Ep #34: Achieving Your Big Goals: Moving Forward

Hey, this is Lindsay Dotzlaf and you are listening to Mastering Coaching Skills episode 34.

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.

Hello coach, how are you this week? Listen, I am so excited for this episode because you guys have been blowing me up on Instagram, which is so fun, about how helpful the first two episodes in this series have been. You’re loving that I’m talking about setting goals in this way and helping you through the lens of setting goals for yourself. But also thinking about the way your clients set and meet goals.

So glad this is resonating with you. Hopefully it is a game changer for both you and your clients. And this week, we’re just going to dive right in because I want to talk about the third step that I use to set and hit big goals. Mostly, of course, what I’ve been talking about is the launch that I just did in my business.

So, if you remember from the last two weeks, step one to hitting a big goal, you start with what you already believe is possible and you go into the goal feeling certain. Step two, make a plan including mostly what you already know how to do, using what is already working. If you haven’t listened to those you can go back and listen to the last two episodes where I give very specific examples of both of these things.

And then today, step three, I’m going to talk about asking yourself, “Do I want to try anything new?” Now, this isn’t required. You could say, “No, I don’t. I’m going to go with what I know works. I feel great about the plan.” If you’ve done the first two steps you can stop there and skip this third step.

But asking yourself, “Do I want to try anything new?” And notice the way I phrase it is really important, right? Because I say, “Try something new.” This implies that I’m going to be learning something, it may not be perfectly natural, and there might be a learning curve there. It may not work the very first time out of the gate.

For those of you that have big goals in your coaching business, this might look like adding in something you’ve never done before, like webinars, ads, a podcast, an email list, reels. Anything you’re going to include in the how of a goal or of a launch that you just have never tried, or you’ve never done before. Or maybe you haven’t done it in a long time, or you haven’t done it in this specific thing, right?

Like maybe, for example, webinars. Maybe you’ve done webinars before for a different business. Or you’ve done webinars before selling one on one coaching and now you’re selling a program. Do you want to try something new within this type of goal that you have set?

But I have a couple rules that I’ve created for myself when adding in anything new. And I highly recommend that you use them too. Number one, I cannot count on it working. What? I know, that’s like counterintuitive to how we usually think about things, right? But when you’re adding something in new, whatever the thing is I’m adding into my plan that I haven’t done before, I can’t count on it being the thing that’s going to create new results.

So for example when I started this podcast, I decided I was willing to do it for an entire year. A whole year, without seeing any results in my business from the podcast. A whole year. Some of you might be like, “What?” I know, you love to be really impatient. I do too sometimes. And you probably see it in your clients, right?

It’s natural to be impatient and to want something to work immediately. But when you go into it thinking about it like that, you’re just setting yourself up for failure from the beginning.

Now, that doesn’t mean that I don’t give it my all or that I treat it like an afterthought, right? When I think about my podcast, I went all in on the podcast not having any idea what was going to happen, what was going to come from it. But I didn’t count on any immediate results in my business. So for you, think about your business right now, or your coaching or think about your clients, what is something you have been considering trying? What is something that you’ve seen and you’re like, “Oh, maybe that’s the thing. That’ll make it work.”

Think about a webinar just as an example for just a second. If that sounds like something you want to do, do it. But do it because you’re willing to learn how to be good at them and thinking about the long game of this is something I want to be a part of my business. Not because you think it’s going to fill your launch on the first try.

I don’t care if you bought the fancy webinar program. Those results just aren’t likely, right? Now sometimes, don’t get me wrong, sometimes you might try something, you can go into it even thinking about it like this, “This is just going to be fun to try.” And you might nail it. And that is amazing. That’s like the best of both worlds. But when you go into it expecting that, you’re just setting yourself up for lots of whatever it looks like for you, shame, guilt, why didn’t this work, judgment, whatever it is.

There’s going to be a learning curve, especially when it’s something multifaceted that you’re adding in. So again, just think about a webinar. You have to know how to promote it, how to execute it, how to work all of the tech. That part gets me guys, every time. What content to include, how to sell on the webinar, how to sell after the webinar, send the emails.

Whatever it is, that is a lot of pieces. And if you go into it thinking that you are learning, it’s a lot easier to be gentle on yourself when it doesn’t turn into that magical client free flowing faucet on the first try.

Second rule, it has to sound fun or at least enjoyable. Now, fun can be a tricky word in business, I think I may have talked about this before. But sometimes when we hear the word fun in business, we think what you hear me say is it should be easy or not that much effort. But that’s not the kind of fun I mean. I mean does it sound enjoyable?

Something can be fun and sometimes hard. Or fun and frustrating. It can even be fun and not work that well on your first try. What I mean by fun the way I’m talking about it right now, does it sound like something you want to do? Or is your brain like, “That’s terrible. Never want to do that.” Does it play into your natural abilities and tendencies? Always something to explore there, right?

If it’s something brand new that you’ve never done before and everything about it is like the opposite of what you love doing, maybe try something else first. Does it sound appealing to put time and effort into it even if you aren’t great at it the first day?

This is just the part where you notice when you want to do something just because it works for someone else, even when it sounds awful and you would rather have 1000 tiny paper cuts than try that thing. And yet you decide to do it anyway. Don’t do that, it’s terrible. Okay, that was a little dramatic, but you get the point.

