Hey, this is Lindsay Dotzlaf, and you’re listening to Mastering Coaching Skills, episode 286.

To really compete in the coaching industry, you have to be great at coaching. That’s why every week, I will be answering your questions, sharing my stories, and offering tips and advice so you can be the best at what you do. Let’s get to work.

Hey coach, I am pretty excited for today’s episode. I have five things today that I’m going to convince you to love. Are you ready? These are things that every coach must fall in love with in order to make your business or your coaching practice work. If you are an entrepreneur, if you work for yourself, if you run your own business, these are five things you must love.

Some of them are probably going to trigger you a bit. I’ll just throw that out right now. And that’s a good thing because I have a challenge for you at the end. And so as you listen, I want you to think about which ones can you fully get behind and which ones do you feel activated by. Which ones are you like, “Ooh, yeah, I don’t know if I can believe that yet.”

Now, these examples, of course, are based on years and years that I’ve spent coaching coaches and all of the thoughts and the things that they bring me around their business, whether it comes to coaching skills or building their business or having a business that balances with their life. These are things I hear all of the time.

So, if you find yourself really having a hard time with any of these, just know. You’re human. You’re good. I can help you. Listen to this episode over and over. Save it. Some of these will probably get their own future episodes, but for now, we’re just going to do a shorter, brief episode outlining them, and we’ll see how it goes. All right?

So most coaches that I know or that I at least that I work with, they know they love coaching. That’s like not even in question because it’s why they’re here. Maybe it’s why you’re here. But there’s a whole list of other things that the job requires, especially when you’re running your own business, that you have to love. And so I’ve spent some time thinking about what are the top things that if you just convince yourself or you can learn to love them, it will transform your coaching practice.

And these are things that most people are not talking about. Some of them are. Some of them you’re gonna be like, “Yeah, I’ve heard this.” But maybe I’ll say something about it differently or in a different way than what you’ve heard before. And that is my goal for today.

So, a lot of times when coaches feel these things coming up for them that they don’t love them, they just kind of think that something is wrong with them or that maybe they’re not meant to run a business or that if they can only figure this thing out temporarily, that everything will get easier later. Okay, are you ready? Here are the five things.

And before I start naming them, here’s what I want you to know, a couple of things that are very important. One, these are not optional. None of these are optional. They’re also not phases you grow out of. This is your job as a coach, and it’s permanent.

So trust me when I say, if there’s anything you hear that you’re like, “Oh no,” that feels really heavy when you think about it being a permanent part of your job description, then I invite you to work on it and to find someone to help you. I certainly can help you, but there are plenty of other coaches out there, or maybe even do some self-coaching so that you just get on the other side of them.

And I’m not saying you have to love all of them 100% at all times. Like, of course, you’re still human. There are days where some of these things I’m like, “Ugh, these are the worst.” But the closer you can get to being fully on board with all of these things, the better or the more thriving your coaching practice will be.

Thriving coaches, I promise you are not the ones that avoid anything I’m about to say. They are the ones who learn to love them or who are consistently working towards knowing that everything I’m about to say is essential to run your business.

Okay. So number one, this might be high on the list for some of you. You have to learn to love selling. What? Yes. This might be the most resisted one that I hear from my clients. I don’t like to sell. Or I’m just not good at selling. And actually, I’m going to change this to selling/marketing.

In this case, I don’t usually do this, but in this case, I’m going to kind of use them as one and the same. Just kind of putting yourself out there, talking to people about coaching, telling people, “Hey, I can help you. Here’s how.” However you’re doing that.

Often, I work with a lot of coaches who they think like, “I don’t like selling.” It’s a personality trait. Or maybe a moral stance, or it’s just human nature. Like most people just don’t like selling. But it’s not. It is just a skill gap and a skill gap and/or a false thought or narrative about what marketing and selling is. Maybe you’ve identified some ways of marketing and selling that you really do not like, and so you have decided none of it is for me. I cannot do that. This is more like the moral stance, right? The like “That’s gross. No, thank you. It’s not for me.”

But if you’re going to have a business that makes money and not only makes money but that helps all of the people that you want to help, you have to be able to tell them about what you do. I hate to tell you. If you genuinely believe in what you do, not selling is actually the less ethical choice. I want you to think about that.

If you really believe that you have the answer for people to things that they are possibly suffering from or to things that they feel uncomfortable about or to things that you could just help them with, not selling your offer to them is actually the less ethical choice. Let that sink in again. The people who need you can’t find you if you’re not willing to put yourself out there. Okay. Again, this one will probably get its own episode later because I’m going to stop there for now.

Number two, the second thing you have to fall in love with while running your business is the consistent experimenting and evaluating without a finish line. A lot of coaches I work with, I’ve realized they think there’s a point where they will like land on, “Here’s what works,” and then just they can coach, and that’s it. Like, they figure out the business piece, and there’s an end point, and then they can just coach forever. And I’m here to tell you, I promise you, that point just doesn’t exist.

