Ep #229: Overcome the Self-Coaching Trap: Why Action is Essential for Coach Growth

Hey, this is Lindsay Dotzlaf and you are listening to Mastering Coaching Skills episode 229.

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. Before I jump in, I just want to tell you something kind of funny that just struck me. So I am in Scottsdale, Arizona. I am hosting some of my clients here at an Airbnb. We are having the best time. They’re clients from my Reimagined Mastermind. Shout out if you’re listening. I’m recording this while you’re here and we are truly having the best time. It is amazing. And I always love being in person with my clients, but I actually recorded this episode before I left. I had some sound issues. And when I got here, realized I didn’t have a podcast ready for this week. So I was going to do a replay. And then I thought, you know what? What if I just record a quick, powerful episode for you? But the funny part about that is, so now I’m with my laptop, with my headphones on, sorry if it sounds different than usual, by the way, and I’m sitting in a closet recording.

And it’s just taking me back to the very first days of recording my podcast from my closet, which I mentioned often, those of you that have been listening for a while, I’m sure you heard me talk about it. A lot of my clients bring up the time when my clothes fell on me. We had just moved in, so there were kind of like piles sitting around. I was sitting on my closet floor and clothes fell on me. And so it’s just, I’m having a moment of like, oh, that’s such a fun memory.

For those of you that are new in your business, take time to celebrate some of those things that happen that feel kind of silly or, you know, maybe even frustrating sometimes. I promise you that you will look back and have these moments of like, hmm, that was so special or so cute or cute in a good way, not like that was so cute, right? Check your tone when you say it. And I just wanna offer that because I just, it’s like a feeling of nostalgia that I’m having right now.

So because my clients are here and we’re having a great time, this is gonna be short and sweet, but also really important. And just like always, this is gonna be a concept that you can apply to yourself and to your clients in your coaching. So something that I’ve just been noticing so much of lately with some of the clients that I work with and coaches that are in my world is when clients kind of come to me and they’re like, I feel nervous about this thing that I’m gonna do, coaching my clients, I don’t feel confident, so I’m afraid to take clients, or maybe it’s on the business side, right? Like I have these things I wanna do in my business, I’m just not doing them. And then what they tell me is, I’ve just really been coaching myself.

Now, as coaches, coaching yourself, great. That’s a great thing, right? This podcast is not about not doing that. But one thing that I want you to be aware of if you’re doing this, if you’re like, oh no, I resonate with this. And maybe you’ll resonate with this because maybe your clients do it, which I’ll address a little bit at the end of the episode. But something I want you to really be aware of is coaching yourself is amazing. But if you’re doing it for long periods of time without movement or taking action, you might be doing yourself a disservice.

Of course, sometimes there are times that you kind of pause, slow down, check in with your thoughts, coach yourself, all of that, get coached, right? All of those things. But when, especially when you’re doing something new and you are, maybe you’re a brand new coach, maybe you have your own business, right? And you’re growing your business and you, or you want to grow your business. You know that that’s where you’re headed. You want to send clients and you just feel kind of frozen. And your thought is like, okay, I know how to coach. I’m just gonna like keep coaching myself until something shifts and I’m ready to take action.

And what I want to offer is that if you’re just doing that without taking action, and something’s not immediately clicking or it’s not working quickly, it’s not getting you into action, the solution for that is just going ahead and taking some action, just getting to work.

I may have actually talked about this before in other ways on the podcast, but this episode is gonna be just about that. Because what happens is when you just coach yourself or you just have to check in with your body, whatever your process is for checking in with yourself and coaching yourself, and you’re just doing that, and you’re not taking any action at all, what’s happening is you’re probably either coaching on the wrong things, possibly, like coaching on things that aren’t moving you forward, or coaching on things that are very general, right? They’re very broad. I just feel scared. Okay, I need to not feel scared, so I’m gonna coach myself out of feeling scared. That’s so general, right?

That’s like, okay. I mean, there probably most days there are moments where it’s like, ooh, that feels scary. Sometimes heavier than others, right? But that’s so general and just kind of nondescript, right? It’s like everybody feels scared sometimes. and that’s okay. And it’s also, there’s this, usually this thought behind it that I see with coaches, that’s like, I shouldn’t feel that way, or I shouldn’t take action while I’m feeling this way. And I’m sure you’ve heard the quote, like, you know, feel the fear and do it anyway. And it can be a little cliche, but what I would offer you is that that can actually be so important, right? Like there has to be a balance. There has to be a, I’m coaching myself so that I take the action so that I can be more clear about what to coach myself on, so that I can go take more of the action to create the results that I want. And it’s just a cycle, right? You’re either doing them kind of simultaneously or, you know, getting coached or coaching yourself once a week, twice a week, every day, however often you do it.

And the purpose of it is that it should be a guide to what’s next. What are you going to implement? What’s the action you’re going to take in order to create these results and when you’re not doing that right when you’re just getting the coaching and then not taking any action it allows you to kind of believe like oh this just isn’t working for me and sometimes it can even get in your head and think like this coaching isn’t working which is bad right like as a coach you want to believe that coaching works and then it’s a really powerful tool because that’s what you’re ultimately going to be selling to your clients.

And I see it on the business side. And I also see my clients come and say, I just feel really scared to take clients. I’m really scared that I don’t know what I’m doing, even though I already know they’ve been in The Coach Lab, they know how to coach, they have the tools they need. And it’s just that fear that’s holding them back. And when you think about that, it’s like the only way to solve that fear is to go coach as much as you can and then see, okay, how did it go? What can I do differently? What could be better? What do I want to celebrate? And the same is true really for any goal, anything that you’re trying to create, whether it’s in your business, in your coaching, in your life, any of it.

