This is What a Good Coach Does | Imposter Syndrome

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Today's topic is all about coaching. Because the majority of people who come to me are coaches and they always have an issue with being the guiding force for their clients. Now, as a coach, you are supposed to be a guiding force. You are supposed to ask powerful questions. You are supposed to be that guiding light to help people through what they're dealing with, but you never want to feel like you are in charge of their results, because that is a recipe for you thinking that you are in control of the exact results that your clients get. And if your clients don't get results, then you blame yourself. And that is a recipe for disaster. 

 

When it comes to imposter syndrome, you will think that you're not good enough and that your work isn't good enough. And that may result in you procrastinating or lowering your prices or revamping your coaching programs. And nobody wants that. I mean, these things are all necessary in the grand scheme of things, but if you are being affected by every client that doesn't do what you're telling them to do, then it can pretty much wreak havoc on your business. And that's what I wanted to lead with today. You may be feeling insecure and unsure if coaching is for you, because you're constantly trying to impress and prove your worth and you don't feel good enough. 

 

For example, I had created a whole online course for one of my programs, it's called Unsure to Untamed. I love it so much, it's 1:1 program. And when I created it, I really didn't feel worthy of my prices. I didn't feel like I'd be able to sell it properly. I was able to get two people in at the lower tier and now it's higher. But essentially I created a whole online course because I truly didn't believe that people would want to work with me one-on-one. I truly didn't believe in myself. So I created a whole online course and decided that as long as I can put my value into the online course, it would be more valuable to people because I wasn't good enough to simply offer sessions and messaging access. 

 

And this goes back to  feeling like you have to overcompensate and give a ton of value. And also because I was coming from more of a teaching standpoint than I was in terms of a doing with standpoint. So again, coaching is more a do with process. You're not supposed to tell people what to do. You're technically not supposed to give them advice. You're supposed to help them find the answers that are already within themselves. And that's something that's really solidified in neural linguistic programming. It's not, here's how you help your clients do X, Y, and Z, by telling them how to do it. You're doing this process with them. You're asking really powerful, like in depth questions, because we all have the answers inside of us. We just need that guidance pulling the answers out of us. Has somebody ever asked you a question and that completely changed your perspective on things?

 

This is an example of a do with process. Again, coaching is not for you to sit there and tell them what to do. That's called consulting. And when I started my business, I was a coaching and consulting business, and I had no idea what the fuck consulting was. I remember asking one of my classmates, "hey, so like consulting, what do you do?" And he looks at me like, "What?" I felt really dumb. But again, if you're in the business of giving people advice, you're more of a consultant rather than coaching people and guiding them with powerful questions. Asking questions that help them rather than telling them, "This is what you should be doing." Of course, there's times where you can lead them in the right direction especially when they ask, "what's your opinion on this?"

 

But I always ask my clients, how does this feel to you? Because if it doesn't feel aligned, then why the fuck are you doing it? And if your answer is just to make money, well, that's going to work for a little while. But at the end of the day, if you're not aligned with your passion or what you truly want to be doing, then it's not gonna feel right. I know that a lot of people, especially myself, have felt like if I don't have all the answers for somebody, I'm not a good coach, if I can't help them get the results that they need, I'm not a good coach. But again, if your client isn't engaged or isn't invested, there's only so much you can do. 

 

I had this one client who had a lot of money mindset issues and it really stopped her from engaging with the course. It frustrated me because for months after I felt like a really incompetent coach when the reality was, she just wasn't ready to do this kind of work because she was so consumed with her issues around her own money story. And that really killed me because I wanted to be able to give this woman results and I wasn't able to. That is when we go down the garden path of not being good enough and not being able to fulfill what our ego really wants. Our ego just wants to be satisfied and feel like we're important and feel like we're on the right path. Imposter syndrome can make you feel like you're not on the right path and that maybe coaching isn't for you.

 

You're trying too hard to be the person with authority rather than the person who is walking alongside your client. And yes, you need to be a leader in the online space. You need to promote that leadership and have people be able to trust you and see you as somebody who they can learn from, but you're not better than any of your clients. You're not better than anybody else. An example that's coming to my mind is thinking about how I used to think people with a lower follower count were less successful, but that's not the case at all. It's fucking Instagram. It has nothing to do with how qualified somebody is, unfortunately, because we can see the numbers. So we take that as an authority position.

 

But at the end of the day, coaching is a do with process. We are walking alongside our clients, asking them powerful questions to guide them throughout this route of life. And we are not there to tell them which route to take. We can promote the feeling in them that they have the answers for themselves and that means that they will be more self sufficient and won't need as much handholding. They will amaze you when that is the route you begin to take, and you will feel more confident in yourself because you are empowering them with the tools that you have learned and are teaching to them. You're empowering them to make their own decisions and to be their own people. That is when they see the best results. 

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