Is it possible to self-coach? HOW do you self coach yourself? What IS self coaching, and what are the best self coaching exercises and self coaching questions to effectively learn how to coach yourself? This Self Coaching Guide and Techniques training is a self coaching masterclass to answer those questions and more!
As an internationally board-certified Life Coach who specializes in personal fulfillment coaching for clients and helps you learn how to do mindset work, I’m so delighted to share with you these powerful methods for how to change mindset and behaviour…
Let’s get started.
Topics we address in this article:
- Intro to the Self Coaching Guide & Techniques training.
- Background info about how you can access more classes — just like this!
- What is self coaching?
- How to do mindset work (tips from a Personal Fulfillment Coach).
- Important things to keep in mind when you are learning how to change mindset and behaviour.
- Self coaching examples and thought exercises.
- Sample self-discovery questions and reflection prompts!
- Top 3 essential things to keep in mind when you are learning how to coach yourself.
- How do you self coach yourself when you get stuck?
- Your next steps!
Who am I to speak on this topic?
As a Life Coach for Solopreneurs, I work with you to develop your intrapersonal skills, increase personal fulfillment in your business and life, create anti-hustle productivity strategies for your solopreneur business, and improve your relationship with yourself.
The vast majority of my clients are highly self-aware individuals, so the coaching that we do involves a deepening of your intrapersonal intelligence.
And by the way — if you're ever been told "You're too self-aware for coaching," I want you to know that that's not true!
Instead, you simply haven't yet worked with a coach who specializes in working with self-aware individuals. (And right now, you're in exactly the right place — because I specialize in coaching people who are already self-aware)
Self-awareness is not the end-goal, but rather your stepping stone to the next level ♥
I have more than a decade of experience as a solo business owner (starting out as a freelance writer and editor for a number of years before helping other solopreneurs with anti-hustle productivity as home-based business owners), and I became internationally board-certified as a Life & Success Coach in 2021.
...You're in good hands 😉
Watch the Self Coaching Guide and Techniques video:
(Or scroll down to read the blog post version of this video)
Self Coaching Guide and Techniques video show notes
- 0:00 Introduction and overview of what to expect in our Self Coaching Guide and Techniques training
- 0:50 What is self coaching? Is it possible to self-coach? What are the benefits to doing self coaching exercises?
- 2:30 Overview of how to do mindset work and the guided self coaching questions I like to ask myself (the method I use for how to coach yourself — what personal fulfillment coaching can look like).
- 6:55 A word of caution about **what happens** along the way when you are learning how to change mindset and behaviour — plus an important disclaimer to keeping mind when you are using/implementing this Self Coaching Guide and Techniques training.
- 9:10 “Sagan, how do you self coach yourself?” → An example of what I like to do when I am doing self coaching exercises and self coaching questions.
- 10:30 Examples of several issues I’ve worked through (and the way in which I have done self coaching exercises to process them and move out of them) → Includes mindset reframes as examples for how to change your mindset to be successful.
- 24:15 Sample self coaching questions you can use for how to coach yourself and how to change mindset and behaviour (these are GREAT questions to explore as part of your Self Coaching Guide and Techniques) — plus the value of reframing as a tool for self coaching exercises.
- 27:40 Three VERY important, essential things to keep in mind for how to do mindset work and to keep in mind when you are learning how to coach yourself.
- 33:45 “Sagan, do you ever reach a point where you get stuck during self coaching exercises? How do you self coach yourself when you get stuck?” → Answering these questions about navigating stickiness in self coaching.
Intro to your Self Coaching Guide and Techniques training
Today I want to talk about what IS self coaching, why it matters so much, and why I wanted to do this topic for this month’s Productivity Powerhouse bonus masterclass training…
...and then I want to get into my particular method of self coaching, because what self coaching looks like really depends on the person and the situation. I want to get into this from a practical standpoint, specifically what it looks like when I'm doing self coaching in my own solopreneur business as a cozy entrepreneur.
