Category: Confidence

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E#250 What You Must Do to Be Confident: Unleashing Your Inner Power

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What You Must Do to Be Confident: Unleashing Your Inner Power

Are you struggling with confidence in your coaching business or even just generally in your life? I’d love to share some powerful concepts on what you must do to be more confident, from the work of master coach Dan Sullivan and other experts in the coaching field.

Confidence is not an innate trait but rather a quality that can be developed and strengthened.

Today we are going to delve into some powerful concepts shared by master coach Dan Sullivan and other experts in the coaching field. By understanding the ingredients of confidence and implementing the strategies we talk about, you can unlock your inner power and become more confident in your business and personal endeavours.

In this episode, we’ll cover 
* Understanding the Ingredients of Confidence
* Cultivating Commitment: The Foundation of Confidence
* Embracing Courage: The Catalyst for Growth
* Unveiling Confidence: The Reward of Commitment and Courage

Understanding the Ingredients of Confidence

Listening to coach Dan Sullivan recently, I heard a very powerful concept that summarises what you need to do to be more confident.

Firstly, don’t just expect that you can be confident before you start your business or a new venture. Some people are naturally confident, but there are two conditions that must occur in order to become confident.

What are those ingredients? Commitment and courage. These qualities work in tandem to create a solid foundation for your confidence journey. Let’s explore each of these elements in more detail.

Cultivating Commitment: The Foundation of Confidence

True confidence begins with a deep commitment to your ideas, goals, and personal growth. By committing to your vision, you demonstrate a willingness to try new things and persist in the face of obstacles.

Commitment means committing to your idea, to try new things, and to persist whether you fail or succeed along the way.

Without commitment, you won’t persist long enough to truly experience and go through the journey of developing something new and learning new skills, so you won’t understand it, and therefore may not become confident.

To unleash your inner power, learn how to cultivate commitment and embrace the determination required to navigate the challenges that come your way.

I think that one way to do this is to leverage the Be, Do, Have model created by spiritual guru Ram Dass.

The model explains that most people think that the more they do the more they will have and the happier they will be. The issue with this is that it’s a carrot-and-stick model, which means you will only be happy when you do enough to have enough. Meantime, your self-esteem is linked to the amount of work you do which leaves you at risk of overwork, exhaustion and burnout.

The secret to being happy isn’t having more things or doing too much. It’s about who you are as a person. This is clearly a mindset exercise.

To build commitment to your business following the Be, Do, Have model, you would embrace and embody the traits of someone who is already successful in business. For example, you would back yourself. You would be decisive and trust your decisions. You know that the right person is out there to be your client and you are seeking them to give them the help and support they need.

When you embrace this mindset and live and breathe the successful version of yourself, you are essentially going ‘all in’ and committing to your future endeavour.

That leads to the second ingredient – courage.

Embracing Courage: The Catalyst for Growth

Courage is required to commit. They go hand in hand. You need courage to put yourself out there, be wrong, and fail.

When you are committed and have courage, you work through the teething problems to get a result.

And part of that result is confidence.

Confidence isn’t the thing you start with, it’s the reward and outcome of having commitment and courage.

Courage is the force that propels you to take risks and step outside your comfort zone. It is the willingness to put yourself out there, accept the possibility of failure, and learn from your mistakes.

By embracing courage, you develop resilience and expand your capabilities. You become strong because you tried and learned, and you realised that you can do this no matter what the outcome. That means you become determined can persist, and face setbacks more easily.

The key to becoming courageous is to develop strategies to overcome fear and tap into your inner strength, which enables you to face challenges head-on and grow as a result.

One simple way to do this is to set stretch goals. I talked about these in an earlier podcast – effectively it means stretching yourself outside your comfort zone to do things that feel harder and uncomfortable.

This is an incredible growth catalyst and accelerator!

Unveiling Confidence: The Reward of Commitment and Courage

Right at the start of this podcast, I said that confidence is not something you have from the start; it is a reward that emerges from your commitment and courage.

As you use commitment and courage to persist in your business ventures and embrace the challenges that arise, you gain incredible wisdom along the way that creates confidence.

You develop a deeper understanding of your industry, and new skills, and you learn how to overcome obstacles. With each step forward, you strengthen your confidence and reinforce your belief in yourself and your abilities.

Then you get to enjoy the transformative power of confidence and the impact it can have on your business and personal life, to do bigger and better things.

Summary

Confidence is a journey that requires commitment, courage, and a growth-oriented mindset.

By cultivating these qualities, you can unleash your inner power and become more confident in your coaching business and beyond.

The Be, Do, Have Model and Stretch Goals are two strategies you can use to help you on the journey to becoming more confident.

Remember that confidence is not a destination but an ongoing process of growth and self-discovery.

Embrace the ingredients of confidence, face challenges with determination and resilience, and watch as your confidence blossoms, paving the way for success and fulfilment in all areas of your life.

Ready to get clarity on your pathway to success?

Understanding who you are and what you need will allow your business to thrive! If you’re truly ready to break old habits and get out of the rut I encourage you to check out the Habitology membership.

Learn more here:

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E#245 3 Easy Ways to Stay Calm, Focused and Productive at Work

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3 Easy Ways to Stay Calm, Focused and Productive at Work

Do you find yourself feeling rushed at work, with thoughts that you’re not doing enough or are not good enough, and lying awake at night worrying about what you did or didn’t do? Welcome to faulty thinking. Today we’ll discuss three easy ways to stay calm, focused and productive at work. 