You run a business. It is constant testing, evaluating, problem-solving. It’s literally part of running a business. I don’t care what type of business it is. Any business, I’ve owned multiple businesses at this point, any business comes with all of these things. And especially now, in 2026, as the world evolves faster and faster, technology evolves faster, there’s has to be more testing, evaluating, and even more problem-solving. So you have to find a way to make that something that you enjoy about what you do.

One mistake I see is treating experimentation as a sign that something has gone wrong. No, it’s just a constant thing. Actually, this is something I talk about inside of The Complete Coach, the membership, all of the time. It’s what so much of it is built on is experimenting, evaluating, getting coached, experimenting, evaluating, getting coached, and just doing that over and over and over in a way that you find what works for you.

You find a pattern you love. You find a rhythm that feels great to you, not so that you can stay there forever, but so that it will work right now and that you can keep moving forward.

Because when you’re moving forward and you are creating the results that you love, it does actually get easier to experiment and evaluate and keep going. I want you to think about this as like this is actually part of your job description as a business owner. The coaches who thrive in this arena, they get so curious about what’s working instead of frustrated when they haven’t figured it out on the first try.

And of course, you can feel frustrated anytime. We fully embrace that, but not frustrated in a way that it just takes you out or that you have to pause for months and months because you thought it would be easier. I’m just here to say some parts might be easier than you thought they would be, and some parts, maybe this one, might not. And are you willing to stick it out?

All right, number three, being willing to move forward when you know you’re ready, even if it’s like in the back of your head, but you are stalling for some reason. So an important distinction on this one, this is not act on every whim as fast as possible. That is different. And you know, if you’ve listened to this podcast, that’s certainly not how I operate. I’m always talking about kind of like putting something on the shelf, knowing this isn’t right now, but it’s coming at some point, so I’m going to leave it on the shelf and like gather my thoughts and then come back to it when I’m ready.

So this is not that. This is like when you know you’re ready to move forward. You have all the information. You’ve prepared as much as you can, but you’re just scared. This is the difference between idea readiness and emotional readiness, right? The idea might be fully formed, the path is clear, you are prepared, but then the thoughts and the stalling, they start coming in. And here’s what’s tricky is they can disguise themselves as really rational things.

They might sound like, like right before you’re ready to launch something, “Ooh, I just need more training,” which, let’s admit, sometimes that could be true. That could be a useful thought. And sometimes not. How you know? If you know very specifically what you need more training in because you’ve practiced in the field in some form and you see a gap and you’re like, “Oh, I need to fill that gap.” Okay, great. Do that. If you haven’t practiced and it’s just a thought that enters your mind before you do something big and scary, probably not true.

The next thought or belief that might sneak in is, “I need to feel more ready.” And you might take that as a sign as like, “Ooh, I need to pause.” Probably not true. Next thought, “I’m scared, so maybe it’s just not right.” Very similar to the last one. We know that’s not true. Think about the clients that you’ve worked with or the clients that you imagine working with. This is the thing that will stop them every single time. They will feel scared, and they will think, “Oh, that means it’s not right.”

Literally, your job as a coach is to help them overcome those thoughts. So you have to start identifying them in yourself and knowing when they are true and are a real signal of something’s not right here. I need to take care of myself or I do need more training or I do need, you know, X, Y, Z, versus, “I just feel scared, and that’s okay. I can be with myself as I feel scared and keep moving forward.” Learning to tell the difference between genuine unreadiness and fear is one of the biggest skills you can develop as a business owner.

When the idea is super clear and you just know that you’re stalling, that is the moment to move forward. Action is what will create confidence. Waiting will never create confidence. Ever. You have to take the action, and then you build the confidence. It’s never the other way around, even though, I know, it can be so seductive to think that is how it works.

Okay, the next one, number four. Ooh, this one hits hard for me. It’s one that probably out of all of these, this is probably the one that I don’t love, that I’ll probably do some work on. But number four is you have to be able to be a beginner repeatedly, over and over and over. I have learned this in so many ways as a business owner.

Every new platform, every new audience, every slight tweak to an offer, every like learning a new skill, learning a new coaching technique, it doesn’t reset you to zero. I mean, sometimes it does, it depends on what you’re learning. You can never go backwards, right? You can never like lose anything you know currently, but anytime there’s something new on the table, you’re kind of starting at the beginning. Now you have a leg up if you’ve been doing it for a while. You already know some of the skills. You already know, like you’re just coming in with more knowledge. But it will still feel like you’re starting at zero. It does not matter how long you’ve been doing it. I promise you.

One mistake you can make is thinking that experience in one area should mean automatic competence everywhere else. The coaches who struggle the most with this resist the beginner phase because they feel like they’re past it, right? Like, I shouldn’t be here, which in itself, just that thought can be detrimental to your business.