I also have four examples of issues that I myself have worked through, so I'll share some of that with you! We will then get into sample self coaching questions, plus three important pieces to keep in mind when you are learning how to coach yourself and doing self coaching in your own life or business (if you decide to do self coaching on your own, those will be very important things to consider).
Brief background about this video, before we dive in...
This Self Coaching Guide & Techniques video is a recording from the Solopreneur Diary Entries: Premium Edition.
Originally, the Solopreneur Diary Entries: Premium Edition classes were exclusive to people enrolled in the Productivity Powerhouse e-course (THIS one's from November 2022).
...However, these classes are now available for purchase separately from Productivity Powerhouse!
>>> Click HERE to get access to the monthly online solopreneur trainings — brand-new workshops and masterclasses, every single month.
This Self Coaching video is your sneak peek example of what just ONE of those monthly solopreneur masterclasses looks like. Enjoy!
What is self coaching?
Is it possible to self-coach? How do you self coach yourself?
Self coaching is about working through issues independently so that you can address them and deal with them.
When I'm working with my clients in personal fulfillment coaching sessions or solopreneur productivity coaching sessions, it's me talking with them and working through any types of obstacles they might be experiencing — perfectionism, procrastination, overwhelm, impostor syndrome, all of these types of things.
When you're doing self coaching, you're essentially doing that to yourself: You're doing it on an internal basis, where you are basically both the coach and the client. It's a cool skill to develop!
The real benefit to doing this is that you get to address issues in real time, on your own, so that they stop being these obstacles for you; so they stop getting in your way, and so it stops being a bottleneck.
This is also NOT just about addressing or dealing with the surface level issues. It's about diving deeper so that you can overcome those actual issues that you might be struggling with.
I help you learn how to do this when you get life coaching sessions with me.
...So for today, I thought that it'd be useful for you to get some insights into what coaching looks like and how it helps you!
If you've been thinking about getting coaching, this Self Coaching Guide & Techniques training provides you with reassurance around what it looks like. If you're a bit nervous about it, or if you're intimidated by it and you're not really sure what happens in a coaching session, hopefully this will put you at ease for it!
How do you self coach yourself? Here’s how I use self coaching…
Coaching looks very different depending on the person, so I do it differently with different clients — but the method of self coaching that I tend to do it in my own life and my own business is to ask myself powerful questions.
What those questions are, and how I approach those questions, and the order of questioning I explore, and the process I follow, depends based on the situation.
...It's not "just" about the questions themselves, but knowing which questions are the RIGHT questions for that specific scenario, for example.
It's also about being willing to answer those questions HONESTLY — to be very honest with myself — and to be willing to sit with my answers, even when it might be a little bit uncomfortable.
From there, it's about checking in with what I am willing and what I am not willing to DO about what I uncover. That's a really important piece to take into consideration!
...In fact, your WILLINGNESS in one of the most important factors in your ability to be coached.
Sometimes I like to layer in somatic techniques like EFT tapping. But all of this, for my style of personal fulfillment coaching, starts with guided questions. We layer in somatic techniques if that's a good fit and if it connects back to that particular obstacle or issue; if it makes sense for that particular coaching situation.
(In addition to being an internationally board-certified Success and Life Coach, I'm also an internationally board-certified Practitioner of Emotional Freedom Techniques. We can do EFT as part of our coaching sessions, if that's of interest to you!)
Self coaching skills as a PRACTICE
These are skills that you develop over time. Self coaching is a practice — and in that way, it is similar to productivity!
I'm always talking about how productivity is one of those skills that we can continue to develop over time... We never get to a point where we say, “I can never be more productive” — because you can ALWAYS improve your productivity.
Self coaching is the same way: It's a skill that you keep developing and building over time.
This also connects back to doing weekly audits and performance reviews in Step 9 of the Productivity Powerhouse framework. If you have completed that lesson in the program and you went through the weekly audit and performance reviews, then you'll know it's a lot about analyzing your business, assessing how things are going, and deciding how you're going to move forward.
...And some of the questions are also around your approach to things, how you're feeling and thinking about all different components of your business. That's a very “base” version of self coaching.