Many of us spend a significant amount of time at work, often feeling overwhelmed and consumed by our thoughts. The constant barrage of emails, meetings, and deadlines can make it challenging to stay focused and productive. However, there are a few effective methods that can help you avoid getting bogged down by your thoughts at work. 

In this episode, we’ll cover 
* Setting work boundaries
* Leaving white space in your diary
* Taking time to reflect

Set work boundaries 

One of the most important things you can do to avoid being overwhelmed by your thoughts at work is to set clear boundaries. This means establishing specific times when you will work and when you will take breaks. It also means setting limits on how much time you will spend on certain tasks. 

To set boundaries, start by identifying your most important work priorities and then allocate specific times of the day to work on them. Be sure to also allocate time for breaks, as they will help you stay refreshed and focused. 

Leave white space in your diary 

Another method for avoiding overwhelm is to leave some “white space” in your diary.  

This means deliberately scheduling time for nothing, or for activities that you enjoy, such as exercise, hobbies, or spending time with friends and family. 

In my experience, this is often the hardest thing for people to do! I certainly was challenged by, the idea of working fewer hours and yet still producing the same amount and quality of work.  

Could that happen? Yes, it absolutely can.  

Having white space in your diary is SO important. It helps you avoid burnout and gives you time to recharge your batteries. It also helps you maintain perspective, as you will have time to reflect on your work and consider new ideas. 

Reflect 

As a coach, I know that most people DON’T reflect on the day’s events or what they’ve achieved. Instead, they take it home with them and wake up at 1am to ruminate on it and their to-do list for the next three hours! 

But making time to reflect on your thoughts and experiences can be really helpful in managing overwhelm at work. It means that you’re allowing space in the day to problem solve, get clarity, mentally organise or expand on concepts. 

How do you reflect? Reflection can involve journaling, meditation, or simply taking a few minutes to pause and think about the events of your day including what went well, what you might have done differently, or to think more deeply about situations and outcomes. 

A wonderful benefit of reflection is that it can help you identify patterns and habits that may be contributing to your feelings of overwhelm. It can also help you gain clarity and perspective on your work and help you to identify some tangible opportunities for personal growth and development. 

Summary 

To sum things up, managing overwhelm at work is about setting boundaries, creating space for yourself, and taking time to reflect.  

By incorporating these three methods into your work routine, you can avoid becoming consumed by your thoughts and stay focused, productive, and happy at work. 

Ready to get clarity on your pathway to success?

Understanding who you are and what you need will allow your business to thrive! If you’re truly ready to break old habits and get out of the rut I encourage you to check out the Habitology membership.

Learn more here:

Learn More

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E#244 Confident Coaching in Corporate with Celeste Cleary

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Confident Coaching in Corporate with Celeste Cleary

Today I interviewed nurse and health and wellness coach Celeste Clearly. We talk about how she stepped away from her nursing profession, graduated with her Professional Certificate of Health and Wellness Coaching from Wellness Coaching Australia, and then took a deep breath to build her own business. 

Celeste shares some insights on how she pushed through a lack of self-confidence to get where she is today – working with her first clients, doing what she loves, and having an impact.  

Celeste coaches primarily in the areas of burnout, compassion fatigue and stress management. 

In this episode, we’ll cover 
* The confidence of an old career – and a better way of working
* An easy starting point after graduating from coach training school
* The decision to scale, and method of scaling
* First steps in corporate

If you’d like to connect with Celeste, you can reach her on LinkedIn 

If you’d like to connect with Christine Boucher to learn more about how to expand your health and wellness business into the corporate sector, register here for her free webinar 

If you’d like help developing visual models for your business, connect with Renee Hasseldine (creator of the Think RAPT System) and read her great LinkedIn article. 

Ready to get clarity on your pathway to success?

Understanding who you are and what you need will allow your business to thrive! If you’re truly ready to break old habits and get out of the rut I encourage you to check out the Habitology membership.

Learn more here:

Learn More

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E#243 How to Gain Self-Confidence

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How to Gain Self-Confidence

A lot of people struggle with impostor syndrome – that they don’t know enough, that they aren’t far enough ahead of their niche clients, or that they aren’t a good enough role model – not perfect enough. If you want to be successful in business, impostor syndrome needs to be addressed. In this episode, we cover how to gain self-confidence – in the most effective ways. 

In this episode, we’ll cover 
* Is self-confidence gained through discipline?
* Tackling the impostor with more helpful, compassionate thinking
* Becoming your own friend
* Celebrating your wins
* Skills development
* Support seeking

Background 

Let’s be clear: self-confidence can absolutely be built without any accompanying impostor syndrome. But when learning new things or stepping into bigger roles, impostor syndrome is unfortunately common. 

Working with coaching students and graduates, and even other professionals, I find so many of them have imposter syndrome.  

How do you deal with that? It’s easy to tell yourself that you’ve “just got to stop comparing yourself to others” or that you “need to do another training course” or something like that.  

Have you tried that? How did that go for you? 

I’ve been on that merry-go-round myself, many years ago, and I can say for certain that it doesn’t work. I think it’s because those sorts of thoughts sound more like a punishment than something that’s helpful. 

That’s why I wanted to talk about the self-confidence mindset and tips for becoming self-confident – so that you can become more self-confident at work, at play and in relationships.  

We Think Self-Confidence is Gained Through Discipline – But Is It? 

It’s tempting to think that we can simply just use discipline to make ourselves do things that are hard or that are necessary, even if we don’t feel capable in that moment.  

But how do you speak to yourself in that moment when you feel like an impostor?  

Do you put on a stern voice, and tell yourself to “put the big girl pants on and just get on with it?” Or to “stop playing small and just put yourself out there?” 

