Ep #241: How Self-Blame Harms Your Coaching And How to Break Free

Hey, this is Lindsay Dotzlaf and you are listening to Mastering Coaching Skills episode 241.

To really compete in the coaching industry, you have to be great at coaching. That’s why every week, I will be answering your questions, sharing my stories, and offering tips and advice so you can be the best at what you do. Let’s get to work.

Hey coach, I am so happy you’re here today. As always, I—today, I want to talk to you about something very important. So I hope you’re paying attention. This episode is specifically for coaches who tend to blame themselves or think they have some sort of inherent flaw that is unchangeable when their business isn’t working or when their clients aren’t getting results or when something is going wrong in their coaching practice. Or for coaches who don’t do this so much but have clients who do it and you aren’t quite sure what to do about it.

If you are either of those things, we’re going to talk about this today and I’m going to give you some solutions, okay?

If this is you, I know sometimes it can be hard to hear this because it can—you don’t even want to think about it. You don’t even want to think that your brain does this because it can feel really heavy. But hopefully after listening to this episode, you will have some tools. You’ll be more prepared. Or again, if this isn’t really you but you coach clients who do this, you’ll also be more prepared. You’ll have some questions and some tools that you can use next time it comes up, okay?

So what happened is the other day I was in a coaching session and I was coaching my client and we kept coming up with the way she was going to move forward in her business. And she kept coming up with solutions and ideas and all the things. And then when it came down to it, she kind of said, “Honestly, I just don’t think any of those are going to work anyway, so I don’t even know what the point is.” And I was like, “Wait, what?”

And so what we discovered is that under all of those things, there was just this belief that she is just not, basically, not smart enough to run a business or to have a successful business, right? And when she said that out loud, first of all, it was met with so much compassion because that’s a really hard thought to have about yourself, right? It’s not very nice and it was really, really heavy for her. And I think she hadn’t acknowledged it. And by the way, I have permission from her to share this. But it was something she hadn’t really let herself see and something she hadn’t really processed about herself.

And so, of course, it feels very painful when she’s trying all of these things. Some of them are kind of working, some of them are not. She often will let off the gas and kind of hide and slow herself down in her business and then ultimately not really create the results that she wants to create.

And I really want to speak to that today because I know this comes up for so many of you, including me. This comes up for everybody at some point. But I know how heavy it can be and I just really want to talk about it today.

And then a second thing happened recently where in one of my group programs, I was coaching someone in a coaching session, and then later she posted in the community and said kind of a similar thing came up. And she said when she was thinking about me and why it works for my business, she said, “But I think you learned to do this because—to not make it mean something about yourself—because you have had successful launches and you’ve had a fully booked coaching practice and you just have had all of these things. So, of course, you wouldn’t make it mean anything about yourself.”

And my response to that in the community was, “Oh, you just have it backwards. You’re just confused.” I didn’t say that, but that’s kind of what I was thinking, right? “Oh, you’re just confused. It can’t actually work that way. That’s backwards.”

I have to believe first that it isn’t me, that I’m not inherently flawed so that I can actually look at what’s the problem and how do I solve it. Because it’s really hard to solve it when the problem is just you and it’s kind of unchangeable.

Or you think because you’re a coach and you can change your thoughts, change your beliefs, that you think if you just work more and more and more on that, on your self-concept, that with enough of that, eventually those thoughts will just be mined out of there and you won’t ever have them again. But that’s not true, right? What happens is you have to get better at redirecting your brain to, “Oh, okay, what’s the actual problem? Let me problem solve.”

So here’s what I see often, right? This is what it usually looks like, how this shows up for my clients. And this has shown up for my clients forever. Even when I was a general life coach, all the things. I didn’t recognize it as much then. I wasn’t able, I mean, I was eventually able to hopefully shift them out of it, but now I just see it so clearly that I can get to the point a lot faster.

