Success Through Self Coaching

It’s a question all of us think about at one point or another.

For some, the answer comes easily. For others, it takes a lifetime to figure out.

It’s easy to just go through the motions and continue to do what’s comfortable and familiar. But for those of you who seek fulfilment, who want to do more, these questions will help you paint a clearer picture of what you want to do with your life.

1. What are the things I’m most passionate about?
2. What are my greatest accomplishments in life so far?
3. If my life had absolutely no limits, what would I choose to have and what would I choose to do?
4. What are my goals in life?
Goals are a necessary component to set you up for a happy future. So answer these questions:
- What are your health goals?
- What are your career goals?
- What are your family goals?
5. Whom do I admire most in the world?
6. What do I not like to do?

Great question!

Before I answer this for you, I actually want to clarify what coaching is – and isn’t – to make sure we’re on the same page.

Coaching is a form of personal and professional development. Coaching is a powerful relationship in which a coach creates a safe container for change for the client. The coach asks questions that help the client see herself and her world in new and powerful ways that create change.

Coaching is not therapy. Therapy asks questions about the past to figure out how you got here. Therapy supports the healing of past traumas and supports working through behaviours in the present.

Coaching is not consulting. Consultants also ask you questions about the present and the future to figure out how to get you there, however consultants tell you how to get there. Coaches will ask you what you want to do to get there, and help you to find the solutions that are perfect for you.

While coaching is something I believe everyone can benefit from, it’s often too expensive for most people to commit to on a regular basis – and that’s not okay.

Coming out of my own coach training program, I remember thinking, “OH MY GOD…I know how powerful this coaching is, and I just spent INR 2 Lakh on this program, and I’m a new entrepreneur, bootstrapping my way through life, and I just can’t afford this right now.”

While I maintain that there’s nothing more powerful for personal growth and development than having a coach in your corner to respect you fiercely, to ask questions that will open eyes and opportunities and insights, and to call you on your shit, self-coaching can be super powerful.

- Self-coaching is the ability to create a safe, supportive, conducive space that will serve as the container for your own growth and development.

- Self-coaching is the ability to see yourself as “in progress,” and to learn and reflect in ways that will cultivate your own self-awareness, and to bring attention yourself as an observer, an actor, and a responder in this world.

- Self-coaching is the ability to bring mindful attention to the beliefs, stories, thoughts, patterns, and habits that govern your life.

- Self-coaching is the ability to use your greater awareness to create change through small experiments in how we show up in the world, and to nonjudgmentally analyse our own results.

- Self-coaching is a team effort as we seek support and greater awareness from friends, family, co-workers, and our communities (including the GLY community!).

- Self-coaching is a commitment to educating ourselves about limiting beliefs, polarities, paradoxes, fears, adult development theory, competing commitments, insecurities, and shame. The greater awareness we bring to our own thought patterns and the messages that have been inculcated with, the greater we can understand the influence and impacts they have on our lives.

Self-coaching is a great alternative when one-on-one coaching is not available. Some great advantages include:

- Increased awareness of your own strengths and capabilities

- Increased awareness of your thoughts, patterns and habit

- Understanding that you can choose which thought, pattern or habit supports you or holds you back

- Growth in self-confidence, self awareness, determination, motivation, and problem solving abilities

- Self-coaching may become an automatic response to challenges

A good self-coaching process will allow you to explore your thinking, ideas, and beliefs in order for you to create effective strategies so you get the results you want. It will also train you to think differently and enable you to take more control over your life. Most of all, self-coaching is a time to slow down, be mindful and check in with yourself and to determine what is right or best for you.

- Create the container for growth: This may mean having a dedicated time, space, playlist, or ritual that you engage in.
- Write everything down: Countless studies point to the importance of writing down goals, journaling, and reflecting on paper. Even if you don’t consider yourself the journaling type, do it.
- Set goals: What is this all for? Set a clear goal for what you want to be different at the end of your self-coaching engagement. What do you want to be different? How do you want to be different?
- Integrate mindfulness: Reconnect your head to your body through breathing techniques, non-judgmental awareness, guided or unguided meditation. You’ll be surprised at what clarity and insight come from simple mindfulness techniques alone.
- Ask yourself questions you can’t yet answer: And don’t expect an answer to come right away. It may, it may take time journaling, or you may need to sit in the question for some time. That’s a perfectly normal and acceptable result of coaching.

SUCCESS THROUGH SELF-COACHING

Here’s what self-coaching is...

Advantages of Self-Coaching

Strategies for self-coaching include...

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"A great testimonial about your product or service. It should tell how your product solved the problem for customer. "