These might look like motivational statements or affirmations on the outside, but there’s also judgement in them. And the more you say them, the more you entrench yourself in what I call a ‘judgement loop’.  

In my experience, these statements are rarely said with a tone of compassion or empathy. 

Think about a friend who felt like an impostor. Would you use that same voice and say the same things to them? 

Probably not. 

And even if you manage to put the impostor aside and take action, chances are that you’re still speaking judgementally to yourself.  

You might think things like: “Well that didn’t work”, or “Everyone there was better than me”, or “I’ll never do that again.” You might even feel like such a fraud that you’re feeling guilty about lying to the audience or letting people down. 

And there are other contexts that we speak to ourselves in these ways too, like when you started your business, or your skills at marketing, or that you might fail.  

What does that tell you? Well, it says that your thoughts are the problem, and therefore that it’s a systemic issue that needs to be resolved. 

My opinion is that discipline can be helpful if it’s used wisely, but it is not necessarily helpful in beating impostor syndrome and building self-confidence. 

Tackling the Impostor with More Helpful, Compassionate Thinking 

The interesting thing is that even if some of those statements are true, it’s not helpful for you to think that way, and, you have a choice as to whether you think that way about yourself or not.  

This talks about how to gain self-confidence, and the answer starts with how you talk to yourself. 

I want to help you to see that you have a choice in the way you speak to yourself and that this could have a huge impact on how confident you feel and therefore whether you can take action or not, and therefore how successful you are. 

Imagine what would happen if you swapped your “I’m no good, I can’t do this” thoughts for something more compassionate and supportive, like “Come on give it your best shot”, or “Come on take action keep going!”  

Firstly, how would you feel if you spoke to yourself that way instead?  

How would that feeling affect your motivation to take action?  

How would that affect your sense of self-worth? 

How would that affect your determination and persistence? 

Turning this into a habit is the work you’re looking at. Thought watching, catching the beat myself up language and replacing it with more helpful, compassionate thoughts. 

Journalling can be an immensely supportive part of this process because it gives you a tangible way to document, see and alter the thoughts you have each day. 

Gain Self-confidence by Becoming Your Own Friend 

Going back to the earlier concept I mentioned, considering how you might speak to a friend who felt like this is another way to think about beating impostor syndrome and gaining confidence. 

Imagine if you were your own best friend, and you admired yourself unreservedly and had your back at every opportunity? 

Your ability to build confidence might become way easier and faster. 

I was listening to a Dan Sullivan podcast recently and he described this experience he had years ago. He was asked how he managed to put the impostor syndrome aside and build a thriving coaching business 30 years ago. 

His answer was that he started treating himself like a friend and developed that relationship with himself and everything changed. 

Now 30 years on, he is one of the most successful, richest and best-known men in the business world. 

What if you were more compassionate, gave yourself permission, supported yourself when you failed and encouraged yourself when you tried? 

Give it a go.  

And then – follow up with my next tip. 

Gain Self Confidence through Celebrating Wins 

Most of the people I know who lack self-confidence do exactly ZERO celebrating their own wins. 

This is the simplest and most painless way I know to build self-confidence. 

Celebrate 2-3 wins you’ve had, every day. 

In coaching sessions with my clients, if they are hard on themselves or beating themselves up for lack of progress, I reflect on how far they have come in the past 3, 6 months etc. Even though they are aware of what they’ve done, celebrating the win provides an eye-opening response and they become more self-accepting, aware of their progress and validated. 

Gain Self-confidence with Skills-Development 

If you try and fail at something, there are lessons to be learned.  

Although it feels ‘hard’ and uncomfortable to fail, instead of beating yourself up or crawling back under your rock – you can identify which skills you need to learn, then make a plan to learn! 

I’m not talking about hiding behind 100 courses instead of actually doing what you want to do. I’m talking about getting help to learn how to do things or do a short course for a specific skill. 

For example, let’s say you are great at attracting leads to your business, but people drop off at the sales call. A few things could be going wrong here.  

Maybe it’s the way the conversation goes. Maybe the value proposition isn’t clear enough. Maybe your leads aren’t ready to change or buy. Maybe the options sound too hard or overwhelming. 

Finding out why they’ve said no, and getting some help to have better conversations, are two skills you can develop to help you nail it in future. 

What do you need help with right now? 

Gain Self Confidence through Support Seeking 

Finally, most people don’t talk to themselves nicely, celebrate wins, or work on developing skills. They sit back and judge themselves instead because it is a comfortable and familiar pattern. 

Seeking support to uncover what you’re doing and why, and then to develop these habits I’ve mentioned, is a key element to your success. 

That’s what coaching is all about! So the short of it is – working with your own coach can help you become better at self-confidence much faster and outgrow the unhelpful patterns you’ve had before.  How important is it for you to invest in yourself right now? 

Summary 

Today we talked about how to gain self-confidence. And while you can build confidence without feeling a sense of impostor syndrome, it’s rare that it happens that way. 

We talked about why forcing yourself to do something (discipline) can lead to unhelpful, judgemental thoughts that keep you in a judgement loop. 

I offered four ways for you to build confidence without feeling like an impostor: 

  1. Develop the habit of more compassionate thinking  
  2. Become your own friend and develop the habit of treating yourself like one 
  3. Develop the habit of celebrating wins 
  4. Develop the habit of analysing performance and doing targeted skills development 
  5. Develop the habit of seeking support with points 1 – 4, until they become habits. 

If you would like to work with a coach around your self-confidence, get in touch via my contact page and I can support you or refer you to someone who works in this space. 