So usually what it looks like is a client maybe saying, “Well, what’s the point? It’s not going to work anyway,” right? And they have a very defeated energy or anything like that, right? “Well, I’m just not smart enough anyway,” or, “Who am I to do this?” Or, “I don’t have the self-worth. I’m not worthy of this.” Any thoughts like that, right? That just point straight back to, “I’m not good enough because of some inherent flaw that I have.” And therefore this thing that I want to create is just never going to work. It’s just not even possible until I become just a dramatically different human.

What that looks like as far as behaviors, usually it looks like kind of giving up easily, right? Or not even getting started at all, kind of hiding or just not being fully yourself. It could look like even doing lots, taking lots and lots of action, throwing spaghetti at the wall if you will, without belief that it will work, right? So you kind of feel like you’re doing the thing. You feel like you’re working towards the goal, but you have this belief in the back of your mind the whole time, “Doesn’t really matter because it’s not going to work.”

This could look like wanting to cancel coaching sessions with your clients or even canceling coaching sessions with your clients. And it also could look like hiding parts of yourself, parts of your personality, and just in general being less authentic.

So I’ll give you a couple very specific examples of how this sometimes shows up for my clients. Kind of some trends that I see. So sometimes I have clients who think that they’re too much, right? “I’m just too much, I’m all over the place,” or even, “My brain is all over the place.” This shows up specifically oftentimes with coaches with ADHD. And they have this, “My brain is too much, it’s too wild, it’s all over the place. How could I possibly be a great coach when I can’t even…,” right? “When I can’t even keep myself on schedule, when I can’t even stick to this thing I said I was going to do, when I can’t even,” whatever it is.

Then they just prove that to themselves over and over, right? Instead of embracing that and saying, “Yeah, I’m too much. My clients are going to love that,” right? Or, “Yeah, I have ADHD. Sometimes my brain is all over the place. It’s going to make me such a powerful coach for people who need a coach who understands what that is like.”

Or it might show up—another specific example is some form of, “I’m not smart enough,” right? A coach who believes she’s not smart enough or that they aren’t qualified enough or kind of that “who am I” thought. “Who am I to do this? Who am I to be this person’s coach?” Right? It can show up as them thinking, “My client is so smart and who am I to even coach them? They already know this.”

Sometimes this shows up in the coach lab along this very specific line where sometimes maybe one of my clients will have—one of my clients will have a client who is a therapist or a physician or a psychologist, a psychiatrist, right? Any of those things that are kind of closely related to the coaching field. And they will, I mean, they’re not exactly the same, obviously, but there’s just overlap, right? They’re doing some similar things and they’ll have this thought, “Who am I to even coach this person?”

Which, if you think about that in this situation when it’s not you and you just hear me say that, notice how silly that is, right? That person has already hired them. They have already trusted them. There’s something about that coach that they were like, “You, you’re the coach I want.” They don’t care that they’re a therapist and you’re a coach. They were literally looking for a coach and hired you.

Okay, the next one is some form of a coach who thinks some form of, “I’m too weird. This idea is too out there. This will never work. Who would ever want this?” And so potential clients will never be attracted to my work. They would never hire me.

Now, I love taking ideas that coaches think are too weird and showing them how they’re actually incredible and that’s their superpower. This is one thing I find very fun. I’m really good at it. Really pointing out all of these things I’m quite good at because I’ve just noticed pattern after pattern after pattern after pattern of this happening. But the too weird is always really fun for me because the weird ideas, I think, often are the best ideas when you go all in, right? When you don’t believe that they’re too weird and you believe there are people out in the world who are really going to align with this ‘weirdness’ that you think you have.

I love weird. I love things that are different and aren’t the typical things that you see every day. To me, that makes really an incredible brand, an incredible product. The more distinct you are, the more you’re going to stand out to the people that really align with the thing that you’re selling or with the methods you’re using or with the—any of those things.

So, here’s what happens when you’re believing those things. And by the way, there are so many different thoughts that are just similar to those, right? Basically any thought that just points back to your character and you thinking that there’s a flaw in it that has to change before you’ll be able to figure this all out, before you’ll be a good coach, before you will be a good businessperson, just in general, all of it, you have to change.

