Ep #247: Reimagine Your Perspective: Embrace the Mess

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. Today I want to talk to you about something that I see happening all the time, that has been on my mind a lot, and that I just had an experience that gave me kind of the perfect visual to talk to you about it.

It felt like perfect timing. Literally, this just happened. I needed to record a podcast today, and so I’m just sitting down here to tell you all about it because I think it’s such a good analogy that hopefully, you will be able to visualize and really picture and take into your – all the pieces of your coaching practice and, honestly, also into your work with your clients.

So, before I tell you what it is, I’m going to paint you a picture. And just stay with me for a minute. I promise I will bring it all back around and kind of tell you what in the world this has to do with your business and your coaching and your life, actually.

So, today, I have back-to-back things. Today, I traveled last week, and so I’m just kind of getting caught up, getting a lot of things checked off the list, a lot of things complete for the Coach Unfiltered that I have coming up soon. If you’re listening to this in real time, we literally just started this week. There is still plenty of opportunity for you to join us. I’ll put the link for that in the show notes. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, maybe go listen to last week’s episode because I talk all about it there. But that’s not what this is about today.

So, I’m working on all these things, and I felt I was getting a little tense, a little stressed, and I needed a moment, right? A moment of like, okay, let’s just go take a couple deep breaths. So I walked outside on the back porch with my dog, sat there for a minute, just enjoyed the warmth because I’ve been sitting inside in the air conditioning, and just took a few minutes to just breathe. And when I did, I started looking around my backyard.

And first, I have to tell you what my backyard looks like. So we built this house in 2020, the house we live in now, we built it in 2020, and so it’s in obviously, in a new, new-ish neighborhood. And after they built our house, then our neighborhood built another phase, separate phase of our neighborhood, but there’s a big space in between.

And it’s a big, very big open field with a path that runs down the middle. And then when you take that path and you keep walking on it, then there’s a nature preserve at the end of the path. It’s really very pretty back there. It’s very nice to go on walks, take the dog on walks, all the things.

And so I was just looking out over the field. And over the last year or so, my neighborhood has done this thing where we have hired a company. I say we. I go to the meetings, but I’m not in charge by any means. You’ll notice that as you hear some of the way I talk about this because I don’t know all the official terms, but it doesn’t matter. All we really need is the picture.

But that field behind my house, we have hired a company to come in, and because nothing can be built there, it’s technically a flood plain. So, we can’t build anything there. There’ll never be like a new neighborhood or a new phase of our neighborhood in between the two phases. So it’s this big open field.

And you can’t really use it for much because besides the path going down the middle, the whole field is mostly plants and weeds and things that are kind of overgrown. And they do come in a couple times a year with a big tractor and just kind of cut it all down.

But I’ve learned so much about this now just from going to these meetings, what happens is that that field, a lot of invasive species of plants have come in and have taken over most of the field, which makes it pretty, mmm, I don’t know a better way to say it then like kind of dangerous a little bit. I’ll tell you why in a second. And a little unusable.

Now, that’s okay by us. We don’t really need to use it for anything. It is, it’s nice to just have that open space and have the field back there. Maybe I’ll include a photo of this on my Instagram @lindsaydotzlaf when this comes out so you can just like have a visual for what I’m talking about.

But we hired a company to come in, and the goal, the whole goal of what the company is doing is that they are taking the field, getting out all of the invasive species, and over the next couple of years are turning it into a beautiful field full of wildflowers, full of native plants to the area and kind of recreating this beautiful, lovely field full of plants that are supposed to be there that attract all kinds of beautiful butterflies and, you know, just the things that are supposed to be in my yard where I live in the part of the country that I live in.

So, what I’ve learned from going to the meetings is that, of course, it’s lovely to have this final vision of a field full of wildflowers, right? It just sounds so romantic, like we’re going to be like skipping around in it, taking pictures in it, having all the butterflies.

Or maybe it’s like The Wizard of Oz, right? Where it’s just full of flowers. Now, of course, actually, poppies are a native plant to us, so there could be actually some poppies. But it won’t look exactly like that, right? It’ll be a little more wild, a little more green, whatever, than if you’re picturing The Wizard of Oz, which happened to be one of my very favorite movies growing up, which is why, of course, that comes to me immediately, that scene.

