Coaching Biz Tips

Coaching Biz 911: Getting a Grip on Yourself

Ever have one of those days -- or weeks -- where you feel like you're beating your head against a brick wall? Nothing goes the way you plan; projects crash and burn; even the simplest of tasks turns into a maze of road blocks and speed bumps.

You know you need to get a grip, but HOW?!

Reboot your system. Sometimes a bad day is simply the natural consequence of fatigue, burnout, distraction, etc. Stepping back from your work for a few hours, a few days or even a few weeks (depending on how bad the situation is) often restores clarity.

Get a reality check. If things aren't going well, don't be afraid to ask for some honest, unbiased feedback from a trusted source. Ask them what they think might be causing the problem. Sometimes you just can't see the forest for the trees.

Look for patterns in your stuckness. Step back and take an inventory of the past week. Look for things that tend to take three times longer than necessary because you just don't like doing them.

• What is it that I consistently do not want to do?
• Which tasks seem like a chore every time I do them?
• What do I always put off until the last possible moment?

DELEGATE or ELIMINATE these things! And if you can't bring yourself to delegate or eliminate them, look for ways to AUTOMATE or SYSTEMATIZE your least enjoyable tasks via technology, checklists, worksheets, etc.

Revisit your successes. Something that helps me get back on track is to review past accomplishments and successes. This is a great practice because it not only boosts morale ("I've done well before, I know I can do well again!") but it also gives you the chance to see what worked and why it worked. You might see a solution in a past success that could be applied to the current situation.

Give yourself permission to fail. Remind yourself that it's okay to have bad days, for things to go wrong. I don't know of anyone who hasn't failed, usually over and over again, on the way to success. And there are good lessons in every mistake or failure, too. Look for the pony buried in the pile of poop!

Stop complaining. What you resist persists, and what you pay attention to tends to become more real. So when you complain, you're only reinforcing the negative. Plus, complaining tends to infect others -- and pretty soon, you've got a pity party going on. Try giving yourself three free passes on complaining about an issue, but when you've used up the third pass, it's time to stop complaining and either accept things as they are and move on, OR do something. Anything. Just stop complaining.

Next time you're sick of the day you're having, get a grip!

What are you waiting for?

I’ve been noticing lately how often people get caught up in the argument “I can’t be/do/have __________ until ____________ happens.”

• I can’t tell people about my business until my website is up.
• I can’t relax and enjoy the summer until after my daughter’s wedding.
• I don’t have time to focus on marketing until business slows down a bit.

And it seems like this argument can quickly turn into an endless loop; for example:

• I can’t let go of my old <job/relationship/whatever> until I find a new one.
• I can’t get a new <job/relationship/whatever> until I let go of the old one.

This kind of loopy thinking keeps you feeling stuck and frustrated. And if you examine what you’re saying to yourself more closely, you’ll usually find that it’s not even true!

• It’s possible to tell people about your business (and even get a few clients) even before your website is up. (People DID have customers back in the old days, before the Internet thingy caught on.)
• It’s possible to relax and enjoy the summer before, during AND after your daughter’s wedding.
• It’s possible that you can be busy with clients AND still find time for marketing (AND enjoy the summer, too!).

If you want to unleash your true potential, let go of conditional thinking. YOU’RE the one placing conditions upon your own success, and you may not even realize you’re doing it. Believing that you “can’t until ______” only slows you down and makes you feel resigned to the status quo.

So here's a question to keep you up at night:

“What are YOU waiting for?”

What's on Your TA DA List This Week?

We started something new this week in my Empowerment Group: a weekly TA DA item. Here's the deal:

• Pick a "stale" task on your To Do list -- something that's been stuck on the list for too long. It needs to be something that would make you feel ten pounds lighter if you could just get it off your list.
• You're serious (no kidding, SERIOUS) about getting it off your list THIS WEEK, whatever it takes (even if it's just letting go of it.)
• One of the group members came up with the idea that it might be more enjoyable if we consciously decided to have FUN while doing it, so we all agreed that we're going to be playful and enjoy doing our TA DA items. And if it stops being enjoyable, we're going to put it down, walk away and do something else for a while until we can bring joy and playfulness back to the task again.
• We're posting our TA DA items on our Empowerment Group forum so that everybody can see what's going on and celebrate together.

My TA DA item for this week is to add four more articles to my keep-in-touch email system. The articles are written, I just need to format them and load them into my autoresponder; and it's been on my To Do list for over two months! YEE HAW!

So what I'm wondering today is:

What's on YOUR TA DA list this week?

Feel free to post your TA DA below and I'll celebrate with you when it's done. =^)

How to Make Good Decisions Quickly

I have a friend who is a smart, savvy businesswoman. She runs a successful business, is raising two teenagers as a single parent, and has overcome her share of life's challenges along the way.

On stuff like politics, major life illnesses and tough-love parenting of teenagers, she's the Queen of Quick and Decisive Decision-making. But pick a paint color? Choose a movie? Decide between Tex-Mex or Thai for lunch? It's painful to watch.

Web 2.0 and Social Networking for Coaches

I've been Twittering for about 9 months now, with surprisingly good results: lots of great connections, excellent response to questions I've posted, and actual NEW CLIENTS who came to me not through my regular marketing channels, but via Twitter. What's not to love?!

As I was sharing this good news with a friend a while back, it occurred to me that it might be time to give this whole Web 2.0 thing a closer look from a marketing strategy perspective.