What happens when you’re thinking these things is that when you believe it’s a you problem, you start to show up differently, right? So even if you’re like, “Okay, it’s a me problem, but I’m still going to do it. I’m still going to build this business, I’m still going to coach these clients, I’m still going to go all in on it.” But then over time, you start showing up a little differently, a little differently where you’re just hiding pieces of yourself, right? Where it’s, “Oh, they can’t see that,” or you feel like you have to pretend.

So if you are the coach that believes, “Oh, I’m not smart enough to do this thing, to coach this person,” then you might, for example, pretend to know things that you don’t know, right? Or you might make up strategies.

I used to see this when I was running coaching masters because we would talk about these things specifically, where my clients would say, “Well, my client wants to know how to do this thing.” And so instead of coaching them, I would just solve the problem by pretending that I was an expert and that I had a perfect solution for them and I would just tell them what it was, right? And I was like, “Wait, what? Why are you doing that?” Instead of just saying, “Oh, I don’t actually know, but let’s figure it out together.”

Another thing that can happen is clients will start to feel like something’s off. When you’re not being authentic, when you’re not showing up as fully you, or you think that there are parts of you you have to hide or parts of you that you can’t admit, “I don’t know this thing,” or, “I don’t do that,” or whatever it is, “That’s not the method I use,” any of those things. When you can’t admit it, then, of course, you’re going to show up in a way that’s inauthentic and the clients will feel that. Even if they can’t name it exactly, even if they can’t say, “Oh, here’s exactly what’s happening right now,” it’ll just start to feel a little off.

And potential clients as well, right? So if you’re kind of pretending to be someone you’re not, maybe in your marketing on social media or in the way you are doing any of the things you’re doing in your email list, wherever it is, you can just feel it. I want you to think about this. If you ever had that experience, if you’ve seen someone talking about something on social media or you’re on someone’s email list and you read it and you’re like, “Ooh, that—something feels off here.”

And then the worst part is this creates a self-fulfilling prophecy, right? Which is when you believe something and then you bring it to be true. So, when you’re believing you’re not smart enough and then you’re pretending to know things that you don’t really know, that you’re not an expert at, that you don’t really have any experience in, and then people start to notice, “Well, that’s not right,” right? People that are experts in that area might see it and be like, “Oh, that’s not true,” or, “That’s not right,” or whatever.

And then you really do feel not smart or look not smart, but not because you’re actually not smart. It’s just because you don’t know about this one very specific thing that you are talking about, and you’re only talking about it because you thought you had to pretend to be smarter than you are. When I say smarter, I’m doing it with air quotes because smart is very relative, right? There’s so many different ways to be smart, but that’s just the way the thought usually shows up for my clients.

Or think about if you’re the coach that’s like, “Ah, I’m too weird. These ideas I have are too weird.” So then you try to not be weird and you cover that up. And then you’re out in the world interacting in your marketing or when you’re just out in the world talking to people, trying your best not to be weird, but really the weirdness is just something that’s true about you, right? Something that is quirky or funny or whatever that some people will love. But you’re like, “It’s too weird to be out in the world,” or, “People will never hire me,” or, “They’ll never understand my coaching techniques,” or whatever.

And then what happens is you are being weird because you’re being awkward, right? You’re trying not to show parts of yourself. And so maybe you are stuttering over your words or you are being super quiet, not talking at all when usually you’re very outgoing and much more likely to be interacting with everyone. Right? And it just starts to be like, “Ooh, something is weird,” but weird in a very different way than what you’re thinking, right? Weird in a way that’s kind of off-putting.

Whereas when you fully embrace your weirdness, whatever specific brand of weirdness that is, the people who are attracted to that will love you so much more. They will be all in. They will be like, “Oh my gosh, I recognize this,” because either they’re like that too, right? And they’re like, “Oh, thank goodness, you’re my person.” Or they want to be that way. They want to bring out more of that side of themselves.

So now I want to talk about why we do this, why our brains specifically do this. So first, whatever this thought is that you’re having about yourself that you’re like, “It’s impossible to change and no one’s going to hire me or like me or want me as their coach because of it,” oftentimes that thought or belief was learned throughout your life, right? It was probably told to you or developed over time, maybe told to you one time and it just really stands out, or maybe even something you were told over and over, right?