The reframe for this is just staying curious and humble about being new at anything. Any new skill you’re learning, any new platform, you know, if you change your email platform, for example, it might sound so simple. Maybe you’ve been running your business for years.

You’re so well informed on how to use, I don’t know, MailChimp, and then you switch to ConvertKit because, or Kit, I think it’s now called, because they are amazing at newsletters. And then you start it and like the back end looks so different. You’re like, “What in the world?” It feels like your first day on the job. Been there, done that.

Recently, I let go of my business manager who’s worked for me for a long time, not because of anything bad. She’s incredible. If anyone’s looking for one, highly recommend, contact me, I’ll get you her information. But I’m going through this so much right now. I am learning, I’m not kidding, like 10 new things all at the same time. And it’s okay. I just keep telling myself, “Yep, I’m going to make mistakes. There’s going to be a learning curve. You just have to keep going.” That’s fine. And so I do.

It has been humbling to say the least, but it’s also been a little bit, I don’t know, like character-building and soul-affirming. There’s something about it that feels very like, “Oh right, I know how to do all of this. I remember that I can figure anything out,” just like I used to when I was scrappy and new. You never graduate from being a beginner because as you grow, you just add more things, right? There are just more things to be better at.

And then the last one, number five, is learning to love the slow build. I want to be very clear about this when I say this, the slow build does not mean slow results or like accepting mediocre growth or mediocre coaching or client results. What it means is learning to be okay with the lag between consistent action and visible proof. You have to believe that the work is working before you can see it working. You have to find ways to prove to yourself.

At first, I think there’s just like the pure belief of like, “I just have to keep going.” But then you can start to pick up on the little nuanced signs that it actually is working. And you have to get comfortable in that because that also does not ever go away. I see so many clients, so many amazing coaches, bail on good strategies all the time because that lag, that time between like, “I learned the thing, and then the thing created results,” feels like failure, and they just clock it as, “Oh, I failed.” I’m like, “Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on. Come back. You did not. Why are we deciding we failed?”

I need you to know that your results will always trail your effort. And I know it sucks. It’s literally the price of being an entrepreneur. It is the hardest part. It is not always a sign to pivot. It’s not always a sign to stop everything and decide it’s not working. Sometimes it’s just part of it.

Now, there’s also the other side of this, which is like, and don’t let it go too long, right? At some point you need to, like if you’re not finding those little signs that it’s working, then maybe question it. But there’s a big difference between that, between like looking for like those little signs and deciding, “Okay, what’s just the next step? What’s the next level of growth? What’s the next little sign that it’s working?” versus like, “Oh, none of it’s working, throw it out, start over or quit altogether.”

The coaches who show up powerfully and keep moving forward are often just the ones who didn’t quit before that proof started showing up. Loving that lag means trusting the work even when the numbers haven’t caught up yet. And again, this happens at every single level. I launched a new membership in, at the end of last year, in 2025, and there’s still a learning curve to selling it. There’s still a learning curve to creating the content for it.

And I constantly am reminding myself like, “I have two choices. I can give up and be like, ‘Oh, it’s not quite performing,’ in quotes, ‘like I thought it would, so I should just give up,’ or, ‘No, the results so far are incredible, and it’s only going to improve from here.'” And that second one is what I’m deciding right now.

Right? Or I could decide, “Oh, every single piece of content that was in the membership the day it opened, that’s all there is, and I have failed if it’s not perfect.” Or, “No, it’s the first time I’ve offered this. It’s in constant evolution.” And there will always be a lag between landing on, “Oh, this is good,” and then seeing the results happen over time.

Okay, so here’s my challenge for you. I’m guessing probably one of these things hit harder than the others. And if there are multiple, that’s okay too. But pick the one where maybe you felt the most, I don’t know, like defensive or called out, or maybe even you just know, “Yeah, that’s the one I’ve been avoiding.”

Or you really want to argue, like right now you just really want to send me an email and be like, “This one’s not true, and here’s why.” That’s the one, whichever one stands out the most to you. Don’t choose all five. You can do them one at a time if they all five stood out to you. But just pick one to work on, one to decide, “I am going to love this.”

You probably won’t love it by tomorrow, by the way. But like “I’m going to get myself to the point where I feel so differently about this in a way that I can really lean in and enjoy this part of owning a coaching business.”

Thank you so much for listening today. I can’t wait to see you again next week. And if you love what I was talking about here today, definitely join the waitlist for The Complete Coach. We will put that in the show notes. And I’m so grateful to have you as a listener. Thanks. Goodbye.

Thanks for listening to this episode of Mastering Coaching Skills. If you want to learn more about my work, come visit me at lindsaydotzlafcoaching.com. That’s Lindsay with an A, D-O-T-Z-L-A-F.com. See you next week.