So this is just like a PSA for you, if this is you. If you find yourself doing this, maybe ask yourself, what specifically am I scared of? And am I willing to do it anyway in order to create the results I want to create. Knowing that you always have coaching as a tool to help yourself, to keep yourself going, to support yourself through all of the things, right? Like knowing that coaching is always there for you, but not using it as a little bit of a buffer or a crutch in staying frozen, right? Not letting it be like, well, I have this tool. So because I have it, it’s almost like you use the coaching against yourself, again, as a buffer right that just keeps you frozen in a since I have this tool I should be able to like get this fear to go away before I take action or to feel differently before I take action. And of course we know sometimes that is true right you can have some realizations and some shifts before you go into the world and take action.

What I’m speaking to specifically is when this is an ongoing thing. I’ve even seen some of you bless your whole hearts. This is so painful for me to see where this goes on for so long that you’re confused about like am I even a coach? Do I have a business? Do I know how to coach? And truly the solution for that is to take action and to see if there’s really something very specific that’s coming up that really feels like a big roadblock that isn’t just like this feels scary or I don’t know what I’m doing. It’s okay. You can take action. You can take action not knowing what you’re doing. You couldn’t take action feeling very scared. But if you’re super frozen, then it’s like, okay, let’s examine that. And I would recommend that you have someone help you, right? Get a coach, get a whatever, like get some support so that you can move forward. Do not let yourself stay stuck there.

The same is true for your clients, right? So some of you, I get this question often inside The Coach Lab. My clients keep coming back each week and they haven’t really done anything that we talked about. And it’s like, they’re coming for the coaching. Maybe it’s sinking and maybe it’s really not and they’re just kind of frozen. I would suggest that you have this conversation with your client and kind of point out like what would it take for you to just do the thing and feel scared? Like what would that take? Let’s coach on that and kind of help them create a specific plan. Right this again specifically for the clients who are stuck for a while and kind of frozen in place. What would it take for you to do that? What do we need to work through?

Let’s talk specifically about that today. Because the same will happen to them, right? They’ll stop believing in coaching. They’ll stop showing up for sessions even, right? They’ll kind of be like, well, that didn’t work for me. But that’s not true. You’re just letting them stay stuck as the coach. You just don’t do that. Or at least lovingly kind of show them. And the same can be true for yourself. You can lovingly show yourself this.

This doesn’t have to be like a, you know, let this land softly for you especially if you’re the coach who’s like, oh my gosh, I’ve been stuck in that for a long time. Okay, that’s it. Short and sweet. Oh, for those of you that needed to hear this today, hopefully this was really powerful. And I will give a little like caveat, this happens at every level. So this isn’t just for new coaches. This is for, you know, I see this happen all the time. Maybe something has changed, something came up that someone wasn’t expecting and now they’re just kind of frozen. And that’s like, well, I’m trying to coach myself through it. And they’re just coaching and coaching and it’s not moving the needle. If it’s not moving the needle, then we have to do something different. And sometimes that has to be taking action, right? Like changing our thoughts, changing how we feel. Those things are incredible, but if they’re not actually changing how you show up in the world, then they’re not working, they’re not sinking in.

Okay, friends, hopefully that was helpful for you today. If this was, I kinda talked a little bit about this last week, but this is one reason this exact concept is one reason that within The Coach Lab, I have opened up a new offer. It’s not actually in The Coach Lab, but we are only offering it right now inside The Coach Lab when this podcast is dropping. And it may sell out inside The Coach Lab, but I’ve created a three-month business coaching container where we are going to focus on really helping coaches do exactly this, right?

Address the mindset, address how they feel in their body while taking consistent action, while determining what is my best business plan that fits who I am as a human? What is not someone else’s perfect way, but what’s my way? Where am I going to start? With full support for three months from me in taking the actions and just taking those steps forward.

It’s also gonna be the first time that I’m really teaching in a business capacity, the way I think about how coaching skills can be your business building skills, right? How combining all the skills you’re already good at as a coach with the things that you love to naturally do that don’t go so far outside your comfort zone that they have you shutting down and that you have to do this, right? That you have to stop and like coach yourself and coach yourself and coach yourself without taking any action. That is a new offer that I’ve opened up.

And again, first as of right now. It’s only open inside The Coach Lab. If it fills up, it’s going to be a smaller group. It’s a lower cost for the coaches who, especially the coaches that are newer or who just don’t have the big money to invest in a higher price mastermind right now. This is a very accessible offer, especially for newer coaches. And so I invite you, if you’re like, wait, what? I’ve been waiting for this. I know some of you have said that to me. We just opened it up today. We have sales coming in, which is super fun. But if it doesn’t sell out inside The Coach Lab, we will open it up outside of The Coach Lab.

And eventually we will anyway, which is why I’m talking about it right now. We will open it up. I don’t know that it will be this first round. It depends if spots sell out. I’m filling it with 20 to 25 coaches or three months of coaching with me thinking through what’s just the next action. What’s my business strategy? What do I need to believe about myself? What do I need to know that I’m already good at as a coach? And how are all those things, the things that are gonna help me create the coaching practice that I want to have?

All right, friends, I’m gonna get back to my clients here in person. And I’m so grateful that you listened in today, and I will talk to you again next week. Bye.

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.