"To exist is to change, to change is to mature, to mature is to go on creating oneself endlessly." 

— Henri Bergson

While the coaching I do is absolutely about helping my clients achieve personal or professional goals, I will be honest with you: I do have a secret agenda (or two) in my coaching practice. 

OK, I'm not actually not that sneaky about it – I let them in on it, and here it is:

1) Good coaching will help you (or your team) articulate goals, overcome obstacles, and make significant change in your life or organization.  Great coaching will not just rearrange the circumstances of your life or team, it will transform it.  As I sometimes say, this stuff is not for wimps.

2) Transformation in coaching comes about via the dual action of cultivating greater awareness, or insight, and harnessing that insight with action.  I like to say that coaching is a two legged animal that moves forward on these two legs: awareness harnessed with action, action that creates more insight.

3) I don't want clients to work with me forever.  I want them to get their insight and meet their goals, and get back out there, clearly knowing and willing to act on what they care about in the world.  I want clients to be able to ask themselves their own coaching questions so that they can coach themselves once coaching with me is over.  I invite clients to see the notes, exercises and assignments they do in coaching as creating the owner's manual on themselves — a resource that they can use long beyond when coaching is completed.

That's my not-so-secret agenda — what's yours?