So if you have a big personality and you’re very loud and you were going to, at least in the United States, a traditional type of school where they don’t really love that, right? They want you to kind of sit down and be quiet and just do your work and that is oftentimes the structure of school. So maybe you were told over and over, “Hey, shh, you’re being too loud, you’re being too much. I need you to sit down. I need you to bring your energy down.” Right?

I will say I’m guilty of this every once in a while, and I catch myself all the time. One of my daughters can be very high energy and especially at the end of the day if I’m tired, sometimes I’ll say, “Hey, you’re at a 10. I need you to bring it down to a 4.”

And now we’ve talked openly about it, right? And I’m like, “Hey, I’m sorry when I say that. What I really mean is I love this side of you. I love this energy. Right now I’m just very tired.” And so it’s just a mismatch for where I am, and that’s okay. You don’t have to change yourself to make me more comfortable. But what the funny part about that is when I get really excited about something now, she will say the same to me. So now it’s just become an open conversation.

But see, that’s how it starts, right? Luckily, I’m a coach. I’m very aware of my thoughts for the most part, and I’m able to see, “Ooh, I shouldn’t be saying that to her very often,” right? Because over time, if I keep telling her that all the time, all the time, all the time, then you can see as she gets older, this is just going to be ingrained in her like, “I’m always too much. Here I go again, no one’s going to like me,” whatever version of that.

Instead of saying, “Hey, this is a skill you have. This is actually really incredible in so many ways. And also in this moment, I just need you to be a little bit quieter because I’m resting or I’m whatever, because for a specific reason, not just because you’re too much.”

Okay, I went off on a little tangent there, but I think that that’s a really good example to see, right? Most of us were told things like that as we grew up from our parents, from teachers, from friends, from relatives, from whoever. And then it just becomes ingrained. And we just grow up with like, these things are just true.

And then when they’re true, when they become true and it is very easy to just reach for them, it’s so much more efficient to do that because we know it’s true, right? This is just a truth. We know it and it’s just easy to grab onto versus saying, “Okay, what if it’s not that? What else could it be?”

Because what happens is instead of—when you’re in the situation and you’re, let’s say, your coaching isn’t selling like you want it to, and instead of problem solving, you blame yourself because that’s just the easiest path, right? The one you’re used to, because the opposite of that does feel a lot harder, even though it’s actually the thing that’s going to move you towards the result you want, because the opposite of that is being willing to say, “Okay, it’s not that. Let me problem solve.”

And problem solving requires not knowing things for sure. So you have to try them and you have to maybe get it wrong, you have to evaluate, you have to try again, you have to keep going. You have to learn each time and that requires a lot more effort, right? A lot more mental effort. You have to really focus your brain energy into, “Okay, if it can’t be that, what could it be instead?”

It requires possibly getting it wrong and it makes you a lot more vulnerable, right? Because now instead of this thing that you can just be like, “Well, see, I knew it. I’m not smart enough,” which is very easy and very efficient. Instead, it’s, “Okay, if that’s not the thing, then what is it?”

And you have to be willing to put yourself out there and expose something in a way that you’re not used to, right? So in a way that could feel super uncomfortable and you have to be able to comfort yourself and your brain and be like, “Yep, this is what we’re doing. This is what we’re choosing. We’re choosing to go this way instead of just blaming ourselves.”

And then the last thing is your brain always, always—this is something very important to remember. You can write this down. Your brain will always prefer efficiency over growth. Now, for some of you listening, you might be like, “Nope, that’s not true. I love growth,” right? If someone said that to me just, I don’t know, at a random time when I wasn’t expecting it, my first thought would probably be, “No, I love growth.”

But that’s not actually always true, right? I do love a challenge. I love to lean into something and problem solve. But there are times when if just left on autopilot, like, “Oh, I didn’t choose growth. I chose doing nothing new. I chose staying right where I am.” And I didn’t notice it at the time, but yep, that’s what happened because that felt like the most comfortable path, right? Versus being willing to try something totally new, really put myself out there and really choose the growth.