E73 – three best ways to build self-confidence 

E74 – confidence in your coaching skills 

Ready to get clarity on your pathway to success?

Understanding who you are and what you need will allow your business to thrive! If you’re truly ready to break old habits and get out of the rut I encourage you to check out the Habitology membership.

Learn more here:

Learn More

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E#242 Confidence in Your Coaching Business with Nadine Crawford

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Confidence in Your Coaching Business with Nadine Crawford

Today I interviewed health and wellness coach Nadine Crawford of Future You Wellness. We talk about her marketing, traction and confidence in the 6 months after she graduated with her Professional Certificate of Health and Wellness Coaching from Wellness Coaching Australia.

Nadine shares some insights on what’s worked, and what hasn’t, and how being authentic is an important asset to help you find the confidence you need to persist and win.

In this episode, we’ll cover
* Marketing strategies; speaking, direct contact and networking
* Trials and experiments
* The power of a HCANZA membership
* Leveraging credibility to attract clients and referral partner
* What has worked and what hasn’t for Nadine
* How being yourself, peer coaching and doing things your way boosts your confidence in business

If you would like to connect with Nadine, visit:

⁠LinkedIn Profile⁠ ⁠

YouTube Channel⁠

Ready to get clarity on your pathway to success?

Understanding who you are and what you need will allow your business to thrive! If you’re truly ready to break old habits and get out of the rut I encourage you to check out the Habitology membership.

Learn more here:

Learn More

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E#241 Confidence as a Coach: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialist World

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Confidence as a Coach: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialist World

A lot of people who are tired of their careers see Health and Wellness Coaching as a career change opportunity, especially in midlife. Coach trainees who don’t have a health background often experience ‘impostor syndrome’ when they finish their certification.  

In this episode, we’ll cover 
* Specialists Vs Generalists
* What This Means for You 

They ask things like “How can I be qualified to help someone if I don’t have a specialty health qualification behind me?”. Or “Should I go and do a nutrition/psychology/exercise science degree so I can be seen as credible?” 

The book Range by David Epstein illustrates exactly why further health degree qualifications are NOT an essential part of working as a health and wellness coach. 

This episode is the first in a new season about self-confidence as a coach, self-worth, value and self-belief. 

Specialists vs. Generalists 

David Epstein introduces his book Range as follows: “Plenty of experts argue that anyone who wants to develop a skill, play an instrument, or lead their field should start early, focus intensely, and rack up as many hours of deliberate practice as possible. If you dabble or delay, you’ll never catch up to the people who got a head start. But a closer look at research on the world’s top performers, from professional athletes to Nobel laureates, shows that early specialization is the exception, not the rule.” 

The book dives deep into the comparison of people who are highly qualified in a specialist area and pursue specialist careers, with people who have a range of different experiences before landing on their ‘dream job’ or ‘dream life’.  

What you read might surprise you. 

The book starts by comparing Tiger Woods with Roger Federer. Tiger Woods started his career at the tender age of three when he got a toy golf club and then proceeded to spend many hours learning to play golf on his own, in lessons and with coaches. 

He is a world leader in his chosen sport after years of hard work and dedication to get there. 

In comparison, Roger Federer didn’t pick up a tennis racket until much later. Roger played a variety of sports in his youth, before landing on tennis. It was interesting to note that through his journey toward tennis, Roger learned many transferrable skills that allowed him to develop into a Grand Slam Champion. 

He is also a world leader in his sport after years of experimenting until he found his groove. 

And the comparisons don’t stop there. 

Range introduces many scenarios where so-called ‘generalists’ – people with a range of experience – performed better than so-called ‘specialists’- people who had dedicated their lives to a field. 

Examples from business and academia are thought-provoking. 

For example, you’d probably intuitively think that a scientist who has gone down a specific, narrow pathway could be the best in their field. 

Actually, those who have done that may have biases in their research that preclude them from seeing their work in the bigger picture and may cause them to go down a path that is incorrect at best, and futile at worst. 

In comparison, scientists who have experience in a variety of different areas of science tend to have a broader view of things, are able to apply learnings from one area to another, and are generally better at problem-solving and innovating. 

On top of this, no matter what their career or industry, the people who performed at the very best in their field had a wider range of hobbies outside of work and a greater number of pursuits and interests. 

What This Means for You 

Despite what I’ve just said, Range is clear that neither specialist nor generalist is better than the other. 

Specialists have a valuable role in terms of their deep knowledge. Generalists have a valuable role in seeing the application and possibility of the specialists’ deep knowledge. 

Coming back to you the coach, who has graduated and is wondering whether you’re good enough, competent and credible, the answer is clearly yes – yes you are. 

You have transferrable life and career skills, experience and knowledge that make you a good listener, empathizer, inquirer, reflector, and space holder.   

You may be good at reading body language, acknowledging people, and sitting quietly and patiently while they dig deeper.  

You may be calm, rational and mindful, sharing that energy with your clients. 

You may be a good planner or number cruncher – both valuable skills when helping clients set SMART goals. 

If you’d like to learn more about the strengths and opportunities of being a generalist, check out the listing on GoodReads. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/41795733-range 

Summary 

It’s common for coaches to feel like an imposter at some time. They think they must specialise and dive deep into an area from early on to be good enough, or worthy. 

Plenty of experts argue for that, too. 

The book Range shows something different. The research on the world’s top performers, from professional athletes to Nobel laureates, shows that early specialization is the exception, not the rule and that generalists are the ones that often come out on top. 

Ready to get clarity on your pathway to success?