The Productivity Powerhouse Workbook in general gives you that space to do a little bit of “self coaching light” on your own, too! If you've gone through the workbook and you feel like you uncovered some interesting things about yourself that you maybe didn't realize before, that indicates that you've already done a little bit of self coaching, which is really cool! It can be really useful for doing that.
If you have gone through Step 9 of Productivity Powerhouse, or if you've gone through any of the lessons but you HAVEN’T done the Workbook yet, then I would really really encourage you to do that — because it's not just about watching the video lessons or reading through the Productivity Powerhouse Companion Guide; it's about actually taking action on all these things.
And that includes answering those questions in the Workbook, because things will come up for you that will not otherwise come to mind if you're just watching through the lessons.
When you book coaching sessions with me, we go through much of this process on our coaching calls together. I coach my clients on our calls, and then we build these skills within them over time. I have “fast track” methods of doing it:
For example, I'll give my clients customized self coaching exercises or self discovery thought experiments so that they can process things on their own in between sessions.
Based on their specific struggle or particular obstacle, and based on their unique brain, personality, lifestyle, goals, etc, I will customize my coaching during our session and then also design a customized thought experiment to guide them through doing their own self coaching, in between our sessions.
They can do the self discovery process in between sessions, test it out, see what happens, and then come back at our next session — at which point we assess and do a "debrief of it, before adjusting and pivoting as needed (based on what they got from it, what worked for them, and what didn't work for them).
An important note on doing this work in self coaching
When you are learning how to change mindset and behaviour...
A lot of new stuff often comes up when you're doing this work. When you are doing self coaching, oftentimes, you start working through one issue... and then you realize that there may be a whole other issue to deal with.
You peel back one of the layers, only to discover there's something else to deal with underneath it.
The reason why I want to make note of this is because it's good to be aware of it!
I want to caution you that if you're doing self coaching, it can be jarring when you aren't expecting new things to come up.
If you THINK you're dealing with one particular issue — and then that actually uncovers another issue — it can be a little bit of a shock.
Make sure that you're in a very safe space to be able to work through those different issues. I would recommend that you almost assume that something else is underneath that initial surface layer.
One more point that I want to reiterate before we move into what this looks like on a practical level, for me to be self coaching for myself (and the 4 examples of how I've worked through issues in my own life in business)... The point I wanted to make here is this:
Self coaching is different for everyone.
I mentioned it earlier, but I want to reiterate that the self coaching questions and methods that I use for myself are not necessarily the exact same methods or the exact same coaching questions I use when I'm working with various clients.
It's also not the same types that they might use when they are doing self coaching.
All of this — as with everything, as you already know if you are inside the Productivity Powerhouse e-course — is going to be fully customized!
Each person is unique, and each situation you deal with is different, so therefore all coaching must be tailored to YOU and that given situation.
You can get a general idea of how self coaching works from today's Self Coaching Guide & Techniques masterclass, but it NEEDS to be customized in order for it to be truly effective for you.
You'll want to do the particular method(s) that work well for you, and to ask yourself the self coaching questions that are a good fit for you.
(This is also 100% something I help you with when I teach you customized self coaching in our 1:1 coaching sessions together)
2 methods of self coaching examples and how to coach yourself
From a practical standpoint, when I'm doing self coaching, it usually happens in one of two ways:
1) While I’m out for a long walk.
I'll usually go out for 60 - 75 minutes, which is about the length of my coaching sessions as well with clients. I'll go for that length of a walk and I will go through coaching in my head: I will be coaching myself while I go for a walk by myself.
(I can't do self coaching if I'm out for a walk with someone else. It doesn't work the same!)
In that case, I will often email myself from my phone about any breakthroughs that I have. I might get back to my office and have 7 emails waiting for me after a walk if I have really gone through some good things.
That's one of the ways that I do it: Going out for a walk.
2) The other way that I like to self coach is to literally write down questions and then journal it out to see what comes up for me.
