How Do I Become an Amazing Life Coach?
Recently, I was a guest on the new Small Business Sweet Spot Podcast. The host, Barb Davids is an SEO consultant and owner of Compass Digital Strategies. She’s been coaching me on how to make the most of my online presence.
Like getting people to my website and reading my blog…like this one.
We had a good talk about some of the blind spots I see with new and even seasoned coaches when it comes to starting and growing their coaching business.
They all want to be amazing life coaches or business coaches or health coaches, yet, they tend to focus on the wrong things to help them to become that amazing coach.
In this blog, I am sharing some of the main ideas we talked about. Hopefully, you’ll enjoy listening to the podcast too and learning what it takes to become an amazing life coach.
What It Takes To Become An Amazing Life Coach.
I’ve been coaching now for nearly thirty years. And the landscape has really shifted.
When I first started, if I introduced myself as a life coach, people would lean in and ask, “ Wow. What is that?” Now, they lean back and say, “Who isn’t.”
One can only laugh.
In addition, I’ve witnessed another big change in the industry.
When I started, the people I worked with were on a journey of self discovery.
They were really trying to find themselves. I coached a lot of moms who felt pretty lost because their focus was solely family directed.
Well all these years later, the women I meet have “done the work.”
They have indeed found themselves. But the problem now is, “Why aren’t they out there doing what they want to do?”
Many of them are stuck. They are procrastinating. Or they feel overwhelmed. Many lack the self-confidence to put themselves out there. And here’s what’s so amazing. Many of them want to be coaches.
They did the coaching work to figure out what they wanted. And they wanted to be coaches.
And so, that led me to start mentor coaching.
This means that I work with coaches, both new and seasoned to become amazing coaches.
I have my personal clients and I work with Lora Lisi, founder of Bliss OM facilitating a Life Coaching Certification program.
Curiously, what is missing in pretty much all the clients I work with, is their confidence in general.
They’ve become very focused on the practical strategies for building a coaching business and have forgotten about the “inner game.”
That’s where the real work needs to be done if you want to become an amazing coach.
The “Inner Game” of Becoming an Amazing Coach
I’ve identified three common challenges where coaches often get stuck. These challenges are all about their mindset, beliefs, and self-doubts. That’s what I am calling the “inner game.”
Identifying the Common Challenges
Coaches often get stuck in these three ways:
- Lack of Action: They’re motivated and love planning but can’t execute their plans.
- Overwhelm and Confusion: They’re lost, confused, and unsure where to start.
- Inconsistent Effort: They start strong but stop due to fear, procrastination, or lack of direction.
I start with the premise that there is always something underlying these behaviours or lack of behaviours as it were.
The first question I ask is, “What’s going on right now that has you coming for coaching?”
We examine:
- Current State: Where are you now, and what’s getting in the way?
- Strengths and Wins: What’s working well, and how can we leverage that?
- Vision and Dream: What keeps you awake in a good way? Who have you seen doing what you want to do?
These questions help my clients to get clear on the real issues that are causing the block.
That means we identify the mindset that is likely caught in perfectionism, or negativity or even victimhood.
We look at the underlying limiting beliefs that fuel their mindset. We look at the fears. There are always fears.
And then we do a big shift to looking at what is working, what is exciting and why they chose coaching in the first place.
You can see from what I am saying that it’s all about the “inner game.” We are not talking business strategy at this point.
Identifying the Inner Game Strategies
The first step in mastering the inner game of becoming an amazing coach is cultivating self-awareness.
If you’re constantly busy but overwhelmed and procrastinating, something deeper is likely at play.
Self-awareness helps identify the underlying causes of procrastination, such as fear of failure or not feeling good enough.
For example: I will ask my client some pointed questions:
- What do you think will happen if you put yourself out there?
- What will happen if you’re not as successful as you mean to be?
- What will happen if you’ve made a mistake and don’t like what you’re doing and you’ve changed your whole life to do it?
These are the common fears underlying coaches getting stuck in their coaching business and not able to take consistent action.
The second step in mastering the inner game of becoming an amazing coach is to uplevel your self-identity.
Sometimes, we all get caught in an unproductive and likely old sense of identity.
For example, I worked with a client who had the identity of being the “other” one in the family.
Everyone else was smarter, more successful and popular than her. She was always taking second place in many ways both at school, at work and at home.
That meant her old identity was sabotaging her progress.
She just couldn’t be “too” good, or “too” successful because that was not her identity.
Of course, she had no idea until we worked together.
She had to learn to:
a) be willing to forgive everyone and let go of this “second place” identity. And then
b) start to think about what someone in “first place” would do. How would they act? What would they think? What kind of routines might they follow?
And then, start doing that.
Start acting like a “winner” even if you don’t feel like it.
That’s what my client did and she is a successful and amazing Spiritual Coach and Business mentor.
The third step in mastering the inner game of becoming an amazing coach is to always be balancing personal growth with business development.
As coaches, it’s crucial to balance personal growth with business development.
Your personal growth directly impacts your coaching business’s growth, and finding that balance is key.
And that’s because, we can only grow as big as we feel. Do you know what I mean?
If we have a medium amount of self-worth, likely, we’ll grow a medium sized business and earn a medium sized income.
And that might not be enough to sustain you.
Our inner life is mirrored back to us by our outer life. So we have to always be noticing what our outer life is telling us.
I have told this story before and I will tell it again because it really brings this point home.
Whenever my calendar is low on coaching appointments, it is usually because I have fallen out of love with my work.
That could be because of all the Instagram Posts I am supposed to be posting and don’t!!!!
Okay, I’m only half joking.
There are things I don’t always enjoy about my work. But as soon as I see a lull in my calendar, I get right back to working on focusing on all the things I love about my work.
The people I meet and help. The freedom in my time and commitments. The joy of seeing someone succeed.
When I focus on these and all the other things I am grateful for, my calendar starts to magically fill up.
My outer life is a reflection of my inner life.
Period.
And so I have to keep an eye on my inner life all the time and make sure I am balancing my personal growth and well being with my business development activities.
Steps to Achieve Balance:
- Schedule Time for Both: Dedicate specific time slots for personal growth activities like journaling or meditation and business tasks like content creation.
- Align Personal and Business Goals: Ensure that your personal goals support your business vision and vice versa.
- Regular Assessment: Every month, evaluate your personal and business growth. What worked well, and where can you improve?
Conclusion:
I guess we could say that the “inner game” of coaching is very much based on self-care.
Taking care of yourself is essential to maintaining productivity and creativity.
Keep yourself aware of the inner thoughts, feelings and beliefs that might be keeping you stuck.
Work on upleveling your self-identity.
And balance your personal growth with your business development.
This is how you can become an amazing life coach, business coach, health coach, mindset coach….coach coach.
This is how you can grow any business…from the inside out.
If you’ve enjoyed this post, you’ll love my current Free E-book: A Beginner’s Guide to Improving Your Mindset. You are welcome to download it here and become part of my coaching community.