Understanding who you are and what you need will allow your business to thrive! If you’re truly ready to break old habits and get out of the rut I encourage you to check out the Habitology membership.

Learn more here:

Learn More

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E#239 How Following Up Grows Your Business

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How Following Up Grows Your Business

If you’re building business, then you’ll be pursuing new leads and making offers to your growing audience. The surprising thing is, after making an offer or delivering a service, so many people DON’T follow up on their existing leads and customers – yet this is an incredibly cost-effective way to grow your business. Let’s explore how following up grows your business and revenue, and how to create, automate and celebrate your follow-ups!

In this episode, we’ll cover
* The Statistics on Following Up
* How to Follow Up to Grow Your Business

For so many coaches and other business owners I know, their version of ‘business as usual’ is a kind of set-and-forget approach.

What I mean is, that they go out and meet lots of different people or organisations in an attempt to become known and win work. Or they’re on social media and they put out an offer, and then forget about following up.

In either case, they commonly say things like, ‘If you’re interested, give me a call!’

Why do we do that?

Often, it’s because you don’t want to feel pushy, or salesy. You feel like following might pressure your leads and put them offside.

But think about your own busy life for a minute. How often do you remember to book your next appointment?

And when you’re struggling with something, how easy is it for you to reach out for help?

Do you hate making phone calls?

For me, I book the next appointment when I am in the session, whether it’s a haircut, massage or any other sort of session. I hate making phone calls and am busy – I’d rather be efficient.

And when the car service business reaches out to me, I’m thankful that they’ve prompted me and I book in for a service online. Otherwise, I might not get around to it. Now let’s go back to your customers. You don’t need Harvard Business Review’s insights to know that most people have hundreds of emails in their inbox each day, and spend up to 2.6 hours per day on email.

So the problem is not that people are ignoring you, or resistant, or don’t want what you have to offer. It’s just that they have a lot happening.

Now in the customer’s shoes – how would you feel if you had a great service with someone, but they never followed up to see how you were, or whether you needed help?

One word comes up for me – I’d feel FORGOTTEN.

I’d question my trust in the person who makes an offer and never follows up. I’d wonder how reliable they are, and whether they really care or not.

The Statistics on Following Up

Online CRM Hubspot cites a study by Brevet, that says:

  • 80% of sales require an average of five follow-ups in order to close the deal.
  • However, 44% of sales reps follow up with a prospect only once before giving up.
  • After four follow-ups, 94% of salespeople have given up.

These are the stats for professional salespeople – what do you think the follow-up rate is for coaches and small business owners?

That’s a lot of money being left on the table.

My Chiropractor friend told me that if an existing customer doesn’t rebook an appointment, he sends out a physical letter, then another, then another – all about a month apart. He says that most people respond and book on the third letter.

One important point about this is that these are the existing customers that he’s re-engaging – not new customers. So, it’s going to be way easier to follow up and secure appointments with them because of the existing relationship.

Of course, if you don’t want to follow up existing leads and clients, you can always start from scratch, put yourself out there again, and spend money on advertising! Who wants to be on that treadmill when you can invest in building more valuable and supportive relationships!

How to Follow-Up to Grow Your Business

Let’s start from the beginning and talk about setting yourself up for follow-up success.

Direct Response and Customer Connection

Before you do any follow-up, you need to make sure that you are getting a direct response from every lead and creating some sort of customer connection – a database, list or group – where you can have regular contact.

What does that mean?

Firstly, it means that everyone who enquires about your business is invited to join your newsletter email list or your online group, or your F2F meetup group, or to follow/subscribe on social media.

Doing this gives you clarity on whether they’re serious about building a relationship with you.

Then, that list, group or following – or whatever it is – is the vehicle that allows you to follow up! Without this ongoing contact opportunity, you’ve got nothing.

Defining when and how you’ll follow up

The next thing to do is to define your process for following up.

For example, let’s say that someone comes to a live event that you run (e.g. webinar, workshop etc) and you make an offer at the end to join your next program. They’ve never worked with you before.

With all of your leads in  one place, I recommend you map out what the next two follow-up steps are for them to work with you will be.

Firstly, make sure you are VERY clear on where you are leading people. What is the follow-up product or service you are offering them?

Then, map out the next actions they will take, and you will take, to engage them with that. Planning this in advance means that you have an intention and are mentally prepared to talk about it effortlessly and with confidence.

Make sure the follow-up steps are active, not passive.

  • Active = inviting someone to do something/sign up for/ etc.
  • Passive = call me if you’re interested (although this is relevant in some cases).

In other words, on the day of the session, let them know what the steps are – and then follow up! Now, when will you follow up, and how?

Some ideas might be:

  • At the end of the webinar/workshop, invite them to register for your program,
      • Make sure you outline the next two follow-up steps so they know what they are, and
      • say you’ll follow up for confirmation either way, so they expect to hear from you.
  • Follow up with a friendly email within 24 hours with a link to book now or have a quick chat
  • Follow up with a second email within 48 hours with a link to book now or have a quick chat, plus a link to some FAQ on your website
  • Follow up with a final email within 72 hours with link to a blog (case study) with a testimonial, and a final invite

These are just examples of how you could do this – it’s totally up to you as to what you do exactly.

Here’s another example for existing clients.

Someone completed a coaching program with you two months ago. You want to check in with them and see how they’re going, and find out if they need any support or a top-up session.

When would you follow up, and how?

Some ideas might be:

  • Send a ‘how are you going’ email or DM
  • As follow up, ask them to fill out a survey talking about what is new or different form them (the survey is not about you, it’s about their progress and what they’re able to do! So that they learn about themselves)
  • Ask them if they need a ‘top up’ or ‘check in’ session – has anything gotten in the way, or do they need some support with a specific thing? This could be free leading to a paid offer, or a single paid session.