So I’m sure I could come up with examples where every time I would be like, “Nope, don’t want to do that,” right? Sometimes it just takes noticing that and knowing it, like, “This is totally normal.” Your brain is doing this because it is normal. This is the way you were built. It’s literally evolution, right? It’s science. And when you can remind yourself of that, then sometimes you can shake that loose a little bit and point yourself in the opposite direction.

So let’s talk about why it’s safe to be in the known, right? The known thing, which is the thing you’re telling yourself or the thing possibly your client is telling themselves, that even though believing you have a character flaw feels bad, really bad, very heavy sometimes, it also usually feels familiar because it’s normally not something that’s new. Again, normally something you’ve practiced and you’ve built up a belief around for a very long time. So it just feels familiar.

Again, even when it feels also terrible and heavy, right? It’s the mean but known thing, the mean thing you’re saying to yourself, but the thing that also you just know to be true, feels a lot, lot safer than doing the hard, uncertain things. Because also those hard, uncertain things, you might have to do them over and over and over and try again and be willing to keep going and push through every block, every time your brain offers you the opportunity to say, “See, I’m too weird.”

Also, staying stuck is super predictable. Problem solving involves so much more risk and again, like I said earlier, vulnerability. So let’s talk about what to do about it. And I do want to acknowledge before I move into this, that there are obviously times when it does make sense to work on these things, right? To get some coaching on them, to do some self-coaching, to go to therapy, to really unpack some of the things that feel really heavy, right? It makes so much sense to do that.

And so I don’t want you to hear me say this and think that I’m suggesting that you always just skip over it and pretend like it’s not there. But here’s what I promise you is it is really hard to move past it without action, without directing yourself the other way, problem solving and proving to yourself that it’s not true, right?

So you can definitely move the needle by coaching, therapy, self-coaching, whatever, any of the things, whatever tools you have, you’ll be able to move the needle. But without really being willing to go all in on, “Okay, what if it’s not that, then what?” Without being willing to do that, you’re never going to fully get rid of that belief.

And actually, you may never fully get rid of it. You’ll just take all the power out of it and make—basically turn the volume down on it. That’s how I think about it. It’s like you turn the volume way down on that so that it might pop up every once in a while, but only in very specific times. And then the more you are onto yourself, the more you’ll recognize it.

Okay, so here’s the framework. Here’s how you redirect yourself. The first step, and this is probably the hardest, is to notice when it’s happening. And I say the hardest because you’re not used to noticing it’s happening. I promise you. You’re used to—especially if it’s something you tell yourself often, it probably happens so quickly that you don’t even catch it.

And so you have to figure out what are the things that stand out to you, when you’re believing, for example, that you’re too loud, too much. What do you do in those situations? And those kind of become the tells. Those become the things that are like, “Oh, I notice when I’m doing this, I need to pause and see, is this coming from the thought, I’m too much, I’m too loud.”

So you have to notice it. You have to, maybe it’s a certain energy you feel, a certain way that you interact with people in your life or with clients, and you just have to start noticing it, catching it, and taking note of it, right? Right then when it’s happening.

Then you have to recognize maybe when you start making big changes, I said the throwing the spaghetti at the wall, when you’re kind of doing that without belief, right? When you’re just doing, taking all the action, action, action, action, action, without really believing that it’s going to work or measuring it or slowing down to say, “Wait, why isn’t this working? Let me dig a little deeper.” Whatever your tell is, right?

Or maybe it’s noticing when you’re hiding or you feel, you just know you’re being not who you really are, when you’re being less authentic, right? You can usually feel that. You can feel when you’re posting something, talking about something, writing something, any of the things because from the thought, “I just have to pretend.” What’s the saying? Fake it till you make it? That is not my favorite saying because of this thing, right? Because it doesn’t feel authentic.

And then here’s the reframe question that is super powerful. At least it’s been very powerful for me and it’s been very powerful for a lot of my clients. So the question is, if it’s an absolute fact that it can’t be an inherent flaw in you, what else would you explore in order to solve this?

