Many people would love to have their coach. Someone who is close to you, who encourages you to achieve your challenges, and who gives you instructions to improve your results and help you achieve your goals. Unfortunately, not everyone can afford a coach or is willing to invest the necessary money. In this sense, being your own coach can be an excellent idea.
Becoming your own coach is the main idea of the book You Coach You, by British authors Helen Tupper and Sarah Ellis. In this sense, the authors propose 5 POWERFUL IDEAS WITH WHICH YOU CAN BECOME YOUR OWN COACH:
- SELF-COACHING WILL HELP YOU ACHIEVE YOUR GOALS. Helen and Sarah define self-coaching as “the ability to ask yourself questions to improve your self-awareness and take positive action for yourself”. And to achieve goals in any field, the first step is to really discover what situation you are in. Analyze your thoughts and your actions. Sometimes people are too hard on themselves. In this sense, it is recommended that you do not boycott yourself and “talk” to yourself as you would with your best friend.
- RESILIENCE AND SELF-CONFIDENCE. Analyze the words with which you speak to yourself. Use positive and non-limiting words. In this line, the psychologist Martin Seligman spoke of “the 3 P’s of pessimism: personal, pervasive, and permanent”. He learns to avoid these 3 limiting ideas because nothing is always your fault, not everything is bad and nothing bad is eternal. To counteract this, the authors propose following the rule of the 3 R’s. Recognize, remember and reflect. That is, think of positive actions, of achievements you have achieved and recognize them, remember them and share them with other people. Imagine your future and think about the challenge you want to achieve. Self-confidence is not totally innate, it can be worked on and improved. And don’t forget to do simple things that make you happy, like eating ice cream, going to the cinema, or meeting up with friends.
- MANAGE YOUR TIME WELL. We live in a society where it seems that the busier you are the more successful you are. Take a good look at what you spend your time doing. Is it in line with your challenges and your values? Learn to focus and know how to say no (when possible). And to manage your time, it can be good for you to have a close and trusted person to help you or even use an application specialized in time management.
- MANAGE YOUR RELATIONSHIPS WELL. Managing your relationships well is essential for your personal development. Identify in your environment which people can help you achieve the challenge you have set for yourself. Make a list of these people and regularly contact them. The authors bet on the idea of the “5-minute favor”. Think of actions of 5 minutes maximum that you can take to help the people on the list. With ideas such as recommending their book on Amazon, sending them information of interest, putting them in touch with someone who could be useful to them…
- PROGRESSION AND PURPOSE. Progression and purpose are 2 fundamental factors for having a successful and happy professional career. And the concept of progression is very personal and can take very different forms: greater responsibility, higher salary, more free time… Define well how you will assess the progress of your professional career. And above all, be clear about your purpose. To help define your purpose you can think about what inspires you, and what your passions are. And think, as the authors affirm, that “the purpose is not an achievable objective, because the finish line is always moving”. You must understand the purpose more as a direction than as a concrete point.
So now you know some ideas related to self-coaching so you can improve in your career and in your life. I end with a quote from the authors themselves. “Coaching is not therapy, it is product development where the product is you”. So now you know, if you want to develop professionally and personally, bet on coaching or self-coaching. It will surely be very useful to you.
