Hey, this is Lindsay Dotzlaf, and you’re listening to Mastering Coaching Skills, episode 288.

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 so happy you’re here today. I’m also a little bit fired up to talk about what I want to talk about right now. And I’ll be really honest, this episode was not planned out, but I just got off of my mastermind call, Reimagine, the mastermind that I run. I got off of that call, and something came up in the call with one of my clients that I just think is so important that I put out into the world and that we just kind of open up a discussion around this.

Because I’m going to say something right now that most coaches in general, but especially business coaches, are probably not going to ever say to you. What I want to tell you is, it is okay at any point, no matter how successful or not successful you are in your business, to decide that running a coaching business is no longer for you, that maybe you want to do something else or that you want to close your business, that you want to get a job, or that it just isn’t going the way that you want it to go and you’ve been doing it long enough, and that’s it.

And when I say that, I mean really okay. Not okay as long as you shame yourself about it or okay as long as you really internalize this huge fail. That is 1000% not what I am saying. I think that this is, you know, when I say I’m fired up, I just think that this is something that goes in most spaces, not all, in most spaces, kind of goes untalked about.

And I think kind of the culture of coaching can teach that quitting your business is like the ultimate failure, right? You just couldn’t get yourself on board. You just couldn’t like manage your mind enough or create enough safety to keep going. And that’s not true.

I have seen coaches quit their business for so many reasons. Some I agreed with, some I didn’t, but it literally doesn’t matter. It’s the same thing as deciding you want to get a different job or go in a different direction in your career, right? I am here to tell you that the only acceptable option is not to just grow, scale, keep going forever, invest every ounce of money that you have and never give up, and never quit and make yourself miserable along the way.

And what I find quite ironic is that as coaches, we have so many tools that we use to create awareness and to kind of evaluate everything about our lives really honestly and decide exactly what it is that we want. Right? In some form, that’s what most of us help our clients do. Yet, when it comes to our actual businesses, we are not supposed to use those tools in that space, right? We are not supposed to decide what we want. We are just supposed to keep going and just get on board.

Now, again, I want to be very clear. I don’t think that all coaches are, you know, pushing this message. And often times I think it’s not even something that’s said out loud. It’s just kind of a vibe. You know what I mean. If you’ve, you know, maybe been in a situation where you have felt that before, or maybe right now just even hearing me say this, it might be creating some tension in your body that you can’t quite place.

And my guess is that tension is coming from you picking up on kind of this unstated rule, and even just hearing me say this might cause some fear, like it’s going to be contagious. Like if you hear me say it, it’s a thing that could actually happen.

But here’s how I think about it. I actually do this for myself, not often, but over the years, I have absolutely put my business on the table as like, is this something I’m going to keep doing? Sometimes, it’s when things aren’t going great and it’s feeling kind of bad and it’s like, okay, well I could quit. Like, do I want to? Sometimes, it’s actually when things are going great and it’s a little more like, I wonder what the next thing is. I wonder what the next thing could be. I’m not saying there will be a next thing, but I just always allow myself to go there.

And so recently, I went through this thing in my business, which if you get my newsletters, you’ve heard me talking about it a little bit, where I kind of realized some of the things I’m doing right now, I want to make some changes to. And I knew right away when I saw it, you’ve heard me say this before, once I see something, I can’t unsee it. And I kind of saw, like, oh, what’s ahead is going to be a lot of work. And for a couple days, I felt pretty defeated and it felt like, am I really doing this?

But here’s a rule that I have. If I’m miserable in my business, and this is what I shared with my client today, if I’m miserable in my business over an extended period of time with no real motivation to do anything about that or to change it, I am absolutely not allowed to live my life like that. Right? So I have to do something different. I either have to recommit and get on board with running a business, my coaching business, or I have to make some changes.

And sometimes that involves like really considering, like I could quit. I could quit this business today. Because if I’ve been, you know, I’ve seen clients that sometimes they’ll come to me and say, “I have been miserable in my business for a year or more, for two years, for three years.” And they usually tell me because they know they can be really honest with me and really honest in my spaces because I make a point to really hold space for that. And I always show up with, you know, I would never judge that.

And my first thought when I hear that, this isn’t what I just say outright to a client, but my first thought is like, oh my gosh, why? Why would that be the business that you’re running? Right? If you’re just showing up every day and being miserable. You have to get yourself out of that misery somehow, either by changing the circumstances or changing your beliefs about your business.

I always kind of think about it, honestly, like a relationship or in my case, like a marriage, where sometimes it’s very healthy to put on the table, recommit or leave. Now, I’ve never had a time in my marriage where this has been like fully on the table, but in the back of my mind, I just always know that option’s there if I need to examine it, if I need to look at it.

But what’s really fun about that option being there, in a relationship or in your business, is that the only option isn’t quitting or not. It’s quitting or recommitting. And the recommitting, if that’s the direction you choose to go, is so fun. Again, so recently, I considered this in my business. I gave myself this option. Am I quitting? Am I recommitting? Or am I closing my business? Maybe that’s a better way to say it, or a better way maybe for you to receive it. Or am I recommitting?

100%, my answer was recommit. That was very clear. And once I saw that, immediately, I knew changes I needed to make, which I did right away. You’ve heard me talk about that a little bit on this podcast. I knew I needed to kind of examine everything, recommit my energy to like look in all the corners where I haven’t been looking, to say the things like this podcast, like what I’m saying right now, that I think need to be said. Some things that I’m seeing that I’m like, oh, in the back of my mind, I’m like, oh, I don’t know if we’re allowed to talk about this. But I don’t care. I’m going to do it anyway.