But in order to make that happen, we have to go through each step of a process. And this is the part where you’re going to know that I only pay half attention to what’s going on because I’m not going to know all the scientific terms, but I think I know enough that you’ll understand what I’m saying. But there are steps to it, right? We can’t just like decide we want a field full of wildflowers and native species and make it happen by next week. It actually takes at least a couple of years and even longer for the full result of what we want it to be.

And so we hire a company, and they’re actually associated with the EPA, I believe, and so because this is something that is you can get grants for because it’s very good for the area, it’s good for the earth, it’s good for the animals who live here. It’s just overall good. It’s good for the humans, for the air, everything.

And so there are steps that have to happen, right? First they come in, they cut everything down, like almost down to the ground. And, you know, it didn’t look so beautiful when that happened, but we knew it was part of the process and it’s like, okay, yep, this is step one. Then they come in and somehow, I don’t know exactly how, supposedly it’s environmentally friendly the way they did it. I can’t say that for sure.

But they had a whole crew come in, no joke, like fully dressed in what looked like spaceship suits. Like they looked like aliens walking around the field. They were literally pulling out a lot of the things with a very specific process so that they weren’t spreading it as they were doing it.

But they had to be fully covered because some of them are very nasty and very poisonous, which is one of the reasons my neighborhood decided we needed to do something about this because you really could not go in the field unless it was cut all the way down because you could get crazy rashes and all the things and like very toxic plants.

And we also noticed that all of a sudden a lot of the animals weren’t in there anymore. And so apparently some of them are also toxic to them. Anyway, so the spaceship guys, out back, walking around, using this process, pulling, it’s a very like slow process. They have to move kind of slow so that they’re not spreading all of the spores and all of the things from the plants into the air because that will make it actually spread, right, and make it worse.

And then they put down some sort of, some sort of herbicide, I believe, to really like kill off all those invasive species that are no good. And then it like looks really ugly. There’s not a lot of anything pretty happening back there during that part of the process. But that’s okay, like we knew that was happening.

So then the next step is they come back in and I think must have put down some sort of grass seed. And so right now, today, when I was just sitting out there, I just was looking around because I’ve been gone for a week, and so before I left, it was, this was not happening at all.

And now today, it is so lush and green and beautiful. Literally, it looks like, like you take the green crayon out of the crayon box, or maybe like three different shades of green, and like someone just colored the entire field the most beautiful shades of green. Now, I know this isn’t the end of the process, but if it was, I mean, it is a a huge improvement, right? It’s so beautiful, which is what I was just out there enjoying and noticing today.

But then there will be next steps, right? And then they will come in. I’m guessing this might not happen maybe until next year to really allow that like grass to take root and to be sure that we got all of the invasive species out, is my guess. And then they come in and start to plant flowers and start to like plant all of these native species that should be here but that were overrun by the invasive species.

And eventually, there’s going to be a wildflower field, which I’m so excited about. And I’ve seen photos, of course, like they gave us, you know, photos, the board at my neighborhood when we were having the meetings and they were, you know, we were deciding and like voting on it, should we do it? Of course, they have photos and like here’s the whole plan. And it really does look beautiful.

But I had this realization the other day that when I envision it in my dream scenario, it’s just wildflowers all the time. There’s just now, there’s just going to be wildflowers surrounding my house. It’s going to be gorgeous all the time. And just now when I was sitting out there looking at this lush green, beautiful field, I had this realization of like, oh, of course it’s not.

First of all, flowers don’t just, like the same flowers bloom all year, right? I live in the US, I live in Indiana. If you’re not familiar with it, if you live, you know, not in the US, Indiana is very, like we have all four seasons. We have hot, hot, humid summers, and we have pretty cold winters with snow, sometimes lots of snow, sometimes a little bit of snow.

And so, of course, there are not going to be flowers or even growing beautiful, lush green grass in the middle of winter, right? So even when we get to the point, kind of the end point or the point that it’s like, this is where now we want to stay and we just tend to it, there’s still going to be phases of sometimes it looks amazing, sometimes it looks, you know, like it’s a little more dormant.

But the goal is that it’s more predictable, that it has all the things we want, that we get rid of the things we don’t want that aren’t healthy, and we add in things we do want that are great for us, for the environment, for the animals.

I want you to just take a second and just picture that, right? Picture like whatever your version of a field full of wildflowers would be, whatever, you know, lights you up or sounds delightful when it comes to that, really just take a second and just envision that for a second.

Now, I want you to use this analogy and think about it when it comes to your coaching practice. When it comes to your coaching business and how that business grows and how it started off as an idea, which may have felt a little wonky, a little hard, a little bit like what am I even doing, which was like the field full of invasive species, right?

We could even get real nerdy about it and be like the invasive species are like all the limiting beliefs and the thoughts that you’re picking up here and there that you’ve just kind of like added to the field or that you’re like starting with because you’ve collected all of this over your lifetime, not thinking that one day this field full of weeds, that you were going to want it to be something else, right? And so when you decided to build the business, now you’re like, oh, I can see the vision of the wildflower field. I can see what I want it to be someday.

Now, I want you to think about this for your coaching practice and how you work with your clients. I’ve worked with hundreds of coaches helping them create their coaching processes and helping them think through and navigate all the ways that they work with their clients and how to be the best possible coach. And it’s kind of the same thing.

You start with like, I’ve never done this before, I don’t know. And maybe you go somewhere, you get some training, you get a certification, you get, you know, the knowledge that you need in order to do the thing and help your clients create these amazing results. But what it takes is like a lot of work to put it all together, to turn it into the beautiful field of wildflowers.

And then I want you to think about the way your business and your life are balanced or not balanced, or how the two interact. I don’t always love the word balance. I’ll talk about that more later because I don’t think that it’s always like in perfect harmony and balance. For me, the way I experience my life and my business, it’s like, oh, sometimes there’s more emphasis here, sometimes there’s more emphasis here.

So it’s not always perfectly like whatever percentage I’m doing this and I’m doing this and that’s just always how it is. Sometimes, like, oh, I’m going to work a little more this week, or I’m going to pay more attention to my family this week, or I’m going on vacation or I’m taking time off, I’m not thinking about my business at all.

And so I think about balance as like really zoomed out, like the overall balance or really just like, are they interacting together the way that I want them to? And that is also something that takes time, especially if you’ve never had a business before and you’re figuring it all out. And so in those three areas, there’s always probably something you’re going to be working on, and there’s always probably a vision of what that end result looks like or the, whatever you think the end result might be right now, right? Your current wildflower field that you’re working on creating.

And then I want you to think, and this is the part, this is the thing that I see so many coaches doing that causes so much pain and judgment, self-judgment, self-criticism that they place on themselves is that they get the vision for the wildflower field. And then they think they should be there. And maybe this is you. Maybe you think, and then you should be there by next week. And everything you do from now until then, you’re not happy and you’re constantly judging yourself for not having the beautiful field yet.

Instead of appreciating each step and knowing that each step is what must be done to lead you to the next step, right? And that really, truly, the more you can enjoy each step of it and understand why it’s an important part of the process, if you think about the visual that I just told you, right? It’s like the part where they came in and cut everything down and then like pulled stuff out. Honestly, they kind of made a mess. They kind of made it uglier. It was just brown, it was, you know, there was nothing about it that was like, ooh, look at our lovely field.

But when I reminded myself, right, this is the first step. This is the part where everything is being yanked out. We are kind of making more of a mess before we make it beautiful.

And then sitting out there just now, right? And appreciating, oh, this is so lovely and so green. Notice, when I described that part to you, what I didn’t say was, I sat outside and looked at that green field that is so much better than it used to be. And then I thought, oh, but it’s not full of wildflowers yet, right? That’s not what I did. I just sat out there and appreciated all the different greens and delighted in it because honestly, it’s so green so much faster than I expected it to be.

When I saw when they cut it all down and it was going to be, you know, and it all looked just kind of brown and dead and kind of gross, my thought was, oh, it’s probably going to be like this. I even told my family this. Oh, it’s probably going to be like this for the rest of this summer, the rest of this year.

But even when I said that, I was like, but here’s the great news. We could, I don’t know why we, we would, but we could if we wanted to, actually go walk in it now because it, some of the stuff that was in there that was really nasty, that really prevented us from being able to walk through it, it’s not there anymore.

All of the thistle is gone, which I don’t know if you know what thistle is, but if you don’t, let me just tell you, it’s nasty. It’s basically a plant that will just like, it literally feels like walking through a field with like little creepy fingers like grabbing you and just scratching you. It’s so sharp. It’s really gross.

And if you walk through it with, let’s say like in shorts or like unprotected legs, you will be just all cut up. It’s like if you’ve ever walked through a field and then your legs are like all scratched up and you’re like, what in the world? It just looked like, you know, weeds and plants and like, I don’t know why that happened. There are many things that could have caused it, but thistle could be one of them. It’s really gross.

And we also had some other things that when neighbors saw it, they would post about it and say like, don’t go near here. I can’t remember off the top of my head what that specific plant was called. I’m sure that there are options.

But specifically here where we live, there’s a very toxic plant that if it gets on you, even just like if you brush your leg across it, it’s not like poison ivy or poison oak or something. It’s like much more toxic than that and can really cause some harm and make you pretty sick, apparently, especially little kids, right? Which is why the neighborhood would post about it and like, don’t let your kids touch this stuff. And definitely don’t get it on your face was always the thing.

So I went down a little rabbit hole there, but just notice when I was talking about, you know, to my family, even when it was all cut down, I was celebrating the progress. I’m so glad that they removed all this stuff and we don’t have to think about it anymore. I do think we have to keep an eye out for it, maybe, or maybe the company’s coming to look at it. I don’t really know, honestly. But I knew it was progress, right? It was like, here are all the ways it’s already better. It might not look like the final part. It might not be the field of wildflowers, but at least here’s the improvement.

So I want you to think about this for all three of those areas, for your business and the way you build your business, for the way you coach your clients and your coaching process that you’re probably still developing. And for your life and the balance and the integration of your life with your business. I want you to just consider, is there an area where all you’re focused on is the end result? And you’re so focused on it that in some way or another, you’re consistently telling yourself it’s not good until you’re there. And you’re not appreciating every single step.

And I know, I promise you, I know, when you’re in it and you’re doing the learning and you’re working very hard and you’re trying to figure it all out, and some days can feel hard, frustrating, all consuming, whatever, I totally know that it just feels true that that’s just how it is. But I will tell you something if you’ve never heard this, it’s probably important for you to hear, even if you hear it and you’re like, no way is that true. Here’s what I promise you.

When you’re 10 years into building your business like I am, you will actually have days where you look back and you miss some of the things that were like a little easier, maybe like that had you more connected one-on-one to people, right? Like just some of the things that you do in the beginning of your business that when you’re doing them, you can tend to think like, oh, I can’t wait to be at whatever the next step is, but that when you’re actually where I am, kind of in the next step, you look back and think like, oh, that was so sweet that part of my business, or like, I really loved doing this thing.

And I know, I promise you, I know that if you’re really in it right now and it’s feeling hard, you might not believe me and that’s okay. Someday, this might come back to you and you’re going to be like, oh, remember when Lindsay said that thing? And you’re going to like see it and understand what I’m saying. But here’s what I really want to offer is like, what if you enjoyed each step?

Now, it’s okay if you still have frustrations and you still are like, why isn’t this working and why can’t I get this thing to work and, you know, and like that comes up for you. I’m not saying ignore it, but what I am saying is allow yourself to see the progress from step to step to step, even if sometimes the step you’re in is the part where it’s like all dead and brown and you have to try harder to find like what’s good about this.

But what happens is when you start to enjoy each step, and when you start to see like, oh, this is just progress and here’s what’s good about this part, and here’s what’s good about the next part, is counterintuitively, actually, well, first, obviously makes it all more enjoyable. But it also kind of moves you through it faster when you’re not just only grasping for that end result, for the wildflowers, for the like, nothing is good until I get there.

When you aren’t constantly grasping for that in a way that you just can’t be in the moment ever, when you are no longer doing that, you actually start to speed up a little. Not only do you actually speed up a little and you create better results because one simple way to say it is your energy is just a lot different. People are a lot more drawn to you, right?

If you’re like constantly frustrated, constantly saying mean things to yourself about one or all three of those areas of your coaching practice and, you know, just constantly in it, just think about the energy that that is fueling all the things that you’re doing with.

You’re like building your business fueled by frustration and it’ll be better there. You are fueling your coaching process and the way you work with your clients with like, I’m not good enough, but let me help you with this thing, right? You’re fueling your life and your enjoyment of your life outside of your business with like, oh, but I should be working more. I should be further along in my business and like letting that take over your extra thoughts, all the white space, all the blank space, instead of really just allowing yourself to enjoy your life while figuring out all the rest.

Okay, I know that this episode is very conceptual, a little meta, right? Very just like a visual, but I’m really, really hoping that what you take away from this is this ability to look and say like, okay, this is the step I’m on right now. What’s just the next step? What’s the next step? And that’s all you have to look at for right now.

And sure, when you want to visualize the end, the wildflower field, go for it. But don’t romanticize it in a way that you forget that that also comes with like not all wildflowers, rainbows, daisies, sunshine, right? It also comes with parts of the year where that is also dormant, where the snow comes and covers up the flowers, kills the flowers, right?

Now, that’s all part of the process and that’s all supposed to happen. But just don’t let yourself romanticize it in a way that it not only takes away from your current situation and enjoying whatever step you’re on and really just being in the moment and asking yourself like what’s just the next right step.

But it will also take away from your enjoyment of actually getting there because if you romanticize it too much, you will realize that like you’ll get there and then you’ll be disappointed, right? Then you’ll realize, oh, I was wrong about what this actually looks like. I was wrong about the way I thought this was supposed to go. So then even when it’s a field full of wildflowers, beautiful flowers, and butterflies, and they smell amazing, then when it starts to get cold out and when it’s winter, then you’ll just be like, ah, see, I knew it wasn’t good enough.

And the last thing I want to leave you with, hopefully this is, for those of you that needed to hear this today, hopefully it’s a very powerful visual for you. And then the last thing I want to leave you with is also thinking about and noticing, are you doing this? Are you taking this same belief into your coaching? Are you fueling your clients with like only that end goal is a good thing? Anything until there is bad.

And just notice if that’s showing up at all in your coaching or when your clients are bringing this, because it’s a very normal human thing to do. Are you noticing when your clients are bringing it to you in a way that’s very black and white, very like it’s won’t be good until I’m all the way there, until years later when all the flowers have grown and bloomed and attracted the butterflies?

Or are you allowing them to also be in the process or even pointing out to them that it is a process and that it may take some time? And like how can they enjoy, like helping them just enjoy what’s happening right now and the step they’re on, and then helping them, you know, discover, okay, what’s just the next right step for me right now?

All right, friends, I hope that this was very useful. And again, if you want to join me in Coach Unfiltered where you get to see the behind-the-scenes of lots of changes that I am making, lots of evolution that is happening in my business, there is still plenty of time. If you join now, you will, you’ve only, you haven’t missed much. Even if you’re listening not in real time, but a few months later, it will actually be open. Coach Unfiltered will remain open with the content and the replays and all the things until January of 2026.

So if you register now for only $250, you get the three-month live experience, and you get to see all the replays and all of the content until January of 2026. You get to see me work through all the decisions, have all the hard parts, have all the messy parts. You’ll see the parts where it, you know, looks like I’ve burnt, burnts, burnt? I don’t know where that came from. Burnt the field down? I think I was mixing together like burnt some things down with taken out all the invasive species, right? Which kind of is, it’s a perfect analogy for where I feel like I am right now.

So, join me if you want to see all of that. If you don’t and you only want to see the wildflower field when it’s done, that will all be coming very soon. I’m sure that I will be talking all about it as I continue the process here on the podcast. But if you really want to dig in and see all the behind the scenes, I’ll put the link in the show notes. Join me there or come find me on Instagram to see what I’m talking about, see all the things that I’m sharing, and I will talk to you next week. Have a lovely, amazing 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.