Why Hiring A Coach Isn’t The Answer To Your Problems.
You could save yourself money and time
Wouldn’t it be lovely if we could just buy a simple formula and magically all of our woes would disappear? Wouldn’t it just.
With the digital marketplace in full swing thanks to the current pandemic, the webspace is packed to the brim with Coaches and Programs offering us the solutions to every problem we could dare to imagine up. There are some brilliant super-knowledgeable ones; for every one of those, there are many more sketchy ones — the sketchy one’s generally got by on being gifted Copywriters or Salespeople, with their gift of the gab.
Chances are, you’ve been burned by more than one of these; that’s ok.
The sad thing about that is — It’s really easy to then cut yourself off from the possibility of hooking up with a coach that could really help you to change your life/business/fitness. Kind of like that visceral feeling of heartbreak; after the one relationship that left you believing that if being in love came at the cost of that much pain — it just doesn’t seem worth it.
We buy into the possibility of pain and disappointment much quicker than we latch on to the dreamy feeling of believing in success, true love; or having a banging body (which, by the way, done right, can be felt irrespective of whatever shape you perceive yourself to be) because quite often it just doesn’t feel like something we’re supposed to have.
Oftentimes, this stems as far back as childhood; where we pick up and tap into our brains, beliefs of lack, difficulty — or the feeling that we just don’t deserve those things.
As an adult child of alcoholics, both of which passed away by the time I was 28, before I became a mother myself — I lived this reality for so long. It was only when I fell pregnant that I decided to set about metaphorically burning my belief system to the ground, to watch it burn; so that I could learn new beliefs from scratch, alongside my little womb fruit.
Making The Switch
Before you throw your cash at a coach; quickly followed by that deep panic of what have I done?! — it’s worth getting under the hood, and into your soft, sweet, pink brain; giving it a little love and attention.
The irony being, that you may need a coach to help you with this — (I’m a big fan of counselling, therapy, and coaching for this bit).
Why? The Answer Is In Your Response — Knee-jerk Reactions
As long as your limiting beliefs are hardwired in your noggin, you can consciously want to change more than anything in the world; be willing to throw money, energy and time all-in to it — but, if your knee-jerk reaction is I can’t afford/do/lose weight; this is too hard for me, I always screw things up — I’m afraid your subconscious is going to crack out it’s finest arsenal of self-sabotage weapons to help knock you clean around the back of the knees, so you fall back in line with that deep-seated belief.
You have to hold enough self-belief, desire, and unshakeable determination in getting to that end goal, that literally anything could happen, and you’d still be dusting yourself off, still bleeding; possibly dragging your bloodied carcass; towards that goal.
It has to become a part of you.
I just don’t have that belief.
That’s ok. It’s not some overnight thing. Really.
It’s taken me years, no, decades; trying, failing, trying again, crying a lot — learning even more.
It starts with one small commitment to believe that you are capable of being and doing whatever you want. If you’re stuck in the comparison trap, the good news is — you care enough to look at what you want and quite often the belief is ‘I could do this…’ the change just needs to be looking at how you could; instead of all the reasons you can’t — assuming that these other folks must have something you don’t.
You got it all under the hood. It starts with one small decision and committing to build on it — with self-compassion and patience.
Habit Breaking + Rebuilding
Building new habits and breaking old, unhelpful ones requires patience, consistency, and mental grit — especially replacing old with new. If you dismiss something after a few days, or after a few weeks of half-assing it — you haven’t tried hard enough.
Your desire has to be stronger than your barriers; if they’re not, you’re most likely going to need a coach to help you to strengthen your resolve against those pesky mental blocks. It’s going to take a good 2–3 months, maybe more, of consistent, purposeful effort to break and make those habits.
This is the same as learning a new skill.
To succeed, you’re looking at trying and failing multiple times before you get it nailed. If you keep dropping out every time it gets hairy, you’re not going to get very far. Gain some accountability from friends, family, or a coach; making sure they are on your side and not one of your co-saboteurs.
Successful business people tenacity
The most successful people you see out there may make it looks easy, (that’s the comparison trap coming out to get you again), when a lot of these people are successful because of their tenacity, and steadfast to keep moving when the waters get rough.
Mindset Work
Keep check of how you’re talking to yourself — We do it all the time, yet, it’s so habitual, we rarely check-in to make sure we’re feeding ourselves affirming, energizing thoughts; instead of stinky, energy-sucking negative self-talk.
Keep a log — if you notice some common negative self-talk — write it down and come up with 3 positives/counters to replace it.
Like the habit work, this is something you have to persevere with and rep out until it becomes easy — which to start with, it’s really not. The payoff, however, is freaking huge.
5 Ways To Tap Into Your Whats, Whys, and WTFs
1 Understand WHY
Now, this isn’t as easy as it sounds — in some cases, it’s a counseling job. Find out why you want to achieve whatever it is that you’re aiming for. Sometimes the real reason you aren’t getting anywhere with trying to achieve it, is simply that you don’t actually want to.
It’s super easy to do; we get conditioned throughout life to conform. This can mean, oftentimes, that we start veering towards goals and achievements we believe will bring us more love, attention, acceptance, or wealth; for example.
With that in mind, we look at what other people are doing, or things we’ve been praised for in the past, latch on to it, and convince ourselves that gaining love, acceptance and wealth will come as a result of achieving X goal.
I’ve done this.