Self coaching either happens in my head (while I'm working through things and I write down notes for myself just so I can hold on to those little nuggets), or else I will just be writing and it'll be a stream of consciousness as I am answering these very specific types of questions.
I'll be following my thought processes in a very strategic manner to get to the actual answer that I need to get at.
A few examples of issues that I have worked through when I'm doing self coaching for myself…
Self Coaching Example #1: Ego fears.
I have held myself back in a variety of ways over the years because of an ongoing underlying fear that “If I am too successful, I'll get a big ego.”
This has just been an underlying, ongoing sort of fear where I really never want that to happen. The idea of having a big ego just feels terrifying! This is something that has been interesting to work through — because it's one of those things, as I mentioned, where you start to peel back the layers when you're doing this self coaching.
You think that this is one issue... and then you uncover it and it becomes something else, and something else.
In my case, when it comes to ego fears and I first realized what was going on, it started out as procrastination. Early on in my business, I would not do certain tasks that would have led to my business success.
By unravelling a bit more and digging into that procrastination, I found that underneath the surface, there was some imposter syndrome going on. And then digging into that more, I realized there was also that ego fear; that fear of getting a really big ego.
With all of these pieces pulled away, you could see how the procrastination was more of a symptom of these other things going on beneath the surface.
Because I've done this self coaching around it, now I know what the symptoms are. I know that if I'm holding myself back from doing things that can move my business forward and that can lead to some really great business success, I know that there might be an ego fear in it.
And then I can work through it: I can coach myself through it.
What self coaching exercises have worked well for me to overcome this issue of ego fears?
One thing that's worked really well for me to overcome that specific issue of ego fears is holding on to particular thoughts and particular pieces in my mind.
For example, one of them is this:
There are many extremely successful people out there who do not have big egos.
Just because there are some people who DO have big egos when they become successful, there are plenty of people who do not.
Therefore, I can view them and see: "Being successful is not equated with having a big ego."
That's one of the things that's been very helpful for getting past that.
Another piece that has been helpful is recognizing that there's no evidence of me in the past having a gigantic ego — so why would I assume that would happen in the future?
Being able to hold on to these thoughts has been very helpful for working through that. That’s like a “fast track version” of how I worked through that particular issue of ego fears via self coaching.
Self Coaching Example #2: Seeking safety in breaks
The second example here, of how I do self coaching in my own life and business, is something that came up just last month when I was doing the first part of my business planning retreat...
One of the things that came up for me was that I was taking breaks in the middle of the day from my business planning retreat, and they were not helping me the way that I wanted them to be helping me.
So I dove into it: “What's going on here?”
Part of the business planning retreat I was doing involved a lot of deep self coaching work — this is gonna get a little meta — and I needed to take a break from it because it was starting to feel like, “Oof, this is a lot of deep stuff that I'm uncovering.”
So I took a break from it by watching TV in the middle of the day — probably Selling Sunset or Love Is Blind or Once Upon A Time; one of those shows.
Doing this was helpful from a midday break standpoint, but it was depleting my energy. I didn't want to go back to work afterwards!
By doing more self coaching around it, I was able to realize that I was taking a break of watching TV because I was seeking safety.
I was putting myself out there and being very vulnerable with myself by doing all this business retreat stuff and self coaching — and as a result, I wanted safety.
I wanted a safe space for my break.
However, the type of safety that I was using and falling back on was a very constrained type of safety (TV shows).
What I needed, instead, was a much more expansive, spacious safety.
Expansive vs constrained safety
For me, that expansive, spacious safety would be things like going out for a long walk, letting myself be out in nature, enjoying walking, eating nourishing foods while reading a great book, etc.
Those are more spacious, more expansive types of safety for me...
...Whereas taking a break by watching a TV show in the middle of the day is a little bit more contracted. It doesn't give me the opportunity to grow and do proper self coaching, to do the proper work that I wanted to be doing, because it was too constrained.
It’s interesting to be able to identify those different types of safety that we tend to seek.