The third rule, I have to be willing to stick it out for a predetermined amount of time, even if I’m not having mind breaking results. Now, of course there are exceptions to this rule that I’ll talk about in a minute. But in general, if I’m all in on the first two rules, this one shouldn’t be a problem. If I go into the plan not depending on this new thing to work immediately and it sounds fun, it shouldn’t be a problem to stick with it.

What happens when you choose one method and you stick with it is that you learn to get better and better because you’re able to evaluate each time and make changes for the next time. And you get better and better as you go.

I like to think of this analogy, I use this all the time. It’s like if you decide you want to learn to play an instrument would it be better to practice, for example, a ukulele over and over until you’re pretty good at it? Or better to try a different instrument each time you practice? Or even better to learn 10 different instruments at once?

When you think about it like that there’s an obvious answer, right? It’s to stick to the ukulele. But I know, because I see so many of you doing this, you want to try the opposite in your business. You pick 10 brand new strategies and try implementing them all at the same time. Which means your attention is spread out across all of them. Just like it would be if you are trying to learn 10 different instruments at once. Or you want to switch every time something doesn’t work. Stop it. Don’t do that anymore.

Side note, wouldn’t it be fun to play the ukulele? I think so. It’s actually on my bucket list. And I have never told anyone so this is just our little secret, okay? All right.

Now, think of this for your clients. Have you had the experience where your clients want to constantly switch strategies when something isn’t working
quickly? I know this about a lot of health and weight loss and nutrition coaches. This is just the first one that pops into my mind because I’ve coached so many of you.

Many of you are probably nodding your head vigorously right now thinking about your clients. Because, again, I’ve coached so many of you and this is just something that comes up very often. Your clients love to switch their nutrition plan, their protocol, whatever it is that you use with them that you’ve created, they love to switch when it’s not working quickly.

And usually they only want to switch because it feels hard. Because it’s not working fast enough. Because their BFF is having great results using something else. Because their other BFF found this amazing quick fix. Whatever it is, right? There’s something happening in their brain that is saying, “I need to get out of this, it doesn’t feel good. It’s not working the way I thought it would.”

But when they switch the plan over and over, they aren’t giving it enough time to work, one. And they’re just proving to themselves, and this is almost the worst part, over and over that the goal that they’re working towards just isn’t possible for them. Whether this is you, or your clients, or whoever.

I’m using the example of a nutrition and weight loss health coach. But no matter what kind of coach you are, think about when your clients do this, or when you do this. How many times are they proving to themselves or are you proving to yourself over and over maybe this just isn’t it possible for me?

This is true for any kind of coaching. Be on to your clients when they want to be in a hurry and keep switching things up. Use these questions with them. And change them around, I give you full permission, change them around so that they make sense for your people, for your clients, or for you. Are you willing to not be good at it? Are you willing to keep going anyway? And does it sound fun?

Now, I’m going to add in a caveat, there are exceptions to the keep going rule. And it seems obvious, but I’m going to say it anyway. You do not keep going if it’s causing some kind of real, like real life negative side effect.
Not just uncomfortable thoughts that can be worked through. But like an actual negative side effect in your life, or your client’s life. I’ll give you an example of this from my life.

So last year, I joined a program and it included an eating plan. I don’t remember all the details but part of the plan was intermittent fasting and a couple days of eating higher fat content and certain types of food. Again, I don’t remember the exact details.

But the main appeal of it to me was about just having more energy and making a meal plan that I could just stick to every single day that was so simple and straightforward so I could spend less time planning and thinking about food. It’s just not one of my favorite things.

So about a month into the plan I started to get really sick. Long story short, turns out I was having gallbladder issues and eating the high fat meals was making me very, very sick. Ultimately, I ended up having to have surgery. But in the short term, in that moment I just had to listen to my body and stop that plan.

So this is a good example and kind of an extreme example. But, you know, if it’s causing actual harm, of course you don’t keep going. These are never rules, any rules I ever give you, they are never to use against yourself. I know I’ve said that before, but that’s just not what we’re doing here.

But I think you can probably see from that example it’s very different than I just got bored with the plan. Or I tried it for a few days and I gave up. Or I tried it on and off for a month and just, blah, it’s not working, right? That’s not what happened, I was having actual physical pain.

So here’s your homework, I know you guys love homework. Spend some time thinking about this for your clients and for yourself. What are the areas where you do this? Where do you switch from one thing to another? What are you constantly trying to change up or switch without really going through the learning curve and learning how to make something work?

Where are you trying things that you don’t have any interest in trying? That’s a good question. How does it show up for your clients? How do you think it might be different if they were willing to stick it out and keep going, learning to evaluate along the way? Or going through evaluations with you along the way as their coach?

My love, here’s what I want to say, don’t be afraid to try new things. Just make sure you do them with compassion, and grace, and love yourself even when you don’t nail it the first time. Most people don’t know how to do this. It’s an important skill to have and such a powerful skill to teach your clients.

There’s nothing wrong with you when it doesn’t work the first time, it rarely does. Even when you see someone else nailing it, doesn’t matter, it’s probably not their first time. And maybe it is. Who cares, right? All this comes back to it’s okay to learn. It’s okay to not be amazing at something new. I love you. I will see 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.