to describe in concrete, behavioral detail what life looks like when things are better.
   Solution-Focused Brief Therapy: Building On What Works
10. One-minute goals: write them short enough to re-read in a minute
    A goal that cannot be stated on a single page is too vague to be evaluated or acted on.
    The One Minute Manager: Three Practices That Still Work

Describe your situation in your own words to search the complete practice library.