Once again, I just made this up.

Come up with your own ideas, considering how you’d like to be treated if you were the client.

Templating your follow-ups

The next thing to do is to sketch out your follow-up process (or checklist it), and then create any templates you might need e.g. email templates, message templates etc.

That way, you can easily rinse and repeat your follow-up process, or ask a VA do to it for you!

Actioning your follow-ups

The next thing to do is to diarise times to follow up, and actually do it.

Maybe you schedule a Friday every three months where you dedicate half a day to phoning or emailing old clients to check in with them.

Maybe you have a dedicated time slot for follow-ups in the three days after you make an offer. This might include your email that goes out, but also answering questions by email or by phone.

Make time for your follow-ups, and therefore, your clients!

Summary

Leads and clients are people you already have a relationship with. It means they’re interested in what you do.

If you want to generate more revenue and grow your business, following up is an easy and important process to help you get there.

If you are clear on where people are heading, and what their next steps are, and you have systemised your follow-up (templates, and diarised actions), you’re well on your way to actively building relationships and increasing your revenue.

This is a low-cost way to build a business compared to spending money on advertising and starting from scratch!

Ready to get clarity on your pathway to success?

Understanding who you are and what you need will allow your business to thrive! If you’re truly ready to break old habits and get out of the rut I encourage you to check out the Habitology membership.

Learn more here:

Learn More

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E#232 The Work Habits of Self-Made Millionaires

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The Work Habits of Self-Made Millionaires

As a coach, you probably know about the power of keystone habits. But did you know that self-made millionaires share some keystone habits that helped propel them to success? This fourth episode about business and revenue growth highlights the importance of daily health-based routines as a foundation to show up with the right energy, mindset and well-being to achieve success more easily.

It’s no surprise that being healthy and having healthy routines is the platform for business revenue and growth.

In this episode, I’ll talk about 
* 5 Habits that Millionaires have in common
* How to get started with your own success habits

If you think about it, how you treat yourself and what you do for yourself has a profound effect on your mood, attitude, energy, health, sleep and stress – and your ability to show up and do your work well, even on the hardest of days. And those things directly affect your business and revenue growth!

So what are the keystone habits that could bring you success? A 5-year study of 233 self-made millionaires and 128 poor individuals by Tom Corely, author of the book Rich, found some common habits that helped them achieve their success.

This episode is on the edge of a bigger project I am initiating which I think you’ll like – and I’ll reveal more in about a year after I’m finished.

For now, I will give you a hint about my project – while the points I’m about to mention are keystone habits of a bunch of millionaires – not EVERY millionaire surveyed had all of these habits. And rather than just following this list, I encourage you to come up with your OWN success habits.

So let’s dive into the list of key habits.

While you listen, reflect on how many of these do you do. Or, what’s your version of these?

Reading

In Corley’s study, 86% of self-made millionaires spent at least an hour reading after work, usually self-improvement books. Only 2% of the average income earners were doing that.

I loved this because I start and finish my day with reading. Marketing and business books in the morning, and fiction in the evening, is how I like to roll.

For me, reading something non-fiction in the morning sets me up with a positive, inspired and focused mindset for the day. Reading non-fiction at night (and sometimes in the morning) helps me switch off from work or get lost in a story when I’m feeling a bit fragile.

I think the upshot is that reading helps you to feel positive, to grow, to engage in stories, and to separate yourself from the stresses of life. It boosts your vocabulary and helps you relate to others in a similar way.

If you’re not a reader, you might be into journalling, or a podcast listener, or an e-book listener. Work with your learning style on this one.

Or if you’re not into any of these – totally ok!

Exercise

Consistent exercise was another keystone habit of the millionaires in Corley’s study.

This makes perfect sense. After a busy day (or before one), exercise gets you up, out of your head and into your body. It helps you to maintain good physical and metabolic health, and to release endorphins that help you to feel good.

During exercise, you get time to reflect, plan, and dream, collect your thoughts and step out of the day-to-day stuff. You get a chance to blow off some steam and release tension.

Exercise helps you to get into the habit of setting and achieving goals, helping you to stay competitive with yourself and perhaps others, too. This obviously helps to build self-esteem.

Last week I went for a 5km run with a friend. It was tough but there was a sense of ‘instant gratification’ when we finished. In that 30-minute run, I got myself to finish, therefore I got a tangible result (doing the run), and I felt strong, amazing, invincible even!

Exercise also helps you get into the habit of creating schedules. You also bring in an element of discipline both within the workout, and in getting yourself to do the workout.

Do you exercise? Why or why not?

How does exercise make you feel?

What are some of the benefits for you?

Sleeping

The Sleep Foundation shares a list of recommended sleep hours for each age group. Adults need 7 – 9 hours per day to function optimally, or at least a minimum of 6.4 hours per day.

Corley found that the millionaires in his study slept at least 7 hours per night.

Sleep research shows that sleep gives the body a chance to undergo a tune up. At different times of night, the body goes through cycles of physical recovery and repair, processing and embedding memories, and mental rejuvenation.

It’s no wonder that the amount of time you sleep is linked to success. It affects memory, mood, cognitive function and physical health.

Interestingly, each person’s bedtime is unique, according to their chronobiology.

How is your sleep? What is the optimal amount for you?

Thinking Time

It’s no surprise that most of the millionaires in Corley’s study carved out time to think or brainstorm. We spend so much time in the micro details of each day, that we rarely sit back to reflect on life, our goals, where we are going or whether we are investing time and energy in the right direction.

