Hey, this is Lindsay Dotzlaf, and you’re listening to Mastering Coaching Skills, episode 289.

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.

Hi coach. Today I want to talk to you quickly about something that I have noticed. First, this morning I noticed it coming up for me, and then as I was thinking about it, I realized, oh, this is something I’ve actually been coaching on a lot. And it’s something you’ve heard me talk about on this podcast before. Actually, if we rewind all the way back to the very beginning where we started, one of the first episodes that I did was an episode on decisions, like unmade decisions that you might not know are there.

And I’ll just briefly tell you this short story. So this morning, I woke up and realized that I was just kind of spinning in this uncertainty and confusion and wasn’t really clear about what I was confused about and had a low-level just anxiety. And I did have an urgent family matter come up last night, and so I’m having to kind of rearrange my schedule this morning. And I noticed that as I was doing that, I was just feeling this anxiousness.

And I was like, gosh, what is happening? Like yes, there’s a family situation, but it’s nothing that’s like, that in itself shouldn’t be causing this much anxiety. And so I you know kind of stepped back for a second and thought about it. And what I realized is like, oh, one thing I need to do that I’m going to have to do today is reschedule a call for some of my programs and you know reschedule one or two calls.

And when I saw that, you know, when I was kind of going through, okay, what needs to be done? When I got to that one, immediately, I felt it in my chest, right? I felt that anxiety start to just bubble up a little bit. And I was like, oh, that’s so interesting. Like I rarely reschedule calls. This isn’t a thing that happens very often. Like, what’s up with that?

And what I realized is that since I started The Complete Coach, the new membership, at the end of last year, I haven’t made a super clear decision on what I’m going to do if I need to reschedule a call. Right? Am I going to have a guest coach? Am I going to just reschedule it altogether so that I can coach on the call at a different time? Am I going to just cancel the call and figure it out later? Am I going to, you know, ask someone to like pop in and host it for me at the last minute?

And, you know, there are lots of options. There are probably even more that I’m not thinking of. And usually this is something that’s just very clear, right? That’s just kind of like a policy. It’s like, if this happens, here’s what I do about it. And of course, I’ve had a couple things come up since the membership has started, and I kind of just like figured it out in the moment.

And I don’t love that feeling, right? I want my clients always to feel really well cared for and taken care of. And so I don’t like to spring things on them at the last minute or to move something. Of course, I always can if it’s an emergency, but you know, I like them to feel like, oh, she’s got it. Like, I don’t have to worry about any of this. She’s got it covered.

So I started thinking about this, and today on the list was recording a podcast, of course, before I can go handle the things. And so here I am, because my decision on that is very clear. I wanted to record a podcast, and I know sometimes in these moments, the choice is record a short one. So that’s what I’m doing today.

So, I have a prompt for you, and you can take this, you can think on it, you can journal on it, you can think about it while you’re driving, pull over, take some notes, whatever you need to do. But I want you to consider what unmade decision or decisions do you have right now in your business or even in your life that might be creating some confusion or some chaos or some uncertainty for you?

And maybe right away you’re like, oh, I don’t think I have any. Which is fine. But I’m going to give you some examples, and then I’m also going to briefly tell you some signs that you might, you know, kind of pause and check if there are any unmade decisions in that area.

So when I say I coach on this all the time, examples I often see are, you know, someone feeling a lot of confusion, and then when I dig into it, I realize like, well, of course, you don’t know what you’re working towards because you haven’t actually defined any goals. You haven’t really decided what you want. Or maybe, you know, lots of apprehension around maybe doing a consult or a sales call. And when we dig into it, it’s like, oh, well, the main thing creating that is that you haven’t fully decided on your offer, or you haven’t landed on what you’re charging for your coaching.

Or maybe some tension in your day-to-day when something, kind of like my situation, when something pops up and you feel this like resistance of, okay, I should be working but this life thing is pulling me out of it, or I should be, you know, hanging with my family, but this work thing is pulling me out of it.

And maybe there’s a decision there that’s not made around like, what hours do you work? What do you do when you need to take a day off? You know, how do you decide what is the most important thing right now? And so these are just common ones, but of course there are so many other options. And I want you to get used to identifying these because, you know, when you think about my example that I gave you, yes, it’s something I’ve been putting off a little bit, but for the most part, it hasn’t created much much confusion because it’s not something that comes up very often.

And so this morning, you know, as soon as I noticed it, I was able to just say, oh, great. Not only do I need to make a decision for this week and how I’m going to handle this immediately, but I just need to make a decision about this overall so that next time, it’s not even a thing. I just know exactly what to do when this comes up.

So here are some signs that you might not recognize as an unmade decision. The first one is confusion. Anytime my clients come to me feeling confused about anything, I’m always just listening to what they’re describing and really like looking for what are the decisions that haven’t been made here. Truly, like confusion often, often, often, so often comes from the lack of a decision in some form.

