How to Start Self-Coaching Yourself in Business

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Having the privilege of hiring a coach or a mentor in business can be insanely valuable, but sometimes it’s out of reach, whether that be because of finances, situations, or maybe you just haven’t quite found the right coach yet.

But that doesn’t mean that you can’t take your situation and experiences into your own hands and begin to develop healthy self-coaching habits and skills yourself.

And honestly, even if you are already working with a business coach or mentor, I firmly believe that developing skills of learning how to self coach yourself can be undoubtedly valuable, especially during a time of unexpected change, transition, or period of uncertainty.

The most important piece to remember here is that your thoughts create your beliefs, your beliefs create your actions, and your actions create your results.

Through learning how to self-coach yourself, you can take control of your thoughts and actions, ultimately allowing you to create more sustainable and profitable results in your business.

Don’t get me wrong, self-coaching isn’t a walk in the park (it also should never replace professional mental health support). It’s definitely a muscle that needs to be worked out and strengthened, especially since we’re often blinded by our own biases and subconscious beliefs. But, the good news is that YOU are the expert on your business. AND you’re creative and resourceful. If you weren’t, you wouldn’t have the courage & resilience to be an entrepreneur in the first place 😉

Let’s talk about the benefits of learning how to self coach yourself:

Benefit #1: It’s free!

Above all, first and foremost, this shit is free. Hiring outside support in business can get expensive, so if you’re not ready for an investment or want to save some cash, self-coaching is an awesome place to start. And sometimes the best way for us to learn and expand our wisdom is to dive in and work through the experience and emotions, on our own.

Benefit #2: Helps you build self-awareness.

Self-coaching in business helps build self-awareness, and that self-awareness can help your business become not only more profitable but also more sustainable. Because it’s impossible to build a business and an empire that aligns with the lifestyle we desire if we’re not aware of our desires to begin with.

Benefit #3: Strengthens your self-reflection muscle.

Self-coaching strengthens your self-reflection muscle. Checking in with yourself, your energy, your emotions, and your body before moving forward in a business decision or situation can save you from making a choice that you’ll later resent or regret. Because let’s be honest, there isn’t going to be anyone, anywhere, ever, that has the capacity to understand you better than you understand yourself, and that goes for your business too. YOU are the expert of your own life, work, and business.

Benefit #4. Empowers you to deepen your self-trust.

Self-coaching empowers you to deepen your self-trust. When you begin to cultivate a deeper level of trust within yourself, you stop second-guessing your decisions and begin to strengthen the foundation in which you build your business upon. Strengthening self-trust can also enhance your clarity, increase personal accountability, and boost your creativity, which can all translate into more aligned marketing AND more income.

Benefit #5: Can become more time-friendly.

Wait, self-coaching can save time? Yes. Maybe not in the beginning, but once you start understanding your own inner dialogue and workings, you’ll be able to notice patterns and work your way through them a lot faster.

Now it’s easy to see how valuable learning how to self-coach yourself in business can be, but it’s also not intended to replace the value of having a coach in your corner.

Being an online business coach myself, I know from working so closely with my clients how beneficial it is to have someone take your hand and walk with you through different stages in your journey. I like to think of a coaching relationship as someone holding up a mirror to yourself. As the client, YOU are the one doing the work. As a coach, I’m here to offer perspective shifts, solutions, and reframes that help support you in working through any roadblocks that come up along the way.

Regardless of where you’re at on your coaching and business path, learning tips and strategies for how to self-coach yourself can start to infuse more intentionality and potency into your business.

Here is a a simple 6-step by step process that can help you to effectively start self-coaching yourself in business:

Step #1: Get Quiet:

Set aside quiet time for you to deeply reflect and explore your thoughts. This doesn’t have to be an extended period of time, or at a specific time of the day, whenever you can is perfect.

Even if it’s just 5 minutes set aside after a client call where you can allow your body and mind to relax and contemplate, that’s a great start!

We live in a busy society. Having moments of stillness rarely just “happen” so we have to take personal responsibility to carve that time out for ourselves.

As you’re getting quiet, start to notice what thoughts or emotions come up.

No need to change them or judge them, just notice them.

Maybe you’re feeling the need to get up and be productive, maybe you’re feeling guilty for taking this time for yourself, maybe you’re actually exhausted and just want to nap. Whatever it is, just notice it.

Step #2: Brain Dump:

The human mind is complex and at any given time we can be cycling through several ideas, concerns, and problems all at once. How do we start to untangle all of this? By brain dumping it all out in a journal or a piece of paper. Write down all of the thoughts in your head.

No need to hold back, no one is going to read this. This is for YOU.

A lot of my clients feel an insane amount of clarity or “lightness” after doing this.

