Skip to content 
Show Notes
It’s getting close to Christmas. We’re starting to wind down here in Australia, but it’s not the time to be easing off. I thought I would talk to you about how some people seem to do really well and others struggle. You will have noticed this even with your coaching cohort. You will have noticed that some of those people have gone on and got great coaching businesses and others haven’t. And sometimes it doesn’t really same thing, does it? You’ve been putting in all the work, but it’s still not quite clicking.
So that’s what we’re going to talk about today. And it’s not just about coaching. It’s all sorts of things.
Change Your Mindset
Why do some people seem to get ahead and others don’t? Now, one of the main things can be your mindset. You might thing, “I can’t do it, nobody is going to hire me or I don’t have that experience”. Stop right there. You’ve done your certification. You’ve done your hours.
You might even have gone for some other qualification, some other bits and pieces to add to it. So you have a very strong toolbox. And for most of you, you’ve worked in other industries for a number of years. You can do it. You are amazing.
And sometimes you only just need to be a little bit ahead of your coaching clients. Are you coaching on an experience that you’ve had? Well, now you’ve come through that. So you do have that expertise and you can do it.
Believe in Yourself
It’s interesting that there’s a bit of a difference between men and women on this, quite often men. And I’m generalising. As women, we quite often sit there and think, oh, I’m almost not good enough. I need to be perfect. No, you don’t. You absolutely do not do plus work or wherever you are in the world, it is far better than a past work that’s still sitting on your computer or your phone or anywhere else.
So sometimes it is a case of just doing it. Don’t sit there and procrastinate about that post for hours and hours and hours, only to find that when you push the button, nobody even interacts with it anyway. So what you need to do is put it out there. Test it. Measure and change it along the way.
You can’t get it perfect if nobody writes it. And really, perfection is not something that’s real anyway. Because as soon as you get it perfect, then it’s going to need to be changed for something else.
Just Start Somewhere
The point is, just start and you can do it. Do you remember way back when you were probably told about the little train? A little train was trying to go up the hill. I think I can, I think I can, I think I can, I can, I can, I can. Yes you can. And if you do, I think you can. So check that. One little step at a time. Just get one time. Just put some stuff out there. Get a client, get some experience and then go from there.
Now there’s lots of different theories about how to do that. And like I said, there’s more in my book about that. But it is your mindset on a lot of the occasions. So what little thing can you do to tell that little voice that we have over on the side here. It’s okay. I hear you. I know you’re trying to protect me, but I’m going to go out and do it anyway. So thinking I’m not a good marketer, not a useful thought.
Learn to Prioritise Things
First, don’t procrastinate, it doesn’t help anything. Say she who has been procrastinating to do this video but almost all day. Well, it’s not quite lunchtime yet, so but do as I say, not as I do is probably the word here as like I say, I was doing it first up and then some other things got in the way, but it is something I needed to do today. So I did prioritise it, and even though I moved it around a little bit on my schedule, I am doing it because it’s important.
You need to hear this episode, and if I don’t record it, you won’t. So what is the one thing that you could do immediately after you stop listening to this? Or I dare say, maybe stop listening to this and go and do it. So the one thing is all about priorities.
Build Habits
I’ve heard many people say that if they want to go to the gym, they put their shoes beside their bed so that the first thing they see in the morning is their shoes. They get up, they put their shoes on, and then they can decide. But once you start doing those little things quite often, then it is a case of you will start doing that. I’ve actually gone back to the gym as well, and my habit is making sure that I take the dog for a walk, and then I have to go and get something from the shed.
My gym is the back of the shed. So by getting something from the shed, I’m already in the shed. I’m probably a little bit hot and sweaty from walking the dog. So no excuses. Just go in and do it. My husband laughs that I’m a hostile Clyde, but I’m doing it. And that’s the important thing.
So just do the habits to start one at a time. And if you run off the rails, you don’t do them successfully. Well that’s okay. Get yourself back on and do the habits. And sometimes this is the difference of making a serious business and making it work.
