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THE OBJECTIVELESS COACH

Can you imagine a coach without objectives?

Let me explain what this means, so you can understand the question. Surely you know that coaches and trainers are characterized by marking objectives for their clients, and encouraging them to work hard toward achieving them. Here, we will turn the world upside down because, in fact, that is the present state of things, so in fact, we are setting it straight.

If you let me, I will tell you something about me. There was a time when I took note of all the recipes for success that I could find. It was fun; a game to see how far I could go. I must acknowledge that many of those recipes worked toward the end for which they were designed: to be successful, to achieve goals and objectives.

I learned the science of achievement. I understood that success, the art of achieving what is desired, is an almost exact science if you follow a contrasting protocol.

Yes, success is predictable. It is the inevitable effect of a mentality and concrete habits.

To achieve what is desired is not that complicated when you follow models revealed a long time ago, yet still valid today. But, as with everything else, there is a price to pay for success; that price is effort, time and, sometimes, personal sacrifice. You achieve something at the cost of something. I am not interested in the kind of success, since you will achieve it at the cost of something else... it is bad business.

But since it works, and because results are actually evidenced, one ends up becoming a greyhound, always chasing a hare. The bad news is that there are many hares to chase, and they are faster every time.

One day, after having caught up with many hares, you suddenly stop. And question why you are running so much. Then, you decide to stop running and carry on, but this time, you decide to walk. If you have seen the movie “Forrest Gump,” you’ll remember that moment of profound revelation. Suddenly, you no longer feel like running; not because you are tired, but rather because it is something you’ve done before, and you want to pass on to something new. You’ve had enough. You start to think that there needs to be another way to act in life.

When you are a runner and you stop running, you become something else.

When you are a coach and you stop setting objectives, you become something else.

When you are an entrepreneur and stop focusing on your own interests, you become something else.

That is how I changed my profession in a heartbeat. Many of my clients did not understand. What was I going to do now? I had abandoned them. I self-proclaimed myself as an objectiveless coach. Was I reneging coaching? No, in fact, I was taking it to another level. I wanted to achieve the same thing, even more, but from another disposition: pure consciousness.

Spiritual ambition consists in not settling with a retread ego.

Since I did not expect immediate understanding, I apologized and closed my coaching firm, which by the way filled my schedule with client appointments, and was a very lucrative source of income. I decided that, when everything was going great, it was the ideal moment to pass on to something else, or my own success would devour me.

Yes, my dear reader, I concluded that a good coach cannot have goals. I understood that everything was simpler and that, at most, I could set a single objective for myself. And what could be that single and unique objective that would substitute the avalanche of goals which I and my clients had pursued so strenuously? It did not take long for me to discover that unique objective.

One single thing. The only thing.

I understood that not having objectives is, in itself, an objective. So I would adopt “the objective of not having objectives,” that was it. That way, I could continue to coach, but now as “an inverted coach,” with the sole objective of not having objectives.

One has to be consistent with their principles, or run the risk of losing one’s self. To lose yourself kicks you out of the game.

How I reached that conclusion is unimportant, but the reading of Buddhist texts had an influence in the process. As you know, Buddhism extols the cessation of desire as a key point of its philosophy. But, is that not a desire in and of itself? Of course, I thought, Buddhists desire to not desire. That, right there, is an objective. They affect themselves to disaffection! And they reject aversion! Very contradictory, in my opinion. They also have desires.

Deep down, both them and us, all of us, are deeply confounded. But as I consider them wise, I decided to play along: my objective would be to live free of objectives. And become an “objectiveless enlightened coach.” Period.

You may be wondering: How do I practice having no objectives? I will give you a few hints:

 By asking myself: What drives me to achieve it?

 Accepting that I never know what is best for myself.

 Giving all my steps to love, and letting Him guide me.

 Not making decisions for my own benefit.

 Not worrying about how the slumber ends.

 Accepting that there are some dreams better than others, because they are all unreal.

 Not playing my ego’s game.

 Letting myself care little for what people think of me.

Let me share with you a most interesting fact:

As an enlightened coach, I was going to set for myself the sole objective of not having objectives. That, in our Western Civilization, is a very provocative paradoxical idea. But, since I have always been contrary to the norm, and I have done very well for myself, I destroyed one of my professional roles (as a coach) and let a new form of facing the search for success kick in, without setting so many objectives. Every time I reached a milestone, I reinvented to reach the next one without falling asleep in the laurels of self-complacency. The best way to succeed more is to question success itself.

I insist that being an “objectiveless coach” requires a lot of vigilance, discipline, and work, so as to not fall into self-complacency and laziness. It is not about letting go of yourself, but rather committing to your “real self.” If humanity had the internal discipline to recognize itself on a daily basis, this book would be completely unnecessary.

Do not forget: we are trained to live in collective hypnosis, believing that happiness depends on achieving something on our own. We have been instructed in the culture of doing, not in the culture of being.

There is something better to “do and achieve,” and it requires that we “be and achieve.”

In that new stadium of leit motiv consciousness, chasing objectives is replaced by being the objective. In the end, you discover that being is enough to have all doors open to achieve what you most desire. Minimum consciousness, minimum results; maximum consciousness, maximum results.

So now, my dear reader, my only objective is to stay awake and not fall back into the slumber that decrees that I have to achieve something on my own, because that will improve my life. I recognize that this lucidity requires much more of me than achieving goals.

Now, the challenge is to achieve everything by doing nothing.