Are your Goals what you really Want?
Using EFT to release "false goals" and strengthen true ones.

Goals are central to coaching. Coaching only has a purpose in relation to a goal that the client wants to achieve. It is important to coaches that they are coaching for a good purpose - that they are helping a client achieve what they really want. It's also important to clients that they expend their time and energy (and money) on achieving goals that they really want.

In my view, a coach should never just accept a client's goal without checking that it is congruent with their values and beliefs, or without exploring what's driving this goal and where it originated. Does it come from the client's "true self"? Or does it come from "shoulds" and "ought to's"? Or from parents and teachers? Or is it simple peer pressure?

Now, it's hard to say to a client "Are you sure that's really what you want?" if you have picked up information about their values and personality which make their stated goal seem odd. (For instance, the client who has been working on achieving a more balanced home life suddenly says they want a promotion at work that will require even longer hours and travelling away from home). Even asking the question seems to imply a judgement on the part of the coach. But EFT offers the perfect way to allow the real feelings around a goal to be explored, without the coach's judgement being an issue.

The relief that clients can experience when they finally let go of an ambition that wasn't really theirs, can be enormous and life-changing. In one of my introductory workshops I was demonstrating Psychological Reversal using muscle testing on one participant. She had a long-standing project ambition which wasn’t going anywhere and was weighing heavily on her. She tested “strong” to the statement “I don’t want to do this project” and weak to the statement “I want to do this project”. We didn’t even need to do any EFT. She turned to me and said “I don’t really have to do this project at all, do I? I can let it go.”

But you don't need to do any muscle testing to find out how you really feel about your goals. Using standard EFT can be used to test how much you really want something:

First rate the degree to which you want your stated goal (the job, the PhD, the marriage, the car, the boat etc). Let's say you rate it as a 9. Then do EFT as follows:

"Even though I really want this <goal>, I deeply and completely accept myself"

You are looking for any thoughts about the goal that come up while tapping, such as relevant memories, or strong realisations. Sometimes the thoughts can be fears or insecurities about achieving the goal ("I'm scared I'll fail", "I'm not sure if I have the ability"). But sometimes they can be negative feelings about the goal itself ("I'll be a failure if I don't", "I won't be accepted", "I wish I didn't have to get this goal", "I remember my Dad always wanted to do this").

Aswell as noticing what thoughts occur, take the rating again. If the desire for the goal was based on any kind of negative emotion or belief ("People will look down on me if I don't have this", "I'll die poor if I don't do this") then it's likely that the EFT will have started to shift those negative emotions. And the effect will be that the rating of how much you want the goal will start to drop.

If on the other hand, the desire for the goal is being driven by genuine love of the thing itself, or is an expression of your true essence and life purpose, your desire rating is likely to stay rock solid - or even increase, since negative emotions that were trying to limit your desire (fear, doubt etc) may have been shifted.

If it's a really big goal, it's a good idea to do several rounds of EFT, altering the words to elicit different associated meanings. For instance, if your goal is to own a boat, you might explore what that goal means for you as follows: "Even though I really want a boat...", "Even though I really want to be rich enough to have a boat...","Even though I think I should have a boat to prove I am a success...", "Even though I want the freedom of being able to sail away...", "Even though I doubt if I'll ever have a boat...".

If you have many goals, make a list and then track your feelings about them by checking your "intensity of desire" and updating the list over time. Even if you just cull a few false goals from your list, you will have saved yourself an enormous amount of time and energy which can be turned towards achieving the goals you do really want.

This was an excerpt from my forthcoming ebook The EFT Coach which will be available shortly.

Upcoming events:

The following introductory EFT workshops have been scheduled for Spring 2004.

The cost of all workshops is £80 per person.

There is an early booking discount of £10 (see early booking dates), plus an additional £10 discount if you book two or more places.

Location will be either central Ipswich or the Harmony Centre at Halesworth.

Sunday 8th February 2004 - Introduction to EFT
(early booking by 25th Jan)
 

Sunday 7th March 2004 - Introduction to EFT
(early booking by 22nd Feb)
 

Sunday 4th April 2004 - Introduction to EFT
(early booking by 21st March)

The default focus will be on stress reduction, but can be adjusted according to participant interest.
 

I am available for introductory talks and demonstrations to any interested group within an hour's travel of Ipswich, free of charge. If you know of any group, club, school, charitable institution or society who would be interested in hearing about EFT, simply email me or call to arrange.

One less pain in the neck
EFT reduces stress-related neck pain in 20 minutes

When Sue (name used with permission) sat down for a 20 minute taster session with me at the Woodbridge Health Fayre, she had a long-standing problem with pain and stiffness in her neck and shoulders. She associated the problem with stress issues and wanted to see if EFT could help. I explained that, as with all use of EFT, I didn't know for certain whether it would help or not until we tried it - but since there seemed to be at least some emotional component to the problem it was worth a try. Her initial intensity of pain was 6 out of 10 and there was also some restriction in mobility of head movement that was possible without causing discomfort.

We did approximately 5 rounds of EFT in  total, and even though Sue suspected some stress triggers we targeted purely the physical symptoms: "Even though my neck hurts...", "Even though I have this sore neck...", "Even though there's still some pain left..." and so on.

The soreness level dropped steadily with each round, finishing up at about a 1. Sue was also able to rotate her head significantly further on both sides compared to when we started. Although this was a good result I was interested to see whether the pain might return in response to future stress - since it is quite common for EFT to be able to help reduce immediate symptoms but for them to re-occur if the underlying emotional causes have not been addressed. Sue took away a copy of the EFT procedure for future reference.

Sue contacted me two weeks after the Fayre saying: "...the neck has been lots better!  I've had a couple of relapses but some tapping has eased it and it's certainly much, much better than it was.  Still lots of other things to work through, and I've spent some time on them, but I think I need to dedicate a bit more specific time to working things out." 

Not only had the effects of the EFT had been sustained over a period of time, but the simplicity of the basic EFT procedure had allowed Sue to maintain control over the pain on the couple of occasions when it flared up. And even though Sue knows there are other avenues to be explored regarding her stress, she now has a tool to enable to her to start making progress in her own time whenever she decides to.
 

Gary's Corner

Gary Craig, the originator of EFT maintains an excellent website packed with real case histories. Each month I select case histories that really show the power and range of EFT.

This month:

Claustrophobia relieved in one session

This is a nice example as it goes into details of the various different aspects that were covered and the overall process that occurred during the session.

Learn EFT now! You can start using EFT for yourself right now by downloading my EFT QuickStart manual.

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