How To Coach High Achievers Towards Success Without All The Stress

One of your biggest strengths as a high achiever is that you love WINNING.

Your drive to succeed is inspiring. And the sacrifices you are willing to make to win is humbling.

But as a coach to high achievers, here’s something I know about you – your biggest STRENGTHS also lead to your biggest STRUGGLES…

As much as you love WINNING, you secretly never taste the full satisfaction and joy from that victory.

Even though from the outside, it looks like you’ve done remarkable things, you don’t feel a true sense of accomplishment.

I was recently coaching an entrepreneur who had a record-breaking month in sales – his company just made more money last month than in an entire quarter of the previous year.

And another who had just signed a contract for a major book deal – her lifelong dream.

In both instances, they celebrated their BIG WIN – but for just a few minutes.

Soon after, the TASTE of their recent victory had been overtaken by their THIRST of a bigger goal.

There’s nothing wrong with this. In fact, it’s this drive and mindset that makes them high achiever in the first place.

But here’s the real problem – No amount of successes will make them feel happy about their current progress, TODAY. Because in their IDEAL FUTURE, there’s always something bigger and bolder to achieve and get done.

How do I know this is true? Because, as a high achiever, I struggled with this too. And I still fall into this trap from time to time.

Psychologists call this Hedonic Adaptation. Where we humans quickly adapt to our “new normal, even when that new normal is very different from what our life used to be.

And as high achievers, once we get fixated on that new goal, we fail to see every other progress that has been made around us. Psychologists call this Inattentional Blindness.

So how do you coach high achievers to not just WIN but to also feel HAPPY about their successes every single day?

In this newsletter, I share the 1 mindset shift and 3 simple habits that enable you to do this masterfully as their coach.

Everything starts with this critical realization:

It’s not the QUANTITY of your client’s goals or the QUALITY of their achievements that creates this sense of dissatisfaction. It’s how they MEASURE their own PROGRESS.

There are only 2 ways to measure your progress:

Measurements that face forward look into our ideal future and try to guess when we will get somewhere.

For Example:

– Can I increase my income by 20% in this next quarter?

– How do I lose 5 kgs in the next 3 months?

– Can I find 3 amazing clients to work with in the next 6 months?

But here’s the thing – An ideal cannot be measured. It’s like the horizon that you can keep moving towards but never really reach. It fuels you but cannot fulfill you. That permanent distance between your actual achievements and your ideal version of it creates “The Gap”. And this is a gap that can never fully be filled.

Measuring your success facing forwards leads to disappointment, frustration and a never ending sense of resentment.

There is a better way of measuring your progress. And that involves you turning around and looking back at where you started.

This way you use that ideal future only to fuel you but your progress looking backwards to fulfill you. This is what helps you see your own GAINS.

For Example:

– How much did I grow my income by in the last quarter?

– How much weight did I lose in the last 3 months?

– How many new clients have I signed in the past 6 months?

Knowing how far you have come boosts your courage and your confidence. The most beautiful thing about this is that you don’t need to wait till you reach your IDEAL future to feel happy. Your happiness is no longer tied to that finish line in the future, you get to experience it TODAY.

Measuring backwards also increases your AWARENESS by giving you an active feedback mechanism about your patterns, habits and behaviours. It keeps you grounded in reality instead of only operating from a world of hopes and dreams.

So here’s a 3 letter thumb rule: ABM

Always

Measure

Backwards

3 Ways To Help Your Clients Measure their Progress Backwards

1. Have Them Record Their Top 3 Wins Everyday.

The greatest morale builder at the end of each day is knowing that you made measurable progress against your goals and feeling rewarded for it.

The simplest way is to look back at your day and identify three achievements that can qualify as “wins”. As simple as this sounds, it’s crazy how most clients I share this with find it hard to think of 3 wins when they first begin. Because in the beginning our brain is trained to only look at the BIG achievements as wins.

But the more we practice this, the more we get in the habit of looking for wins, the more we expand our understanding of what qualifies as a “win” in the first place

A productive meeting, a message of gratitude from a friend, quality time with your partner or a lovely walk with your dog can all qualify as a win, if you really let yourself celebrate it. Everyday you feel like you are on a winning streak!

The real test is this – even on your worst day, can you find three wins? Odds are that you can – because it’s not the reality of the situation but your assessment of it that makes it a win and creates your happiness in the first place.

2. Do A Quarterly Review Of Their Top 5 Wins of The Quarter

A 90 day period is a great time to rack up some major wins in life and business. Reflecting on them at the end of these 90 days is a great way to capture not just the wins but the biggest lessons that that emerged from it.

I’ve observed that my clients who measure their accomplishments specifically every 90 days tend to be happier and more energized, because they are more aware of exactly what’s happening in their life and business instead of playing a guessing game.

Instead of answering the question “How are things going?” in general terms, they tend to be very specific in their assessment” and that creates a sense of greater confidence and energy grounded in reality.

3. Your Biggest Wins From The Past Year

A year is a great time frame to see how you have outgrown your former self. It’s a great way to celebrate your former self. And it doesn’t have to wait till the end of the year.

My personal practice is to do this on by birthday – which signifies another year around the Sun for me.