Since blocking out thinking time for myself, I have noticed huge efficiencies in the way I work. The realisations and mental links I make in my time out have saved me spending hours on pointless tasks, and on making impulse decisions.

These days, my time out (usually walking, with or without a podcast) gives me ample reflection to get clarity, direction and focus for my next burst of work.

The Mean of the 5

Finally, millionaires choose their friends and mentors carefully. They spend time with supportive people who hold space for them, who have experience, who are calm and not pushy or overbearing.

Motivational speaker Jim Rohn says you are the average of the 5 people you spend the most time with.

If you’re running a business or just doing life, this could include the podcasts you have in your ears all day, the coach you hire, your significant other, your family, and the people you work with.

If your people mix is not ideal, you can certainly make focused time with the right people, for enough time each week to keep your mind in the right place.

This is something I’ve done, and it pays in spades. I minimise the people and social situations that drain me or add no value. I intentionally choose to spend my time with, and cultivate relationships with, people who are smarter than me, better coaches, better critical thinkers, and who are thought leaders and knowledge leaders. That way, I know I am putting good fuel into my brain, having impactful conversations and building my mental and emotional energy.

Who are you surrounded by? How does that affect your energy?

How can you reduce your time spent with the negatives, and increase your time with the positives?

The Nutshell

While all these keystone habits are great, it is what they create that matters.

Effective habits are the ones that help you to feel inspired, invincible, strong, thoughtful, grateful, engaged, in flow, calm, full of zest, rational, creative, de-stressed, and empowered.

And why does that matter?

Because when you feel like that, you will show up with energy for your business, you will be consistent with the tasks that need it, you’ll be putting your best foot forward, you’ll overcome the hurdles more easily, you’ll be in a growth mindset, and you’ll feel the fear and do it anyway.

Summary

The habits discussed in this episode are based on a study of 200 people. We covered 5, but there were several more in the list.

The real point of this episode is that millionaires are committed to doing the habits that work for them. Their habits aren’t necessarily everything on this list – but their own secret formula.

As you reflect on what you’ve heard today, I encourage you to identify the habits that make you feel ready to tackle the world with energy, enthusiasm and confidence you need to grow your business and revenue.

References

CNBC Online https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/18/tom-corley-top-10-common-habits-of-high-achievers.html Accessed 6.2.23

Cohen, Jennifer. Exercise is One Thing Most Successful People Do Every Day. https://www.entrepreneur.com/living/exercise-is-one-thing-most-successful-people-do-everyday/276760 Accessed 6.2.23 Corley, Tom. Rich Habits Study – Background and methodology. https://richhabits.net/rich-habits-study-background-and-methodology/ Accessed 6.2.23

Loudenback, T. 2019. 17 habits of self-made millionaires, from a man who spent 5 years studying rich people. https://www.businessinsider.com/personal-finance/good-habits-of-self-made-millionaires?op=1 Business Insider Website accessed 6.2.23 Suni, E. 2022. How Much Sleep Do We Really Need? https://www.sleepfoundation.org/how-sleep-works/how-much-sleep-do-we-really-need Sleep Foundation Website accessed 6.2.23

Ready to get clarity on your pathway to success?

Understanding who you are and what you need will allow your business to thrive! If you’re truly ready to break old habits and get out of the rut I encourage you to check out the Habitology membership.

Learn more here:

Learn More

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E#219 Becoming a Confident Coach

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Becoming a Confident Coach

Despite extensive training, a lot of professionals talk about having impostor syndrome and fear of not being good enough. But what do you do about that? How do you flip that on its’ head and tackle impostor syndrome so that you can become a confident coach?

Why you need to be enough

Impostor syndrome is rife in many professions – I know, because I’ve been through it, and I’ve spoken to a lot of people who struggle with it.

Today I want to talk to you about WHY you need to be enough and stop impostor syndroming yourself.

In this episode, I’ll talk about 
* Why you need to be enough
* What a digital legacy strategy is
* Four steps to creating your Digital Legacy Strategy

I think the key reason that you need to feel that you are enough, good enough, worthy, and competent, is that then you can switch your focus off your own shortcomings and onto your clients.

Let’s face it, if you’re worried about your own performance, then you’re not giving all of your attention to the people you are purporting to help and support.

I think this is SO critical. This was a realisation I had when I started coaching. I was so busy worrying about what to do, whether my questions were good enough, whether they got something out of the session, whether they were engaged and so on, that it was taking up a LOT of real estate in my head.

I was feeling anxious and would be nervous going into each session.

THEN one day I reflected on how my feelings and energy would be seen and felt by the people I was coaching. What would they say?

By worrying about my performance, I was creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. I was creating tension where there wasn’t really any.

But most importantly, I realised this behaviour was about me spending too much time thinking about ME and my shortcomings, rather than my client.

This aha moment flicked the switch for me and allowed me to totally change the way I showed up, coached and the impact of my coaching. It was amazing.

Here are some benefits and outcomes of dealing with your impostor syndrome.

Giving your best to clients

Firstly, when you invest in overcoming your impostor syndrome you become more confident as a person and as a coach. You feel good about what you do and your ability to give value. That means that you invest more time thinking about the people that you’re helping, rather than your own

shortcomings. It means that you are flipping the switch from a focus on you into a focus on your clients.

Imagine how that changes their experience of working with you. Imagine how that changes their relationship with you in a coaching sense. And imagine how that therefore impact their results that they get from the coaching relationship.