Could be confusion, but it could also feel like chaos or like a uncertainty or a scrambling around, right? It feels pretty bad. It’s like kind of constantly draining. Maybe even creates possibly a low level dread, or like I should have it together by now. If that’s the case, just pause and notice. Like is there anything you haven’t decided on?

Another sign is when you’re in constant information gathering mode. You know, do I need another certification? Do I need these other trainings? Should I go research 10 other ways to do this thing? Should I poll all my colleagues and ask my coach and ask for permission and just kind of a constant circling of the thing instead of just deciding and moving forward.

And the thing that’s a little tricky about this is sometimes it can feel quite responsible or productive or like you’re doing your due diligence, right? You’re being thorough. And sometimes that’s true. I’m not saying we never pause and say like, okay, what is the thing I need next? But you know, like you’re really probably internally aware when it’s happening for way too long or when you’re just using that information gathering step as a distraction from what you might really want to be working on or like the thing that’s going to actually move you towards your goal.

The next one is more of a physical or energetic thing that happens. And this might be a little different for everybody, but this one often actually feels like almost nothing. It almost feels just like normal. But often it’s because, so maybe, for example, there’s something under the surface, like something kind of like what I described about this morning when I realized like, oh, there’s just like this low level anxiety around all of it. But you haven’t noticed it. Right?

So it could feel like an anxiety, a tightness in your chest, holding your breath, dread everything every time a certain thing comes up, but what you’re often doing is you’re, you know, maybe busying yourself or distracting yourself, so you’re not actually feeling it. You’re not really noticing it until you take a pause, maybe a few deep breaths, and then you check in to like, how am I actually feeling in this moment? And then thinking like, what’s causing this? And are there any decisions that could help clean this up?

The other thing is constant iteration or seeking proof that something will work. Right? So a constant refining of your website, changing of your offer, shifting your niche just a little bit. It can feel, again, this one can be tricky. It can feel good. It can feel like, oh, I’m getting really good at refining or optimizing, right? You’re being agile. You’re being responsive to feedback.

But what I would always consider is, are you really being responsive to feedback? Or is it just the feedback of your thoughts? Right? Being responsive to feedback is like actually gathering on purpose feedback from your clients, from your audience, from whoever, and then asking yourself, am I making any changes? Right?

Like that in itself is making some decisions versus just constantly responding to, ooh, I don’t know if this thing is right. I don’t know if this thing is right, and then like seeking proof that you’re doing it right without getting like real life feedback, just proof that’s out in the world. Right? You see a post and you’re like, oh, yeah. Okay, this business coach says to do it this way, that’s what I’m doing, so it must be right.

And then the last one. And a lot of my clients do this, and this is the one out of all of them that feels the best. Sometimes it even feels amazing or even like euphoric. It is what I would call staying in the big picture dreaming instead of coming down to reality of today. Right?

The big picture, like being really good at that vision, creating the vision. It can feel so expansive. It can feel exciting. It can feel full of possibility. It also can sometimes feel a lot like progress because in your head you’re thinking so much about what you’re going to do and what it’s going to look like. It’s also the one that’s often the furthest from any progress.

Now, obviously, I’m not saying don’t spend any time thinking about the big picture. That’s amazing. But what I am saying is that if you are doing that, but then you’re not coming back down to today and like what’s just my next step, that’s probably where you want to spend some time and probably find some unmade decisions there.

Like those unmade decisions might look something like, what’s my goal for today, for this week, for, you know, the next two months instead of like my goal three years from now or five years from now. Or how do I want to show up for my clients today instead of in the future after I’ve created this new program and it’s doing its thing out in the world.

Okay. That’s the end. That’s it. Again, I’m going to repeat the prompt so you can sit with it. What unmade decisions are creating chaos for you or confusion or lots of uncertainty for you right now? And how can you clean them up? Either make them. Once you see them, sometimes, honestly, it’s like, oh, it’s not really even a tricky decision. It just needs to be made. And then also full permission.

Like sometimes you might not know how to answer, but what I want you to do is don’t keep putting it off, get support. You know, if you’re in my world, come get coaching. Bring it to a coaching session. Take it to your coach, take it to your colleagues, but not in a way that you are doing it over and over and over and continually outsourcing that same decision, but in a way that you’re super clear what the decision is and that you’re like, I’m ready to make it, even if you need support in making it.

All right. I hope this was really helpful. This is something, again, that I coach on often, and I think that this is such a great question at every level of your business and something, of course, that you can consider always with your clients.

If you love thinking about this and you’re like, oh my gosh, I can see where I have lots of unmade decisions and all the confusion and chaos that might be creating, you should come join me in The Complete Coach, which is the membership that I was talking about that I opened at the beginning of the year. We would love to have you. These are the kinds of things that we coach on all the time, and in there we are coaching on how to support your clients, how to support your business, how to support yourself.

So there’s some life coaching happening, business coaching, and coaching on your coaching, a kind of all-in-one situation. You should definitely come join us. The community is incredible and I would love to see you there. We will put the information in the show notes. And I’ll talk to you next week. 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.