Ask The When I Grow Up Coach Giving Yourself Advice

Ask The When I Grow Up Coach Giving Yourself Advice Advice from a Reflection by This is Blaise It’s another installment of  Ask the When I Grow Up Coach! Each week or so, I pick one of  the questions that have been posed to feature here, until there are no questions left! Disclaimer: A few of the questions that have been posted are from other coaches or would-be coaches. While I’m absolutely happy to share my story and offer any advice I have on being a coach, I’m only gonna post the questions that can be applied more universally. Hope that’s helpful! Heres the question!: How do you give advice to yourself (and listen to it)? I find it is so much easier to help others than take my own advice when it comes to business! Ah, if it was just that easy, right, lovely asker? The good/bad news is that, wellit aint (insert sliding sound affect here). See, Im a life coach who has a life coach, working with a variety of different coaches over the years depending on the challenge(s) Im going through at the time. So even though Im making my living coaching others to clarify their goals and dreams and then, um, make them happen its tough for me to do that for myself! That said, though, there are a few things I do when I need to make a decision, because lets face it life coaches dont give advice, so its not like Im waiting around for my session so that my coach can tell me what to do. In order to figure out whats right for me, I do a few different things: Listen to my gut/heart. Oh, Ive turned into such a hippy-dippy since I started coaching its ridiculous but its true. I tell my brain to take a hike and do my best to really listen to what my torsos telling me it wants to do. Its usually pretty tough because if Im at a crossroads its because its hard to hear what my gut/heart is trying to tell me. But I give it time and space and quiet, and I do my best to interpret what it wants to tell me (sometime the gut/brain doesnt speak English). I journal. Usually this is off my blog, written longhand in a blank journal or in a Word document if my brains going super-fast. Since Ive had this blog Ive journaled less and less, but when I dowow, does good stuff appear. I think of myself as not myself, but as my bestest friend, and give myself (but not myself) advice. Does that make sense? In other words, think that you bestest friend has the challenge and not you. What would you say to your bestest friend? How would you help him/her make a decision? Write it down. When youre done, read it back to yourself as if its coming from your bestest friend but directed at you. Hopefully its helpful and wont make you have multiple personality disorder. But if it does, at least you know you have a bigger problem than the one you had originally ?? I use the exercises I created in my free workbook, Pounding (Your Head Against) the Pavement, which everyone who subscribes to my newsletter gets. I originally wrote it to help someone who was in the predicament I was in back in 06 a confusing place, since I was trying to decide whether I wanted to let go of my lifelong dream and find another. Of course, I created these exercises after the fact (part of the reason I became the When I Grow Up Coach was because I didnt know anyone who was remotely like a When I Grow Up Coach to help me!), but I still think its aces to help anyone through a tough decision. The 7 exercises there take you through your values, the exercise I described above, a pro-con list (but better), challenging your fears, tossing out the shoulds, yada yada yada. I like practicing what I preach ?? I do a brain dump. I get everything out on paper in a big list. Literally, every single thing thats crowding my head or thats around that decision goes in there. Sometimes just seeing it like that makes something click otherwise I know its a good template for my next coaching session. I go on a date with my husband. Our dates always end up with us working out whats rolling around in our heads, talking it out, talking it through, and feeling lighter by the time we pay the bill. It feels good to get it out of my head and bounce it off someone else who listens, offers advice and support, and tells me that, Youve always made the best business decisions for yourself, babe. Even if I dont leave with a solution, the discussion is always a comfort, especially paired with any booze we consume ?? Do whats fun/easy. I have a tendency to make things complicated. Not on purpose, mind you its just how I naturally create a system or a structure or a product or a service. I constantly ask myself, How can I make this easier? Then I do it. Then I ask again, and I keep asking and stripping, asking and stripping, until Im left in my underpants and pasties figuratively, of course. Its usually pretty tough for me to work through that on my own its definitely difficult for me to see how I can simplify, as my brain just doesnt work that way so thats something I bring to a coaching call. Actually, I have a real good example of this. I was talking to my lovely VA last week about handling my scholarship contest entries, and I told her I was at a loss as to what I was going to offer the applicants this year (last year I personally responded to their emails and set em up with a great group coaching deal). As I tend to do, I was making it extra complicated, and lots of shoulds were showing their faces. Thankfully, Jess broke the run-around I was giving myself by asking, But what do you want to offer that you really like doing? followed by, Keep it simple, Michelle. How can we make it easy? (The coach in me was so proud!). Shed then offer suggestions based on her knowledge and experience and wed discuss them together. By the end of the hour call, I not only had a plan in place (no, I cant tell ya its a surprise!), but it was aligned with what was fun, easy, and comin from my gut. Just how I like it. Bottom line? Take back the word advice and replace it with feeling, need, or gut. Be your own best friend. Get it out of your head and onto the page, or throw it out to your man/lady/bestie/Mom/coach. But in the end, do what feels right for you what allows you to sleep at night, what you trust (even if theres not a reason behind it), and what your torsos communicating in that foreign tongue. I promise it gets easier with time.