Here’s why this works. It forces your brain out of that loop, right? It forces your brain out of, “Well, it’s not working. Oh, it’s because I’m not smart enough. Okay, well, let me try these things while believing I’m still not smart enough,” and then obviously those things aren’t going to work and then you’re just going to believe again that you’re not smart enough, right? And it just is a loop that goes around and around and around.

So let’s consider the thought, “I’m just too weird, this is never going to work,” right? Something along those lines. So notice whatever your tell is, notice when you’re thinking that, notice when you’re pretending possibly that you’re not weird or that you’re not whatever the thing is that makes you think that you’re too weird. Notice when you’re hiding that, when you’re suppressing it in order to be more maybe normal or to fit in.

Then you’re going to ask yourself, “If it is a fact that it cannot be true that me being weird is the reason this isn’t working, what would I explore in order to solve this problem?” Right? So if the problem is no one is buying my coaching, and your thought is, “It’s because I’m too weird.” You recognize it when it’s happening, you introduce this thought, “If it’s a fact that it can’t be because I’m weird, where else can I look in order to solve this?” And so then you answer that question and you answer it as many ways as you can. You even make up silly answers if you need to to get your brain going, and you just answer it, right?

Maybe your answers are, “Well, okay, if it can’t be that I’m weird, maybe it’s because my messaging is not very consistent. My potential clients are probably really confused,” right? Or let’s say it’s a—something showing up in your actual coaching sessions and your thought is, “I’m too weird, my clients don’t like me, this coaching isn’t working.” And so it has you showing up kind of in a weird way in your sessions. And then if you’re like, “Okay, if it can’t be because I’m inherently just weird and it makes me a bad coach, then what?”

Maybe you’ll see that the—one of the answers is, “Oh, I’m really spend so much time in my coaching sessions trying to censor myself or trying to do it right or trying to do it like this other coach that I love to watch coach and be just like her, and it really keeps me out of deeply listening to my client,” right? These are the types of things we’re looking for because those, notice the examples I gave, those are real answers that really will create the results that you don’t want.

The next thing that you can do is kind of find evidence that is contrary to this flaw that you think you have. So for example, if you think you’re too loud, you’re too much, you’re just too big, your energy is way too big to show up professionally as a coach. Professionally is one of my probably least favorite words for many reasons, but right, that is a thought my clients have is, “I’m not even professional. I’m just too loud, I’m too much.”

I want you to think about other coaches or other businesses that you love, that you are very drawn to, that have a loud, too much energy and what that looks like, right? How do you know? Why are you attracted to them? And really kind of show yourself and if you don’t, if you’re like, “I don’t know, I can’t think of any,” then go find some. Find some that are examples of not just the perfect brand, the perfect coach that you think you’re supposed to be, but ones that you are very drawn to.

And it doesn’t even have to be a coach. It doesn’t even have to be a service-based product. It could be in any industry, just any brand, anything that you’re drawn to that’s loud and big and really matches your energy a lot more, and just see how that actually makes them, that brand, very unique and special and helps them stand out.

Usually the brands we really love that kind of enroll us into their vision, that happens because they are being all of themselves. They’re letting it all show. The too much, the too weird, the not smart, the whatever it is, they’re letting it show and they’re owning it. And it’s actually part of their brand. And because now you’re going with the grain or with the flow, that feels so much more natural. It’s actually way easier to run a business like that when you are just being you and allowing all of it to show.

This hopefully will help you see that whatever that perceived flaw you have is actually your magic. I promise you, this is true. Now, you might learn over time how to hone it, how to polish it, how to make it, make the weird, what does that look like in your brand? Perfect. There might be some work there, but it isn’t hiding it, pushing it away, thinking, “Oh, I can never show this part of me.”

And then last, you can get to work just solving the actual problem, right? You can also, while you’re doing this, acknowledge that it feels harder and less certain and you’re not really sure if the solutions you come up with are going to work, but you have to be willing to try, to fail, or succeed, to adjust, try again, succeed even more, maybe fail again, right?