Do One Important Thing Daily
Have you put out some content today? Have you followed up on that client that said that really love to work with you or that opportunity that you had? Don’t leave it sitting there. I know it’s December and in Australia we’re slowing down, but it’s also the perfect time because everybody else is slowing down to so quite often they do have a little bit of time.
And even if they don’t, you have done what you said you were going to do and then you can follow them up again after Christmas if that’s a necessity or they haven’t got back to you, but leaving it and not doing it. Now, what does it say? What kind of oh, they don’t follow up. Don’t worry about them.
Oh, wasn’t that serious anyway. But when they see it coming across the desk. Oh yeah. That’s right. I really wanted to do that. I’m going to put it in the diary for next year. So making sure that you do say what you’re going to do and you do what you say you’re going to do.
Make Yourself Accountable
So thinking about a supportive environment as well. When you want to do something, it’s always much easier if you’ve got some accountability. It’s far easier to let ourselves down an incident and say not doing it. That’s it. Don’t want to do it, but it’s much, much harder to let somebody else down and say, no, I’m not going to do it. So maybe creating success space might be a really good idea.
How else can you get involved in this plan? Do you have other coaching buddies that you might like to bounce off? Do you need to get yourself a coach, somebody who’s going to be 100% in your corner for the 20 minutes, the half an hour or the hour, whatever it is that that you happen to have, that coaching engagement for. What is it that you can put into place to make sure that you are accountable to somebody and that you are doing what you said you were going to do?
And when you do get into those little mind juggles and little sticky points or imposter syndrome, you’ve got somebody to talk to. You’ve got somebody to bounce ideas off. Group coaching can be great, but if you’re hiding in the back, is that really being successful for you? So thinking about what it is that you can put into place to make sure that you’re successful, to make sure you’re one of the ones on the stage if that’s what you want to be or you’re one of the case studies.
Offer Solutions
Are you being clear about what you’re offering? Are you showing people that they will get a result? They know what their symptoms are. They don’t always know what the solution is. And that can be really hard at this time of year. So concentrate more on the symptoms and give them the outcome.
You know when you go to the doctor and you’ve got a sore knee, you don’t always know what’s wrong with your knee, but you know that you want it to be better. You know that you want to be able to walk or run or chase the kids or the grandkids, supply sport or whatever it happens to be. You don’t know that you’ve got one of those fancy long names that they give when you can’t legislate working or whatever it happens to be. You don’t know what the actual problem is. You might even not know what the solution is. They might say, okay, we just need to give you some antibiotics. You’ve actually got an infection in there. Or it could be a whole neck reconstruction, whatever it happens to be.
You don’t always know that. And our clients are the same. They know that they’ve got basically the sauna and they know that they want to be able to walk better. But what happens in between? That’s quite often where we don’t quite show where value. We don’t show them that transformation that we can give them. And we get a little bit confused with the features and the benefits, getting really into the frameworks and making it all too complicated, especially this time of year when it can be very overwhelming.
Simplify
Go back to the symptoms. Show them the outcomes. Case studies can be really great but what if you don’t have a case study? Well what else can you use? Can you do some free coaching so that you do have some case studies? Can you use something in your past life in some of the other work that you’ve done?
Now obviously don’t lie and make sure that it is relative and that you can actually produce this in whatever engagement you’re doing. But sometime you can tell a part of a story so that people can understand what the outcome can be. So think about how you can perhaps reframe some of the work that you’ve already done and simplify. Focus on the simple. The power of one.
Don’t promise them the world. Just promise them the first step. Okay, we’re going to get you some crutches so that you’re going to be able to walk better while you waiting for the operation, whatever happens to be. You obviously know that’s a metaphor, but that’s what we need to be doing. What is it? The one step that we can promise them. So if they want to lose weight, maybe it’s a case of starting that exercise, help them stop their emotional eating, exercise or whatever.
Links
Contacts
Why Some People Succeed
Make sure that you are doing those tiny habits, building on those habits one thing at a time. And that makes it so much easier to succeed. Follow your map. Follow your path. Do what you need to be doing. The power of one. Do one thing. Make sure you get it done today. Be accountable for your actions.
Listen to the full episode of Small Business Talk episode 272.
You can also find the video versions of the Small Business Talk Episodes on YouTube.