I'm guessing that you, too, have probably stumbled into thais as well:
You've needed some kind of safety (because things can be really scary when you're starting or growing your business), and you might have sought safety in a way that felt good in the moment, but it was still constraining you.
It's important to find those safety options in a more expansive way that supports you.
I was able to work through this while doing my business planning retreat because I realized that it was a stumbling block for me!
I literally self coached myself through it by asking myself these guided self coaching questions and writing down the answers — and so I came to this. Again, that one's a bit of a meta example!
Self Coaching Example #3: A deeper understanding of my anxiety
In this instance, I've been able to use self coaching exercises to manage and mitigate my anxiety.
DISCLAIMER: I want to make a note here that anxiety is completely different for everyone. This will not necessarily work for every person.
This is all simply to give you examples of possible options.
My version of anxiety often comes up where I'll be worried about one thing… and if I fix the issue that I'm fixated on and worried about — if I resolve that issue — then my mind will jump to something else and will fixate on that.
And THAT is how I know that I am experiencing anxiety in that moment. (That's one of the key ways that I know it’s my anxiety cropping up; there are other ways too, but that's one of the key ones.)
This is something I figured out when I was living in a very small town for the first year of the pandemic: It was the middle of night and I was basically self coaching in my head. I was worried that the door was unlocked. I was wondering, “Did I lock the door? What if I didn’t lock the door?”
I lived in this tiny little town, and the type of apartment that we had was on the ground level. Someone else's back door was right next to our bedroom window and I felt some discomfort around it. I got up to check that the door was locked. It was locked; all was well…
And INSTANTLY I started to worry about something else!
So, I was laying there in bed and I was trying to try to figure out, “What's going on here?”
I self coached myself through it. And I realized that when my brain is popping to something else that “needs to be fixed,” that means it’s anxiety rearing its head. It's not a real issue.
Now, anxiety itself is very real! It's a very real issue.
However, whether the door was locked or not, THAT was not a real issue. That was not what I was actually concerned about.
I wasn't actually worried about whether the door was locked: It was simply my anxiety fixated on something.
By knowing that about myself, I find that it's a lot easier when I can differentiate:
“Oh, it's anxiety! This thing that I'm worried about — ‘Did I leave the stove on after leaving the house,’ or whatever it happens to be; whatever random thing it might be — that's not actually the issue.”
This relieves a lot of anxiety when I know that *that thing* is not actually the issue.
I’ve been able to use self coaching to work through that, which is really, really cool. I'll often also combine it or layer it on with somatic techniques like EFT tapping, so that also helps a lot.
I wanted to give this example because it illustrates just how powerful your self coaching guide and techniques can be!
And again, anxiety is always completely different for every person. How we work through it is always going to be different for every person.
I am not a mental health professional; this is simply what worked for me.
Self Coaching Example #4: Dealing with impatience around tech issues
I have one more example, and then I'm going to share with you some sample self coaching questions that I might ask myself when I'm going through this, in doing self coaching (and which you can ask yourself, too).
The fourth example I want to share with you is impatience with website issues and tech issues. This is something that many of us have had frustrations with!
Website issues and tech frustrations can definitely be a struggle for a lot of people. For myself, in the past, this has been something that would frustrate me to no end. It was the bane of my existence! I would get so irritated by it and so impatient. It was the worst thing ever.
What ended up happening is — this was quite a few years back — I was able to talk myself through it and self coach.
The way that I coached myself through this particular issue was bringing it back to:
“What can I actually control? If my website is down, what can I actually control in that case?”
I do not have the ability to magically bring it back up in that moment. I can't control that.
...What I CAN control is connecting with tech support at my website hosting platform, and telling them about the issue.
...What I CAN control is doing regular routine backups of all different aspects of my business. I don't have to worry about, “Oh no, is it going to be completely gone forever?”
...What I CAN control is planning ahead and almost envisioning how I can handle it in different outcomes.
In that case, we’re looking at:
“If my website is down, and if I cannot control this, here are the things that I can actually do. And here are the ways that I can work around it.”