This—we’ve all seen, I assume, the diagrams where it’s like, “This is what we think business is going to look like,” and it’s just a diagonal line up, right, just constant perfect growth. And then it’s what business actually looks like and it’s a whole scrambled line up, down, back, forth, all of it. This is part of that, right? It’s so true.

I can’t even tell you how true, at least in my business, that squiggly line feels. And the more you embrace it. To me, that is just a picture of, oh, I was willing to do this thing, it didn’t really work out, but look, here’s where I adjusted. I tried again. This time it did work or it worked a little better. So, okay, let me keep going. I’m going to try one more time. Oh, this time it worked even more, but only because I learned from the last time.

I want to share a very real example that you all can go check out in order to see exactly this in action, right? So right now I’m coming close to the end of the Reimagine Mastermind, the last round of it, or the previous round, not the one that I’m selling and launching, but the one that’s about to finish up soon.

And one of my clients in there, Amanda Gold, who was on the podcast a few weeks ago talking all about creativity and all of her incredible work. So in that mastermind, we had a live event in Arizona. It was so much fun. And one of the things that came up for her when we were coaching is she said to us in front of all of us, she said, “I just have this really weird idea, but I’m not supposed to lean into it right now. First, I need to figure out all these things.” And so I was like, “Oh, what is it? Tell me.”

And so she started talking about this big, incredible idea that she has. And once she started talking about it, it’s called Tiger Mystics. Once she started talking about it, everything was just flowing out and it was like her creativity was being unleashed and her brain was on fire and her energy, her entire energy, her whole body completely changed. And we were all mesmerized, right? And we were like, “Wait, what? Why have you been holding this back?”

And so I encouraged her that even if she thinks the big vision, because it is a very big vision, a movement, even if she thinks that isn’t available right this second, what is true is that that energy and that idea is available right now. Maybe in a different form, maybe, maybe just a piece of it. There are so many different options. But once I pointed that out, it is just flowing out of her like crazy.

Now, she has also, because of this, has also made so many amazing pieces of content around it. And you can just see the way she talks about it, the way she thinks about her coaching, the way she thinks about her clients, all aligns to this Tiger Mystics idea, to this bigger picture. And it has completely changed, in my opinion, the way she talks about her business, the way she shows up for her people, and the way she calls in those people that are going to be really attracted to that idea and to her vision.

You can go find her on Facebook. She was on a couple episodes ago. You can go to the show notes and grab all of her information, but what I know about this is that she is so on fire for it. First of all, if she keeps going, if she keeps iterating and leans more and more and more into this vision that she has, it is going to be huge. I mean, I can promise you.

And not only that, but it’s going to make a huge impact on the people that it’s for. And it’s so important, right? This is the way when you ignore stuff like this because you think, “Oh, it’s too, this is too weird,” or, “It’s not right now,” or, “It’s too much,” you’re holding back so much genius that the world is waiting for.

Now, not everyone, there are going to be people that are like, “Yeah, that’s weird,” or people that are like, “That is not for me.” Not about Amanda’s idea, but just in general about anybody’s idea, right? Hers and yours and mine. There are things that I do that I’m positive people are probably like, “Nope, don’t like that.”

Even one of my—in Apple Podcasts, a review of my podcast in Apple Podcasts said something like, “I love so many of these episodes, some of them not so great.” And I’m, “Oh yeah, right, that makes sense. Of course.” Every single episode isn’t going to be your favorite because it’s not going to speak to you. It’s not going to be the thing you need to hear today. But hopefully there are enough, right, that you’re like, “Oh yeah, I like that. I like that.” I mean, when I think about my favorite podcast, there are some episodes I get halfway through and I’m like, “Yeah, this one’s a skip for me.” That’s okay. Totally fine.

Another example that comes to mind, this is someone that you’ve probably heard from before. She’s been on the podcast actually a couple times in one of my very original episodes, I think maybe episode 10. She was one of the very first people I interviewed.