All of those thoughts take up a lot of space and energy, and you leave them to marinate in your head consistently, it can start to feel heavy AF.

What do you want?

Now that you’ve quieted the noise in your head, focus on what you want. What do you desire? What do you want to accomplish or change?

You can start with these journal prompts:

Wouldn’t it be cool if…
In a perfect world, I want…
If I could have it my way, I want…

Step #3: Becoming Aware:

More times than not, after we allow ourselves to admit or relish in our desires for a few moments, the inner critic, fear, and self-doubt tend to step in. No need to shame or blame yourself for this, we’re human and it literally happens to everyone (even if they try to play like it doesn’t lol).

The most important part here is to NOTICE and pick out the limiting beliefs.

Where are you starting to notice:

Yes, but…
But I have to…
What-if…
I can’t…

It’s these types of things can slip under the radar and continuously hold us back from moving forward, even if they’re subconscious. And one of the best ways to shift them is to start to be conscious of them.

Awareness is key.

Step #4: Shift the Limitations and Fears:

Take a moment to read over your desires again, and write out ALL of the beliefs or fears that come up.

You can start with these journal prompts:

What is this limitation or fear about?
Is there an underlying belief below the surface?
How is this fear or limitation serving me?

Now we start to shift them.

For EVERY fear or limitation, come up with a different perspective.

Start off by asking, is this fear ultimately true?

Is there a different way to interpret this fear or limitation?
How can I shift this to an empowering perspective?
How can I take personal responsibility and move through it?

For example: If one of my desires is to launch a new program in my business, a fear that may come up is that my offer won’t resonate with people and no one will buy it.

Is this fear ultimately true? If I launch this program and start telling people about it, is it a FACT that no one will buy?

No, that’s not a fact. I don’t know that.

How can I take personal responsibility for this and move through it? By shifting perspectives.

EVEN IF no one buys it, there is always an opportunity to learn. I can allow myself to test and tweak the messaging. I can allow myself to see this as an experiment. I can reach out to my audience and ask for feedback. I can show up imperfectly, and allow myself to have fun as I start to learn more and more about my audience and what problems they have that I can help them solve.

This is a far more empowering perspective to move forward with than allowing the fear of “what if no one buys?” to hold me back. Because even if in the worst-case scenario, no one buys, that’s STILL okay. I’m still worthy of love, support, and amazing clients. I might just need to play with the messaging and marketing a bit.

Step #5: Reframe and Let Go:

Okay so we’ve started shifting these fears and beliefs, now it’s time to reframe them and let them go.

For EVERY fear or limitation, go ahead and practice reframing them.

Journal prompts to help you get started:

I release…
I will no longer allow the fear of ______ to hold me back.
I’m so excited to…
I trust myself to…
This is working in my favor because…
I have the opportunity to…

Step #6: Move Forward:

Now that you’ve reframed the things holding you back into more empowering statements, it’s important to keep the moment going.

What small action step can you take today that will move you toward your desire?

If your desires feel too big or intangible, break them into smaller chunks.

Rome wasn’t built in a day, my friend…

You got this.

Remember, learning how to self coach yourself is a muscle:

Doubts, fears, and challenges will undoubtedly always pop up here and there in your life, especially when you’re reaching a new level or hitting a new level of expansion, but the key is to get curious about those thoughts because there’s power behind them.

Your thoughts create your beliefs, your beliefs create your actions, and your actions create your results.

Strengthening your self-coaching muscle in business, and also in life, allows you to break thought patterns ultimately allowing you to create more sustainable and profitable results.

The more you practice setting aside time for yourself to reflect and get honest with yourself, the quicker the process will become and the more resilient you’ll be.

BONUS: Find an Accountability Partner:

Having a person that can support you or allow you to “verbalize to rationalize” can make a big impact. It’s definitely not mandatory to start shifting things, but I know from experience that just allowing someone to hold space and reflect things back to you can make the self-coaching process a bit easier. And it allows you to have an outside perspective holding you accountable as well.

Conclusion:

Give yourself some grace as you begin to work through this process. Learning how to self-coach yourself can be challenging, especially at first. It requires patience and practice to keep the motivation and momentum going. The more you integrate this process into your day-to-day life, the more benefits you’ll receive.

Setbacks happen, it’s natural and normal, but if we can keep the perspective that they don’t mean we’ve failed, they mean we’re learning. All we’re doing in this life is learning as we go and collecting data points.

And there is no shame in getting professional support too! Me & my therapist were BFFs while I was learning to navigate this stuff on my own.

Cheers to moving forward thinking differently, learning to consciously explore our thoughts, and creating the life and business we desire. Use this “how to self coach yourself” simple 6step process to get started—and let me know how it goes!