Milestones

This week I celebrated a significant milestone and it got me thinking, not only about the milestones in my life but also about those in my clients’ journeys.

A milestone often marks a significant achievement, the start of a new chapter, a breakthrough or discovery. It strikes me that what is significant to one person may seem small to another, yet these milestones are often the ones that mark major change or turning points in a person's life.

Learning French, I experience the odd lightbulb moment when I suddenly grasp a grammatical concept that unlocks the door to the next more complex grammar rule. Those little moments are significant breakthroughs to me but each one really very small and sometimes very obvious to others, they’re my milestones nevertheless.

Most of my coachees come to me with a milestone in mind, e.g. to solve a problem with a business partner, to get a job or to get the promotion that’s been evading them. On the way to those milestones, coaching often finds others – the time they invest in themselves and my questions help coachees to identify their blockers so they then set themselves other milestones, stepping stones to the big one.

Such milestones measure the progress toward the ultimate goal, they operate as signal posts for a specific point in their career development journey, an indicator of progress, which helps to track their overall success.

We all like to think that milestone birthdays lead to exciting turning points in our lives. I’m aiming for this year to be the one that Crescendo Coaching is able to help even more business professionals to reach and get past their next milestones.