Her name is Brig Johnson, one of my very, very good friends. We still talk often. And I just will never forget. She talks about this in the episode, which is why it’s fine to share it, but I will never forget being her one-on-one coach when she said to me something along the lines of, she was just, I think a general life coach at the time or maybe even a weight loss coach or something. I don’t know. She was doing something different that was not nearly as aligned as what she does now.

And I just remember her the first time she told me that she wanted to be a coach for Black women, right? And she was like, “But the world’s not ready and so I’m not going to do it yet,” something along those lines. And it just was so clear to me, like, “Oh, you have it backwards, babe, right? What? No. When you’re ready, the world’s going to be ready. Your people are just waiting for you to be ready.”

Hopefully this really speaks to some of you. Let this be inspiring. Let this be like, “Okay, permission to do the harder thing.” Here are some things I want you to remember, some takeaways from this episode. Your brain’s job is efficiency, not growth. When it feels very uncomfortable, just remind yourself of this. We are meant to grow and evolve, but not at the rate that we choose to sometimes. The flaw story feels safe, but also keeps you stuck. It also feels bad, right? But even though it feels bad, it usually also just feels safe and keeps you stuck, keeps you from showing up.

Problem solving feels scarier, but is what will actually move you forward and is also the thing that’s really going to help you be on the other side of your flaw. ‘Flaw’ in quotes, right? I do not think it’s a flaw. Just the flaw that you are telling yourself you have. And your perceived flaws might be exactly what your ideal clients are looking for, right? The idea that’s too big, too wild, too weird, too loud, your personality, whatever it is.

Remember that this pattern is so common in humans. This is not a you problem. This is not one more flaw you get to tell yourself you have. If you’re very used to beating yourself up and doing this, I could see how you could actually listen to this episode and use it as just one more thing, like, “Oh, here’s just one more thing I’m doing, which is why it’s never going to work.”

Notice that’s the exact same pattern I’m talking about. So if that’s happening for you right now, take a breath, put your hand on your heart or wherever, maybe one hand on your heart, one hand on your belly, take a couple deep breaths and remind yourself that is just your safe pattern and that there’s definitely a way out of it. You have to be willing to tell yourself, “Okay, today I’m deciding that’s not true. I’m going to problem solve instead.”

Also remember that the noticing is the very first step. So if in this moment listening to this episode, you are noticing that this is your pattern, that’s amazing. Congratulations. You have taken the very first step. Now you have to get used to noticing it over and over.

If you really resonate with this, you could even save this episode and listen to it multiple times or make note of the timestamps where I say things that really hit for you and just listen to those. Put them on repeat. Whatever you have to do. There’s also transcripts on my website. If you go to the show notes, you can click, you can go to the transcript. You could actually copy and paste it into your notes in your phone, just the parts that you want to remember, that you want to read out loud to yourself.

I would love to hear how this resonated with you, how what your thoughts are around it. If you want to tell me on social media, you can find me @LindsayDotzlaf on Instagram or on Facebook, also just my name, although I do interact in the DMs more on Instagram. I don’t know what’s going on with my Facebook DMs, they’re a little crazy. And yeah, I would just love to hear. Or leave a review, tell me in there.

As I said before, there are some changes coming up to the podcast. So if you want to share with me what you love about the podcast, what you would love to hear on the podcast, they’re not going to be huge changes to where it’s something completely different. It’s still going to be on the same topic. So if you have thoughts about that and want to share them with me, I would love for you to leave a review and just tell me what they are, or come to my Instagram or find me, send me an email, and just let me know. What do you love? What do you not love? What do you wish there was more of?

All right. I’m so happy you were here today. I really, really hope that this was useful for you. And again, not only for you, but maybe if you didn’t resonate with this as much, that it helps you understand your clients a little more who do trend towards this self-blaming, towards finding their flaws and just thinking those are unchangeable and that’s why whatever the thing is that they want can’t happen.

All right. I love you, my friend. I will talk to you next week. Goodbye.

Thanks for listening to this episode of Mastering Coaching Skills. If you want to learn more about my work, come visit me at lindsaydotzlafcoaching.com. That’s Lindsay with an A, D-O-T-Z-L-A-F.com. See you next week.