When my website went down a few days ago, I think I posted on Instagram about it and was just like, “Let me know if you're looking for checkout links, you can message me directly and I'll send you a checkout link to Productivity Powerhouse or Solopreneur CEO. And if not, the website will just be down for a day.”
It's not the end of the world. It’s fine, it will be back up.
Looking at it that way, and basically creating a strategy around it after doing that self coaching, has been really helpful.
What was involved to overcome tech frustrations
It was about:
- Identifying that I was getting ridiculously impatient and ridiculously frustrated with it.
- Knowing that this is the reality of doing business, and that there will inevitably be tech stuff.
- Deciding that I couldn't keep on living like that — I couldn't keep on having that impatient frustration as my “routine reaction” every time something went wrong.
- Self coaching through it.
- Creating the strategies (so that when my website went down a few days ago, it was fine. I did not react. I did not have a sort of negative reaction or a visceral reaction; I was just very much like, “Okay, I know that I can contact tech support. It's fine.”)
It's been really good to work through that with self coaching.
Wrap-up of our 4 self coaching examples
With these four different examples, you can really see how the way that I coached myself was a bit different in each of these scenarios.
- Some of it was all through mental processes or thought exercises.
- Some of it was journaling things down.
- Some of it was bringing in the somatic techniques.
- Some of it was the strategy side.
- etc.
There are a lot of different ways that you can approach it, depending on the situation.
How you self coach yourself might change from one scenario to the next.
Pssst... Are you enjoying this Self Coaching Guide & Techniques training?
Remember, this is your "sneak preview" example of just ONE of the monthly online solopreneur trainings that you get when you enroll in the Solopreneur Diary Entries: Premium Edition...
...and if you're interested in fast-tracking your self coaching experience, you should 100% book a coaching session to get coached by a professional AND learn how to customize self coaching skills to your unique brain:
Sample Self Coaching Questions
Let’s go over a few of the self coaching questions that I might ask myself, so you can get an idea of the self coaching process...
These are sample questions that I would typically ask myself during a self coaching session:
- “What's going on?”
- “If something feels sticky, how am I handling it?”
- “How do I know that something's a problem?”
- “How do I know when something is sticky for me, in my life or my business?”
- “What started this?”
- “Where are there links between this particular thing and anything else that may be happening in my life in business?”
IMPORTANT: In each of those questions, I might follow a train of thought and then bring it back to the next question on that list.
Some of these might get more detailed than others; they all provide new facets and new information that I can cobble together to deepen my understanding.
Being able to answer these questions HONESTLY and in-depth is another skill in and of itself, which is often very challenging to do on your own!
Hence why I recommend that you get coaching with an expert FIRST, because I will know exactly how to unpack and break down each of these types of questions to get at the actual root answer.
Another piece that I will then add in is asking, “Is this true?”
For example, if I'm thinking, “I can't do that!” or, “Before I do this thing, I need to do XYZ” — I like to check in. I’ll ask:
- “Is that actually true?”
- “Do I actually need to do XYZ before I do that other thing?”
- “Is it actually true that I cannot do this, that there's absolutely no way to do this thing that I want to do?”
By checking and asking “Is that true?”, it helps to really look at it and realize that the vast majority of the time, there’s actually something else going on.
Doing this section of our Self Coaching Guide & Techniques training connects back to reframing how you're approaching things, which we talk about in Step 7 of the Productivity Powerhouse framework.
I definitely recommend that you check out that lesson on reframing in the curriculum.
Another set of questions that I always ask myself is about WILLINGNESS:
- “What am I willing to do about this?”
- “What am I NOT willing to do about this?”
It is okay if you identify specific things in your life or your business that are an issue or frustration, and you are not willing to do a particular thing to deal with it.
It's very important to be honest with yourself about that — because if you are not willing to do this thing over here, then there are probably multiple things over there that you ARE willing to do, which can also fix the problem.
Asking this question is also useful because it opens the doors that much more for you to be able to see:
“Ohhhhh! It's not that THIS is the only way to do a particular thing.
