Part Four wraps up our program with a time for the coachee to review, reflect, record, and prepare for their future. The role of the coach during this time focuses on support and accountability, as the coachee commits to goals and prepares to grow.
Lifelong learning, emotional intelligence, mastery, authenticity...these are overarching general goals with different meanings and importance. Whichever ones matter (or even if they all matter, to different degrees), they are only achievable and sustainable with:
Goals can be to "win" as a final outcome, but gains can also be to "live in the flow", constantly improving as you move forward. Commit to patterns of achievement, with little wins on the way, for sparks of joy and inspiration to move you forward in your journey.
Based on what you have learned about yourself and where your future lies throughout this process, what SMART Goals and small steps are you willing to commit to in order to achieve that future?
While you're working through defining what's next, you may want to work through this question with your coach: Why does taking pride in your goals matter more for LGBTQ+ people, and how can you apply the word "pride" to your goals?
"The more pride you have in a particular aspect of your identify, the more motivated you will be to maintain the habits associated with it. If you're proud of how your hair looks, you'll develop all sorts of habits to care for and maintain it. If you're proud of the size of your biceps, you'll make sure you never skip an upper-body workout. If you're proud of the scarves you knit, you'll be more likely to spend hours knitting each week. Once your pride gets involved, you'll fight tooth and nail to maintain your habits." -James Clear, 'Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones'
Spending the last two weeks with your coach on reviewing where you are and where you want to go is as important as the first discovery stages. In fact, you may find yourself returning to those first steps after you have interviewed people in a new field, sat in on some webinars, or started a course and are now wondering what made you decide this would be your new career! Remember to keep iterating, revise your plan and make new goals as needed, and commit to staying curious.
You may have noticed that there has been no discussion of marketing yourself, of creating your brand, or of becoming an influencer in this program. This program sees you as more than a product to be commoditized. The hope instead is that you will gain access to an ever-better, increasingly authentic and more fulfilled version of yourself.
As you wrap up the program, we invite you to document your What's Next? journey. This can take the form of a story, cartoon, video, infographic, or any other artifact, in whatever way you wish to honor the work you've done and commemorate the journey. We would be honored to have you share that journey in the graduation event at the end of the program.
<aside> ⬅️ Return to Part 3: Risks, Opportunities, and Unknown Unknowns
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<aside> ➡️ Continue to Wrap-Up: Share Your Narrative
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