Like, a million times.
Go after what sets your heart and soul alight and the above outcomes are more likely to come to you, from the pure fact that you are glowing with passion from chasing your genuine dream.
2 Understand WHAT
Now you’ve figured out if what you’re going after is really what you want, clarify it even harder. Mindmap it out.
Get mad specific. Find out who’s already doing it, get numbers, costs, timeframes.
Find out what the end game feels like, looks like, runs like; man, even what it smells like. You have to get to know what you’re aiming for or you’ll end up veering off course. The more you learn, the more possible it’ll feel, and the more excited you’ll get.
If you’re excited — you’re motivated to make moves.
3 Break It Down
Ok, cool. We’re excited now.
Then, you need to break it down — with all you’ve learned you can go out there and reverse engineer that big goal to find that first step you need to take. One of the biggest mistakes I see people make is — looking at the goal, getting overwhelmed, and quitting before starting.
Chunk it waaaaay down. All the way down. Break it into years, months, weeks, and days. Everything that has been achieved before has started with one step, not a blink-woosh-wow-it’s-here.
4 How Can You Take One Step
Ace. What’s your first step? One is enough.
Make one move that’s going to get you closer to your end goal. Make that step a habit and keep going. Once you’ve nailed it, you can go back to your list and start on the next one.
Journal it out, write it down. Keep a track of what you’re doing and planning your next move.
5 Start Where You Are, With What You’ve Got
You don’t have to have a lot to get started. If your excuse is that you’re broke, you don’t have time; the cat’s sick — you’ll always have an excuse. If you did your reverse engineering properly, you’ll have found that first step you can take from where you are, with what you’ve got.
Do these things, then you’re already well on your way. This is when you’ll be set in good steading to pick the right coach for you.
5 Things To Look For In A Coach
1 They have achieved what you want to achieve and can prove it
Not only this — they can prove they’ve helped others do the very same with testimonials. There are a lot of people of their promoting themselves off the back of their own personal successes but may not have necessarily been able to replicate it for any of their clients.
A tried and tested formula should be able to be replicated to get results from others and repeatedly — if the coach only has experience of what works for themselves they could rigidly stick within the confines of what works for them, with no wriggle room for different learning styles. What happens then is a tonne of friction, disappointment, and blame-volleying.
2 They will tailor your coaching experience
The last point feeds into this one. A great coach is going to do a nice, deep gathering of information to help tailor your strategy for success that takes into account how you learn, what is holding you back, what kind of support you’re actually looking for — eg action-based or accountability.
It’s not going to be BAM! SELL!
There will be initial contact, questionnaires, and onboarding calls to see if you’re a good fit. Then, likely the same again upon signing up — to refine the planning to make sure it’s going to be what you need.
Remember this: It’s in a coach’s best interest that you do well and enjoy working with them — testimonials can make or break a coaching business — on picking the right one for you, you can guarantee they’re going to want success for you, sometimes more than you want it yourself!
3 They Will Course Correct With You
Things will go wrong at some stage. It’s just part of the process. When pulling apart limiting beliefs and going for what you want, the fear will rise up and self-sabotage, Imposter Syndrome and all their mates will show up to trash your party.
A great coach is going to be there to steady your hand and walk with you out of that all-consuming desire to stay in a state of inertia. They’ll work with you to find that sticking point, giving you outside perspective of a different way to climb over, under, or through it. They’ll hold space for your concerns and won’t blame you or tell you to suck it up.
4 They Will Be Dextrous In Their Method
This kind of great coaching comes from an ability to understand that clients will learn in different ways — kinesthetically, Visually, Aurally, Verbally, Logically, Socially or in Solitude, most likely a combination of these with a dominant — and be able to adapt to that clients learning style.
They won’t, force you to learn in their modality, then blame you when you aren’t picking it up.
5 They Will Celebrate Your Wins And Support You In The Bumps — They Won’t Fix You
You aren’t broken; irrespective of where you’re at right now. A great coach is going to cheer you on when you’re losing your mojo, offer you solutions, and remind you what a badass you are. It’s inevitable that we forget this on the road to success — it’s a bumpy ole road; certainly not a linear one.
They can’t do it for you though, if they try to — both of you will lose out. A coach isn’t a magic ticket to success, nor are they a PA/VA (you need to hire one of those if that’s what you’re looking for). A coach is there to guide you in the direction of your end goal — so make sure you’re both clear on your mutual expectations to save anyone getting burned.
For The Coaches Reading This; Vexed That I Might Be Putting People Off
As a coach of over a decade myself, I’ve learned the hard way that taking on clients that aren’t mentally ready to tackle their big goals costs you more money than if you didn’t have them.
It’s fabulous to want to help as many people as you can; it’s understandable that you need to make a living — you can’t as a coach, do this from an empty cup. If you believe in your capabilities as a coach — raise your prices to your worth and hold out for the clients that are ready; who set your soul alight with excitement — the energy exchange between you will motivate you both, attract more clients and make for happy folks all round.
Your dream clients exist. They are looking for you right now. If you conserve your energy by ditching out desperately chasing people who just aren’t ready — you’ll do it.
Amanda Jayne O’Hare is an entrepreneur and confidence coach for mums with 11 years coaching in Fitness below her belt. She’s also single-mummy-from-pregnancy to her little girl Ruby. Catch her on Instagram at @strong.mama.moves