There are actually other options…
So if I'm not willing to do it THAT way, then let's explore what I AM willing to do:
What are all the other options?”
I also like to ask myself questions about wants:
- “What do I want to be doing?”
- “What do I envision for my ideal routine and ideal lifestyle?”
- “Why do I desire a particular thing?”
You can also explore clarity questions, especially around what problem is coming up:
- “How am I holding myself back?”
- “What is going on here, in this particular moment and with this particular issue?”
This connects back to the Self Leadership Spotlight Training in Productivity Powerhouse, in the section where we talked about that question, “For what purpose?”
And then the unravelling questions:
- “Now that I know what I want, after doing all those things, how does all this fit together?”
- “What are the parts of me that are seemingly conflicted?
- “What's ACTUALLY going on there, among the parts that are seemingly conflicted?”
You’re starting to unpack that piece of it. And then you can look at your role in the problem:
- “Where am I holding myself back?”
- “Where am I the bottleneck?”
- “Where am I the one that's really getting in my own way?”
- “Based on that information, what can I do differently?”
There you go!
Those are some of the different questions that I might ask myself while I'm doing my own self coaching session.
Depending on the type of issue that I'm working through and the type of things that are coming up for me, I might follow different paths or lines of questions.
And, again — these are not for the faint of heart! When you first attempt self coaching, you will likely get stumped throughout these processes.
OR, even if you think you know the answers, you might have some major gaps and an inability to see contributing factors.
>> Get coaching sessions so we can walk through all of this together.
Important Notes about Doing Self Coaching & Best Practices for How to Coach Yourself
Now that we've gone through sample self coaching questions as part of this Self Coaching Guide & Techniques training, I want to make three really important points...
If you are doing self coaching, these are fundamental to keep in mind:
1) Self honesty and self trust are essential to doing this work.
That is why you need to develop those intrapersonal skills at the same time in order to effectively self coach.
You will not get the "right" answers from your self coaching experience — you will not get the answers that will help and support you — UNLESS you are being very honest with yourself and trusting yourself with all of this.
These are practices and skills we can always, all of us, continue developing on an ongoing basis. Again, just like with productivity, it’s something we always can do better at… Self coaching is something we can always do better, too.
I do self coaching in my business and in my life every single week, multiple times a week, and I'm still developing it! I'm still building that skill.
Self trust and self honesty are in the same boat: We can constantly build them and fine tune them, which is pretty cool
By the way, in Step 1 (Identify Your Desires) of the Productivity Powerhouse framework, there are a couple of thought exercises for developing self trust and self honesty.
This is also something that we build on when you get personal fulfillment coaching or solopreneur productivity coaching with me — I mentioned earlier that my clients learn how to do self coaching as part of it, but I'm not just throwing them into the deep end!
It's not like we do one coaching session and then I say, “Okay, now go off and do a bunch of self coaching on your own.” That's not how it works!
During our coaching sessions, I work with my clients to help you build your self trust and self honesty along the way — developing those self coaching skills so that, over time, you can start doing self coaching independently. We build in thought exercises too. It's like guided self coaching!
All of this builds on one another and it's really, really important because you need to have all of these pieces in place in order for your self coaching to be effective.
That's the first thing that's important to keep in mind and to work on: your self honesty and self trust.
The second important thing to keep in mind while you're doing self coaching…
2) You need to make sure you are asking the right questions for this particular “session” of self coaching, and that you are following the root issue paths.
The reason why this is so important is because you don't want to get mistakenly stuck and follow a line of questions that don't actually contribute to your breakthroughs.
You don't want to get veered off onto a totally different track.
When you are doing self coaching, and when you are following particular issues that might be arising, you need to be able to focus in and follow the things that are actually issues — and not get sidetracked or go down the wrong path.
Again, this looks different for every person...
...and this is also why there's not any standardized question or black-and-white process:
There’s not a specific rigid path with “These are the questions YOU should ALWAYS ask yourself EVERY time you’re doing self coaching.”