And I want to be super clear. I do not want you to quit. I do not want you to close your business. That is not at all what I’m saying. And that’s never what I’m telling my clients. Just like if you are in a healthy relationship, I would never tell you to just leave it. But when you just put the option on the table, it can just give you so much clarity. It can really help you see and even maybe help you feel in your body, like which direction am I going?

So even today when I brought this up to a client, I just presented this option. I just kind of asked her like, have you ever given yourself that option? The option of just saying, this is not for me anymore. She immediately knew the direction she was leaning. Like there was no doubt. She said, “I love coaching so much.”

And it was a very clear, like her body responded. I could see it happen on the call. And we’re going to continue the conversation. I don’t know ultimately what direction she’s going, but I could see immediately that there was this pull to, okay, I love coaching. And I could tell it felt very comforting for her to see that.

So even if that’s you right now, if that’s what you’re feeling, that’s okay. Like you don’t have to decide right this second. But even just allowing yourself to explore it can really, really, like truly, shift some things.

I was recently at a conference, the Millionaires of Color conference, which was incredible, with my good friend Dielle, and who’s been on this podcast before.

And I was in a just a small group of people, we were talking, and I said that I had put this on the table, and literally the entire group, they were, I think all coaches, most of them not coaches I had ever met before, they all kind of like, like I could just see, I could like see the shift happen in the moment, how uncomfortable it made them, just for a second. And how they kind of had this, like they had to like settle into the idea that was even a thing you were allowed to think or consider.

And so if you needed this message, like I just know there might be a couple of you that were like, oh my gosh, maybe more than a couple, that are like, oh, you have no idea how much I needed to hear this today. What I want to tell you is you don’t have to make the decision immediately, but just let the decision be there and make it. Like make it on purpose. Don’t just listen to this and let it fade away.

And if you’re brand new, this probably doesn’t resonate at all. Just like for most people when they first are in a new relationship or they first are in a newly, let’s say committed partnership, right? Like maybe a marriage or something equivalent. The first couple years, you probably aren’t considering separation, for the most part, in a healthy relationship, right? Just like if you’re a new business owner, you might be like, what? This might even feel scary for you to hear.

But here’s what I want to offer around that is don’t let it be scary. There’s so many other amazing things you could do in this world. That’s what I believe. If I closed my business, I would probably open another business, honestly. Like I love running a business. Also, just even me saying that was very good for me to see, right? Oh, I forgot. I love running a business. Okay. Maybe I’m up for this hard work that’s ahead of me. And that for me instantly, I clicked back in like, oh yes, okay, this is what we’re doing. Like let’s go. It really fired me up. Like really fired me up, lit a fire. And that’s available to you if that’s what you decide.

But I just really want you to hear that there are so many options. There is nothing better about a coaching business than any other business. There’s nothing better about working for yourself and being a coach, necessarily, than there is about any other job that you could have. Now, it is my preference and there are reasons I prefer it. There are things I like better.

But just as a general rule in the world, I think sometimes as coaches, we like to act like, or we have this vibe that’s a little bit like, there’s nothing better in the entire world. And for us that might be true, and that’s great. But it doesn’t have to be true for everyone and it’s not a universal rule of any kind.

So no matter where you are in your business right now, I want you to take this opportunity to just make a decision. Now, even if you’re not, even if this is like you are loving your business right now, you could still question what would it look like even from this vantage point of being in love with my business? What would it look like to recommit? Like what would that energy even be?

It would be like being in the first couple years of a serious relationship and asking yourself that, right? That could create something really fun, something you never even considered in your business, or it might just shift your energy and the way you show up in your content or on social media or just when you’re moving about the world, the way you talk about it.

Because when you are fired up, that’s contagious. My clients recently, I’ve had a lot of messages around, like something has shifted, you are different. And I know it’s because of this. It’s because of this recommitment. And I’ll be honest, before I kind of put this on the table, I don’t know how long ago it was, a month, two months ago, I wouldn’t have said that I wasn’t fired up about my business.

So it’s not like I was sitting around every day thinking, oh, everything is miserable, what am I going to do? I just noticed one day it was like, oh, there’s this heaviness that isn’t usually there. And that’s what clued me in to like, let me examine this.

So, I hope that this was useful. If this doesn’t resonate at all right now, that’s okay. Save it, or send it to a friend who might need to hear it, a colleague, or you know, save it for later because just know, like when you’re in a long-term situation, whether it’s a relationship with a person or with your business, there are ups and downs. There have been so many times over the years where I’m like, what am I even doing? What even is this?

So I am here for you. If you need to tell anyone that you’re considering this, I’m here. I will listen anytime. And if you’ve ever maybe had this thought in the past and you feel shame around it, or you think like, I can’t think that, oh my gosh, or it felt scary, right? Like I just have to get that to go away. I just want you to know it’s normal. You are normal. Nothing has gone wrong. And not only has it not gone wrong, but on the other side of the decision could be something even more amazing, a different direction, or a recommitment that has you super fired up for what you do.

All right. Thanks for being here today. Let me know what you think. Check the show notes if you want to hear more behind the scenes things like what I’m sharing today, definitely get on the newsletter list. I send them every week. I’m very open. The newsletter is called Full Disclosure. So it’s just like it sounds. I am very open with all the behind the scenes things. If you’re already on there, you’ve actually heard me talk about some of the things going on that kind of got me to this place.

And so this is just another layer. I hope you join. I hope that I can send you a newsletter each week that helps you feel human, right? That just helps you feel human while running your business and that maybe quiets some of the, the noise or the shame or the guilt or the heaviness that can sometimes happen. I know for coaches when things aren’t going the way you want them to go.

Okay. It was great being here with you today. I will talk to you again 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.