I will never forget the day I looked at my goals sheet in my office and tore it to pieces. I had not achieved (nor was I ever likely to achieve) a single one of my short, medium and longer term goals. After three years of illness, I had simply run out of time. It took me weeks to 'process' the pain, the anger and the disappointment I felt as a result.

At that time, I only conceived of goals as milestones of achievement. Goals were all about what I got, or what I got done. I saw anything to do with my being as too big for goal setting. To use a commonly-used expression, being was more about the journey than about the destination. In any case, even being goals were about getting from one place to another.

I look at goals a little more comprehensively these days. This is what I am learning:

• It isn't necessary - nor is it helpful - for me to reduce my goals to getting targets or milestones.

• I can expand my goal setting repertoire to include giving goals.

• It is important for me to focus on what I can give others but also, and this is a big breakthrough for me, on what I can give me. I also need to include what others can give me, an even bigger breakthrough. I remember scribbling in my diary one day, totally out of the blue: 'give others the gift of giving'. As a result, I have become much better at accepting (another form of allowing) what others offer me, with gratitude and with grace.

• I now know how to switch from transmitting to receiving mode, in its broadest sense. I pay great attention to what others tell me about me. I also listen to what my body tells me about who I am.

• I have a set of receiving goals: I think of them with an eager sense of anticipation. I have no idea HOW they'll come about, I just feel (that word again) that they will. In my mind and in my heart, my receiving goals are connected to my power of acceptance and my recovery.

Although I remember talking about  Being in the Flow and the Law of Attraction (both making goal setting more or less redundant), in my coach training, I don't remember ever talking about Giving Goals. I wonder whether this approach would not naturally complete - and balance - the Getting Goals we generally encourage our clients to go for. It could well be that I am years behind the times (that would not surprise me!) and that all this has already been covered in standard coaching studies and practices. If it hasn't, I wish it would.

What do YOU think?