There are sample self coaching questions, there are broad ones, but it will always look a little bit different because everything that we might coach ourselves through will look a little bit different.
Another factor you can't ignore:
Asking the right questions and holding space for yourself — to sit with those answers, to be willing to listen to yourself, to hear yourself, to acknowledge yourself — this is also about kindness.
This is about being kind to yourself!
That can be hard for a lot of people. This used to be hard for me, too.
It's so much easier for us to be mean to ourselves. It's so much easier for us to put ourselves down, for us to beat ourselves up, than it is to be kind.
...But the more that we are kind to ourselves, the more that it creates that space to develop the self trust and self honesty to be able to coach ourselves effectively.
That's the second key piece I want you to keep in mind: Ask the RIGHT questions and follow the RIGHT root issue paths.... and being kind to yourself is going to make this whole thing a lot easier.
Kindness is another one of those skills; it's another practice that we can do on an ongoing basis for ourselves.
The third key piece to keep in mind while you're doing self coaching in your life in business…
3) This process gets to be empowering! This is about experiencing real change as a result of the breakthrough.
Self coaching is not “just” about having an epiphany.
It's also about experiencing a new reality as a result.
And that is so cool! Because you're self coaching, you're going through these powerful and transformative mindset shifts; you're having breakthroughs and wonderful realizations about yourself… and as a result of that, you're then able to take action.
This is especially true when you are struggling with 10 different issues, and then you have that "Aha!" moments of discovering that the REAL issue is something a bit different — You deal with that, and suddenly those other 10 issues aren't really problems anymore.
They're not getting in your way like they used to.
So you're kind of leapfrogging over those issues, and you're able to get those REAL results from doing that.
You are experiencing these amazing mindset shifts, while also being able to take action, and being able to tangibly SEE the progress that you're making.
It's amazing!
There you go — that's everything I wanted to share about how I do self coaching in my own life and business, and some tips for how to coach yourself, too… Let's do a quick Q&A before we wrap up this Self Coaching Guide & Techniques training!
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Share it on Instagram or Threads and tag @Saganlives, or email hello[at]saganmorrow[dot]com with your favourite takeaways!
How do you self coach yourself when you’re stuck?
"Do you ever reach a point of self coaching where you get stuck and can't figure out what's going on or how to get through it?"
I'm so glad that you asked this! Yes, that can definitely happen... and/but, it happens a lot LESS, the more that you're doing self coaching.
It's one of those things that, when it comes up, it might indicate a few different things — one of the things that it might indicate is that you're going down a path that is not necessarily the root issue path.
In other words, you're sort of going off course a little bit.
It could also mean that the types of self coaching questions or the approach you're taking isn't necessarily the best fit in that particular scenario.
It might also be that you're a little bit too "in it" or too close to it, and you need to take a step away from it. You need to take that break, similar to the entire concept of anti hustle: Embodying that and saying, “I'm not going to force myself through it if it's not working.”
If it's not coming together, then step away from it and revisit it with an expert.
If you're trying to do this work internally — coaching in your mind — and nothing's coming out, then switching to the journaling of it can sometimes be really helpful, or talking out loud. The idea here is that you’re working through it in a different way.
If I'm stuck on something, I’ll often explore: “What's going on here? This is really weird that I'm not getting at what the actual issue is. Let's try to figure this out. Let's just talk it out, whatever happens to come to mind. Is that a thing, does that feel like it might be a thing? No. Hmm. What about this thing over here? Oh, that might be something!” and then following up.
Self Coaching Guide & Techniques training wrap-up…
I hope that after doing this training, you can see that coaching is amazing! It's so good and powerful and transformative.
Did this Self Coaching Guide & Techniques training help you? What are you doing to take action on it?
The next step is to elevate your coaching experience...
If you want help with any or all of this — getting coaching AND learning how to do self coaching so you can work through all this effectively on your own — then you can book your coaching sessions with me!
I’m a Life Coach who specializes in personal fulfillment coaching and deep inner mindset work, especially for self-aware solopreneurs.
Learn more and book your coaching sessions today:
