You Can Coach Yourself
Learn to get on your own team, be your own best director, manager, editor, coach and friend
Think about this: Who is the wisest person you know? Whose insights do you seek out when you’re troubled? Who can you count on to understand your challenges and guide you through the tough times?
Well-meaning friends and family are great, but opening a window to our thorniest problems risks stinging embarrassment and pressured advice at next week’s get-together or the summer reunion. Maybe in front of a secret crush. Or Grandma.
Life coaches, counselors and therapists promise professionalism, privacy and a neutral ear but require time, money and just the right fit — one that can take months and a few misfires to find. I hope that, above all their skilled opinions and advice, you can learn to trust your hard-earned life experiences and the resulting informed judgment.
But listening to our own wisdom takes practice. When we’re too busy to reflect on our lives, or unwilling to be still and acknowledge what we know to be true, things turn to confusion, chaos, doubt, sometimes even self-sabotage.
We trust people who are “clear-headed”, whose perspective seems calm, balanced and focused. So how can we achieve this equanimity for ourselves?
I write this and future entries with the goal of helping you (us) get in the habit of self-examination and kind truth-telling, a guided meditation of sorts. I’ll provide the framework and some personal illustrations to help you along, but my stories, while possibly entertaining, are mostly here to help you connect to your own experiences.
Why am I doing this? Why share the best of a dozen years of insight and experience as a coach? Good grief, why not?! Truly, there’s nothing so gratifying as helping people have a happier, more fulfilling, genuinely-meaningful life. In fact, as I write this article I’m also texting with two clients about 1) Their kids’ unexpected change in school choices. Public or private? Risks and rewards of each? We’re working through it. And 2) Grieving the loss of a beloved pet. What’s the right way? Is there a right way? Walking alongside through the rough patches, worries and triumphs — maybe even with you through these pages — is my absolute, riveting joy.
Back to you.
Your payoff for all this navel-gazing? You’ll be better equipped to understand, motivate, discipline and maybe even like yourself. To get on your own team, be your own best director, manager, editor, coach and friend.
This is important work. And you can do it.
There will be exercises! Resist the temptation to brush them off “for later”. Find a fresh notebook for your answers and keep it in a safe place so you’ll feel free to respond in truth. Reflect on and refine your thoughts a few days or weeks down the road. Let your mind swim around in ideas and then rest. Come back and write the new stuff down. It all matters.
“But I Don’t Know What I Think!”
In group coaching sessions, I provide handouts and encourage audience members to participate by writing to themselves, privately. Some people come ready with a special pen and begin scribbling as soon as they receive the paper, drawing big arrows and stars in the margins, circling the juicy parts. Others are struck dumb at the idea of thinking through and writing about a personal issue right then and there.
I tell them the same thing I’ll tell you: If insights don’t come quickly, that’s okay but don’t give up. Just listen and be ready.
If you keep an open mind and persist, your opinions/memories/decisions will reveal themselves when you least expect them — in the shower tomorrow morning, on the drive to work, as you struggle to help a weeping child with his algebra.
When the ideas come (I’ll say it again), pay attention and write them down. They are jewels of information about you, and that’s what we’re mining for — your own treasures of truth.
Here are some ways to connect to your inner thoughts. I bet one will work for you.
Slow Down, Baby
Are you in too much of a hurry to take a single breath? Are the events of your life rolling in like unexpected thunderstorms, with no warning or forethought?
As adults, much of what we do with our time is in response to others’ needs and expectations — our children, spouse, boss, parents. Attending to immediate responsibilities and “putting out fires” is a big part of a grown-up life. I get it.
If setting aside thirty minutes for introspection is too much to ask right now, then start by choosing to listen during an “open” time like the ones mentioned above — when there’s not too much noise or competition for your focus. The always-painfully-long wait at the dentist, after the school drop off, even claiming a few silent minutes in your car before the grocery run will work.
Again, you can do it. If you are too busy to be still, you’re narrowing your awareness of your own heart and mind. That’s how many of us end up with lives we never expect or intend.
So here we go. Some of my “open” thinking times this week are:
_________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________
You’re welcome to add your answers in the comments or email them to me at pennyrackley@mac.com. I’d love to hear from you.
But Wait, There’s More
Do you regularly wake up too early and stare at the ceiling, then fret over the coming day? Many of us do, sometime around 4 am. If your busy brain won’t let you fall back to sleep, try using this time for constructive reflection.
Listen to what’s on your mind. Open one of my articles and work through an exercise or two. Or if there’s a nagging problem that won’t let you rest, make a list of some real possibilities for a solution. Think each one through to the end, writing out the details of each benefit and/or consequence.
If you’re pondering a new project, draw it out and daydream a little, while your thoughts are relaxed and uncluttered with the interruptions and demands of others. Paper and pen are the way to go here, and that means…
***Stay away from the computer and your $%#@! phone. Horrible distractions lurk there!!*** (Though I do hope you’ll come back to this page later on a coffee break.)
Be selfish with this peaceful freedom, this open opportunity. Luxuriate in your own ideas and flex your imagination. Right now, it’s good to be you.
One More Pat of Encouragement
You have collected information, experience and wisdom for and about your life every single day you’ve been alive. Please don’t ignore these hard-earned truths. Take the time and effort to examine what you feel and know, and you’ll be equipped to understand your life and its meaning better than anyone. Let’s get started.
Next Time: Choosing Your Focus
To see more articles from me, follow my Medium profile https://medium.com/@pennyrackley.
Curious about coaching? Ready for some outside help? Learn more at www.pennyrackley.com.
Available for freelance writing at pennyrackley@mac.com.
