How many times have you had clients come to you engaged "full-time" in every aspect of their lives and simply too exhausted to carry out an effective job search? It is important that we acknowledge this state in our clients and help them protect themselves. After all, we live in a high-speed society which values working full-time, parenting full-time, participating in professional associations, developing a home, caring for parents, being a good friend, being significant for a significant other, taking an interest in our community, building a fund for retirement and now acquiring competency to adjust to a constantly changing workplace.

It is important to give our clients permission to take some time out to assess their lives and figure out how to have more control of their time before they take on a job search. As you know
committing to a shift or change in a career is an enormous addition to ones life. It can be a renewing and exhilarating period of significant personal growth. It also takes time and a great deal of physical and emotional energy. If a client is in"full-time" mode, something has to be modified or the job search and career counseling experience will not be successful.

You might even ask your client if they agree with the old adage, "If you add something to your life, you should drop something from your life." Point out that this is a good time to consider life/work balance with a serious look at how the "life" part of you is going to fare with the "work" part of you."

In addition, some of your clients may be facing career shifts or changes that are not of their choice. This may have been forced because of a company reorganization, loss of a job, a change in marital status, illness, family crisis, a geographical move, or an empty nest. Any of these losses are create an enormous amount of stress in and of themselves and should not be shoved aside. Recommend reading William Bridges, Transitions , Hyatt and Gottlieb's chapter on "The Stages of Loss from Losing Your Job" from When Smart People Fail. A summary can be found at http://lifeworktransitions.com/articles/artcs.html

Bob Ginn, former director of Harvard's Career Services has said, "In the process of setting goals, we come to know ourselves. Virtually every cultural tradition holds among its central principles, know thyself. Knowing ourselves, the capacity for reflective self awareness, is perhaps our greatest personal achievement, at least the one that is important to career success."

One of the classic books in goal setting is Alan Lakien's How to Get in Control of Your Time and Your Life. As the title suggests, time management is an integral part of goal setting, and goal setting will help your clients get in charge of their lives. Goal setting will help them project into the future, maintain a better balance in life, and increase effective use of time. It is also a grounding activity and will help over-engaged clients evaluate their lives as a whole so that "life/work balance" can be a reality.

The three goal exercises found at http://lifeworktransitions.com/exercises/exercs.html walk your clients through a goal setting process. In "Goal Setting by Area of Life," they will be looking at their lives, at this point in time, in general categories with work/career being only one of them . They will be asked to write their thoughts about work/career, money, lifestyle/possessions, relationships, creative self expression, fun and recreation, personal growth, health.

The second exercise is a visual representation, a Wheel of Life, with each category from the Goal Setting by Life exercise represented in pie shaped wedges. The purpose of this exercise is for clients to assess the current level of satisfaction with each area. They should also indicate the amount of time spent on each area. When completing these exercises, your client will see which areas of life need more attention and which ones can take less time enabling time for a job search.

The third exercise helps clients prioritize what they have learned, focus on the changes needed, and state these changes in the form of goal statements. This exercise, "Goal Setting: Lifetime Goals," was created by Alan Lakien. To help get to the core of how to spend your life, he asks questions related to time periods of life. Lakien and every other goals expert stresses the importance of writing down goals. In addition, he feels you can tap into your intuitive side by writing within a limited time period, perhaps only two minutes on each section. The last step is to determine the most important goals and put them in rank order.

Share these tips for writing goals with your clients.
1. Write goals down on paper as specifically as possible. A goal committed to paper becomes a concrete expression of your intentions.
2. State goals in the positive, something you want, not something you want to leave behind.
3. Make your goals realistic, challenging but not discouraging. Goal setting is not supposed to put you on a guilt trip or make you depressed.
4. Goals should be measurable so that progress can be noted. Make realistic deadlines so you can anticipate closure.
5. Keep a long-term focus so that you may learn from the setbacks rather than being discouraged.
6. Review your goals regularly; goals are a work in progress and will naturally need modifications
7. Prioritize your goals, over and over
8. Celebrate Your Successes

The next step in your clients goal setting process is to compose action steps which will make goals a reality and increase lifework balance. Action steps are concrete things that can be accomplished. They prevent setting goals that are too lofty and only lead to discouragement. Writing down action steps provides a wonderful check list leading for success.

Encourage clients to keep a notebook in which to write goals in the form of a working draft. Goal statements, if they are any good, are always an on-going process. They will change as a client gathers more information and as major changes occur in any area of their lives and in the lives of people close to them. If a goal is not serving your client, give them permission to give it up. Make sure your clients reward themselves each time they accomplish an action step. They deserve it!

When your clients finishes these exercises, they will have an overall working plan for their lives focusing on the changes they want to make. The plan will result in easier decision making and consequently better time management allowing time to engage in a career change or job search.

If you would like to read more about goal setting, there are some excellent sites on the Internet. A wonderful site is from Australia and is called "If It's to Be, It's Up to Me" at http://www.smc.qld.edu.au/goals.htm. "The 7 Steps to Creating Powerful Written Goals" by Gene Donohue cuts right to the chase. He will also also email a "Personal Achievement Quote of the Day!" if you want to subscribe. You will find his site at http://www.topachievement.com/goalsetting.html .