Hey, this is Lindsay Dotzlaf and you are listening to Mastering Coaching Skills episode 267.

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 have a question for you. How long have you been waiting to feel ready? Just confident and ready to do all of the things that you have been wanting to do. What if I told you that feeling is never going to come in the way that you think it will? The truth is you are waiting for confidence, certainty, and permission. And unfortunately, none of those arrive before you start the thing.

This is going to be a really important episode for you and for your clients. As always, you can listen through the ear of the person getting coached or the person coaching.

So maybe you are waiting for feeling ready to raise your prices or post about your work on social media or to actually call yourself a coach out loud or to take on more clients or to launch that new offer you’ve been planning for months. Whatever it is, you’re probably waiting for something.

And I want you to think about your clients for a second. Maybe they are waiting to have a difficult conversation or to leave that job that they hired you in order to leave. Or maybe they’re just waiting to make that big change that they’ve been talking about for months and months. What I want to offer, here is what you or your clients are actually waiting for.

First, you’re waiting for confidence. I’ll do it when I feel confident. But the problem with that is that confidence comes from doing the thing, not before it. You don’t feel confident, then act. You act, you learn from it, and then you feel confident. You act over and over, you learn how to do the thing, and then you feel more and more confident.

Side note, this is separate from self-confidence, which I will talk about in a later episode. But confidence in a specific skill comes from just doing the thing and doing it again and again and again. The second thing you are waiting for is certainty, that feeling of I need to know exactly what I’m doing before I do it, or I need to know exactly how it’s going to turn out before I commit. And I hate to tell you this, but you will never ever have the complete feeling of certainty before you start something. Not ever.

Certainty in most things is a myth. Even if it’s certainty in something you’ve done a thousand times and you just know, you feel very certain that you’re gonna do the thing again today, there’s always a chance that something will happen in your life, in the world, that will disrupt that certainty, right?

And the last thing, you are waiting for permission. Once I have this certain certification, this proof, this validation, then I will finally be ready. But permission from whom? Who gets to tell you that you are ready? The answer here is that you do. And you’re the only one, unfortunately, that’s like perfect and terrible at the same time.

Now, side note, again, I do love giving my clients permission, but only to show them what is possible. And there is a future episode coming that I’ve already recorded. There will be a full episode giving you permission to do all the things. But for now, just know that even when, for example, I give you permission, it’s still unfortunately an inside job.

Because if I could just take the confidence, the certainty, and the permission from my brain and transplant it into yours, you wouldn’t be here listening to this podcast. You would be out in the world doing your thing with no issues. And that is not how the human condition works. It’s also why your clients will hire you, because they are looking for confidence, certainty, and permission.

But all three of those things truly come from action, which I think is one thing that separates coaching from things like therapy or other modalities because I think coaching is very forward-focused and although we aren’t always telling our clients what to do or giving them the actions to take, I do think it’s important that we are talking about actions and talking about clients moving forward.

And just in case you’re thinking, but Lindsay, I have seen these coaches who clearly were not ready and it showed and I don’t want to be that person. They weren’t delivering on their promises, they were overly confident, and I could taste it and I don’t want to be that.

Here’s what I need you to hear from me. The fact that you’re worried about this, the fact that you’re thinking that you need to be all of these things before you can move forward, that’s exactly why you won’t be that person.

The coaches who really aren’t ready, they don’t even think about this. They don’t question themselves, they don’t care enough to pause and wonder if they’re doing it right or wonder if they are ready or wonder if they need just one more training or certification, or wonder if they just need 50 more free clients before they can charge for their coaching. Or wonder if they are just allowed to charge for coaching and run a business. Like there’s someone that’s guarding that law.

But you, you care. You are thoughtful, you’re paying attention. If you’ve made it to this part of the podcast about halfway through and haven’t turned it off yet, That means this resonates. And so you will not be the coach that isn’t ready, like truly not ready.

That means when you start, you will first notice what’s working and what isn’t, and you’ll take note of it. And then you’ll ask for help when you need it. And then you will learn as you go and adjust based on what you see. And then you will keep getting better and better and better, better at coaching, better at business, better at balancing it all with your life.

The very thing that is making you hesitate and question if you’re ready is that you care. It’s your thoughtfulness. It’s your desire to do this well. That’s exactly what will make you an amazing coach. You’re not going to ever be the coach that isn’t ready because the coach who isn’t ready doesn’t give it much thought.

So here’s the better question. Instead of asking, am I ready? Or am I confident? Or am I certain? I want you to ask this, am I willing? Am I willing to start before I feel fully confident? Am I willing to learn as I go? Am I willing to be imperfect and learn from that? Am I willing to trust myself and to figure it out along the way? Am I willing to ask for help? Am I willing to admit when I got it wrong? And am I willing to keep going even when I feel scared AF and I’m not exactly sure how to move forward?

And here are a few ways to know if you are actually not ready versus just feeling scared. You can ask yourself, what would make me ready? And just see what that answer is. See what it delivers to you. And depending on what that answer is, if you can identify a very specific skill gap, then you know you might go learn that one thing and then move forward.

But this is a slippery slope. Just be aware. You might always be able to identify a skill gap and you want to be sure that you’re identifying it from the place of I’ve worked with clients, I see this thing is missing, versus I’ve been watching all these Instagram videos and I see I need to learn this, this, this, this, this, and this.

If it’s just a feeling of inadequacy, that’s just fear. Move anyway. Really being not ready is specific. It identifies a specific missing skill. Fake not ready is just fear dressed up in a hat that looks like dread.

So to close, I need you to know, you do not need to be ready to do whatever it is you want to do. No matter where you are in your business, in your coaching practice, whether you’re just starting out or you’ve been coaching for years and years, there’s always something you don’t feel ready for. And truly, you do not need to be ready.

You need to be willing, willing to learn, willing to fail and move forward anyway. The coaches who succeed aren’t the ones who wait, I promise you. They’re the ones who started scared and figured it out along the way. And we’re willing to notice their true skill gaps and go learn from them and fill them.

And here’s the thing, you absolutely never have to figure it out alone. And if you’re thinking, okay, I hear you, but I do want support as I learn and grow, of course, that’s natural, right? That’s exactly why we are coaches, to help people fill in those gaps, to help them feel more confident, to help them feel more certain and ready. I want you to take this and use it in whatever way feels useful for you to increase your own confidence or in the ways that you work with clients.

And if you’re a coach and you’re thinking, I really wish I had a place to practice some of this and to feel more confident and certain and ready to work with my clients and run my business, that’s exactly why I created The Complete Coach, which is my new membership. It’s not currently open if you’re listening in real time, but it will be soon.

The Complete Coach is where you build your skills, your business, and your confidence together with a community of amazing coaches right alongside of you. And they care just as much as you do about getting it right, about being ready, about feeling ready in their bodies. So I know I said it’s not open right now, but I’m gonna put two links in the show notes.

The first is the wait list for the Complete Coach, where it will just add you to that mailing list so you know when the doors are open and what to expect.

The second one is a link for a training that is happening next week, if you’re, again, listening in real time, which is the yearly planning workshop. I’ve done it for the last few years. This one is new and improved and better than ever, and is happening on the 16th and 17th of December, and that will lead into information about the membership.

So if either of those sound amazing, go to the show notes, click the link, and I can’t wait to see you inside.

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.