Working With A Personal Success Coach: All the details you need to know
Have you ever looked at someone else and wondered, how do they do it all? From balancing work and family to nutrition and fitness, it is easy to look at someone else's life from the outside and see an image of perfection you wish you had.
While no one has everything balanced all of the time, partnering with a personal success coach is a great way to take a step in the right direction. Life is always changing and evolving, which means our habits and routines will need to change and evolve over the years as well.
I remember the early years of raising my family when I realized how much I needed someone to guide and support me in my life. As a mother, it can be extremely easy to focus on everyone else and unintentionally neglect yourself along the way. We’re not necessarily used to people checking in on us. But guess what? We ALL need and deserve that support and encouragement - whether it’s from a spouse, a friend, or a hired coach.
Who is personal success and accountability coaching for?
Simply put, anyone looking to create changes in their life by adding or removing one or more habits can benefit from a success coach. Even if you’re not sure where to start or what areas of your life need some adjustments, a coach can be that objective perspective that sheds light on things you’ve never addressed before.
Working with a coach can lead to clarity of goals, simplification of the process that gets you there, more efficient routines, structured time and energy, and often time faster results. I love helping clients adapt as the demands of their life change - because they really are always changing. Instead of shying away from the challenges and throwing in the towel, a small adjustment is sometimes all you need to get back on track.
Mindset over everything
While every client I work with is different, one commonality between them all is the shift in mindset they experience working with a coach. How do you talk to yourself? Is it encouraging, supportive, and kind, like you would a close friend? For many of us, our internal dialogue can cause a big disconnect when it comes to reaching our goals.
Working with a coach can help you gain confidence, look for simple solutions, and know where you deserve to spend your valuable time, money, and energy. All of these aspects of your life take prioritizing if you’re looking to achieve a meaningful and healthy life.
Accountability and support
Accountability can feel like a scary negative word to many people. I like to view it as support.
If you’re considering working with a coach or looking for ways to reach your goals, you already understand that some sort of change is required. Intellectually you KNOW what to do. For example, If your goal is to lose weight, you may know you should eat more veggies, drink more water, or go to the gym. Yet somehow the days keep passing by without actually implementing the simple behaviors we say we want to prioritize.
Whether you want to improve your fitness, learn to create healthy boundaries in your relationships, or find ways to reduce your stress and simplify your overly booked lifestyle, it's common to still need reminders, encouragement, and support from someone who knows you and your goals. Building new habits is challenging and often our normal, go-to behaviors are the ones that allow us to fall back into our old ways.
It’s important to figure out why you're not finding success? Maybe it’s because you don’t have enough time, enough knowledge, or you simply don’t feel like it. Maybe you get easily distracted or the goal you’re setting seems too hard.
As a success coach, I offer conversation, perspective, guidance, and simplification. For any new habit to stick, it requires some level of accountability, whether that be an app, a checklist, a friend, a co-worker, or a coach. Your progress can be greatly accelerated with support as opposed to casually doing it on your own.
With supportive habits and deliberate practice, you can master any routine or goals you set out to.
“First it is an intention. Then a behavior. Then a habit. Then a practice. Then a second nature. Then it is simply who you are.” - Brendon Bruchard
The process of working with a coach
If you’re still unsure of what working with a coach could look like, this is the general process I run through with my clients to ensure their goals, needs, and lifestyle are being met with my support, encouragement, and strategy.
Step 1: Knowing you want to create a change for yourself
The first step is to understand within yourself that change is needed. If you’re unwilling to change, your goals won’t become any more attainable tomorrow than they were yesterday.
You have to have the desire to freshen up your habits and create a life that supports your goals. Look internally to understand your why.
Step 2: An assessment of where you are now
In step two, I run through the wellness wheel with my clients to get a better understanding of their current lifestyle and where work may be needed to support their goals. Knowing what you want to work on or where there are gaps in your life help us plan an appropriate game plan for success.
Step 3: Game planning
During game planning, we figure out how to free up your time and work towards the goals that you’ve set. I like to identify the simplest yet most effective behavior you can add or remove that creates the biggest impact on your life. Sometimes the smallest habits and changes have the biggest ripple effects.
Your game plan will be sustainable and attainable - perfect for long-term use and stackable habits. This process usually takes a little longer than other steps, because it’s important to identify the natural flow and habits in your life.
Step 4: Action, connection, accountability
Action goes hand in hand with assessing how the game plan is working. Does it feel reasonable and doable for your life? If not, we can pivot and make changes. The connection and accountability aspects are very custom to your needs. Some clients need a simple checklist while others require more conversation and reflection. We figure out what works best for you.
Step 5: Re-assess and adapt
Regardless of where you land and how long it takes you to reach your initial goals, there is always a refinement process that can happen. This next-level engagement comes into play as your life changes and different needs arise.
Some clients I work with take the game plan we created and run with their habits on autopilot without additional check-ins. Other clients enjoy ongoing support and assistance with prioritization. Whatever your needs, I am here to support you.
Putting it into practice
So what areas of life are you looking to improve? Whether you’re ready to start engaging with a coach today or you’re not in the place to do so right now, I wanted to share some practical ways to improve yourself that are simple and effective, and FREE.
Plan to wake up 20 minutes earlier to create the time you need to prioritize something missing in your life such as a walk or meditation
Read for 10 minutes daily
Start a journal and focus on how you internally talk to yourself
Create an evening free of tv to reconnect with an old hobby
It’s important to remember, if you’ve been frustrated at not finding success in the past, it’s not because your efforts weren’t valid. It’s because of the system, or lack thereof, in place. I help individuals identify what system works best for their lives to reach those end goals.
Research shows that those who track their progress are more likely to improve and find success. So I encourage you to start tracking today and take the next step in your journey towards a happier, healthier life.