Secondly, if you deal with impostor syndrome and start believing that you can do this, that you are good enough, you be willing to invest enough in your own personal and professional development – because you know that it is worth it for your clients, and that you are worth it. The ripple effect is more advanced skills that will make you a better coach, giving your clients better outcomes.

I think it’s really important when you’re starting any new career to know that you are not going to get it right all the time – ever. It’s important to manage your own expectations and to know that you will do things wrong and get things messed up along the way. And that’s totally okay.

What’s more important is your commitment to investing in your own self-belief, personal development and professional development so that you can deal with those mistakes more easily, with grace and candour.

So how do you get there? How do you beat it and become the best coach you can be, so that you can help people create their desired outcomes and impact the lives of more people?

How do you beat impostor syndrome?

Personal Development

Start by working with your own coach. That way, you will improve your own thoughts habits, well-being and sense of purpose, so that you can be a role model for your clients. Being a strong role model promotes self-confidence.

A reflective practice is also a must for all graduate coaches. After each coaching session, reflect on what went well, how you used your strengths, the verbal and nonverbal feedback from clients, and any areas for work. Write it down. Then, set specific goals to polish up any areas. One thing I like to do is focus on a particular coaching skill for all clients within a given month, so I can build and hone my craft.

Ask for feedback and testimonials from your clients. Their feedback is really valuable as it tells you what they liked and didn’t like. Make sure to ask how things have changed for them – not just an assessment of your skills (remember, it’s about them, not you).

Start hanging around more experienced coaches and having conversations and unpacking challenges so that you can more easily develop the habits and language of a masterful coach.

Professional Development

You can also do deep-dive training courses into specialty areas and practice those with your clients to become a better coach. For example, mental health first aid training if you are working with clients who have stress, anxiety and so on.

There is a caveat on that. A lot of people see education as a tick box thing and they get really interested and they do more and more and more courses but without actually applying the learnings. And I think impostor syndrome comes from this too.

I know some incredibly smart people who have numerous qualifications, who are full of self-doubt because they haven’t actually used their knowledge and practised with clients and seen the sorts of results that can

If you complete a lot of educational courses but you never apply it, then you become potentially a very good teacher but maybe not good at the practice that you have studied.

I recommend that you invest in practising new skills with clients. Ask permission to try new methods if you know them well, or find practice clients to test new skills and education with.

Always, always, do market research – keep asking your clients what they need and want – keep learning about other people and their lives and how you can help them – that’s where you can overcome your own self-limiting beliefs, shift the value to what your clients want, and find ways to give it to them.

Summary

Today we talked about why you need to beat impostor syndrome and start stepping up to be a more masterful coach.

In short – if you’re focussing on yourself, you can’t focus properly or be present for your clients.

Flip the switch by investing time, energy and money as needed into personal development and professional development.

When you do this, you’ll feel more confident, and be able to truly serve your clients in a more authentic, impactful way – because your work will truly be about them.

Ready to get clarity on your pathway to success?

Understanding who you are and what you need will allow your business to thrive! If you’re truly ready to break old habits and get out of the rut I encourage you to check out the Habitology membership.

Learn more here:

Learn More

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E#218 Benefits of Niching Down

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Benefits of Niching Down

A lot of trainee coaches I meet are terrified of niching down and just want to help everyone, being afraid that they will have fewer potential clients. Today, I’ll help you understand what it means to ‘niche down’, six benefits of choosing a niche and what coaching a niche involves.

When you’re starting out as a health and wellness coach, the experience you get with practice clients and your first paid clients will help you develop a niche that you can focus on, and market to directly.

Starting more broadly is ok, but please know that it can be hard to find clients who want to coach with you if your marketing is not specific.

In this episode, I’ll talk about 
* What it means to niche down
* Six benefits of choosing a niche
* What coaching a niche involves

Why?

Because, unless you can clearly explain the benefits of coaching (see the previous episode of this podcast) then they won’t understand the benefits and value of coaching.

That’s why I recommend starting to niche down as soon as you have some clarity. Let’s talk about what that means, and how it works.

What it means to niche down

Let’s start with the definition of a niche market. A niche market is a subset of a target market. It is a specific group of people that are desperate to solve a specific problem.

When you hear the phrase “niching down”, it simply means getting more specific and targeting a certain segment of the group of people you want to work with.

Why do this?

Because people are VERY specific when they’re searching for an answer to their problem. They will be ultra-specific about the detail of their problem. And if they find someone who can help them with that specific thing, they’ll be much more interested than finding someone who does ‘all areas of health and wellness.’

For example, I recently Googled ‘night sweats and insomnia in menopause’ – which is super specific. If I was looking to work with a coach, I’d be choosing someone who works with women in menopause, either listing those specific types of symptoms or at the very least, indicating she works with business owners. I wouldn’t look for a ‘general’ health and wellness coach, because they wouldn’t necessarily understand what I’m going through!

Let’s just be clear – you won’t necessarily be able to choose a niche right away if you are just starting out. You will need to practice with people and work out who your people are and what challenges they’re facing.

In other words, niching down is a journey. I recommend that you start out by picking what’s called a target market – which is a broader category of either person or type of problem that the market is spending money on.

Spending is the key – if they’re not spending money to solve the problem, it’ll be hard for you to engage with them for coaching (they may not be ready, willing and able to buy – or the problem may not be big enough).

Here are some examples of target markets:

– Weight loss for women 30 – 40

– Weight loss for women in menopause

– Stress management for men in white-collar roles

Do these sound specific to you? Actually, they are pretty general!

As you coach people in a target market like this, you quickly understand that not all people in that group are created equal. There are subgroups! And they are very different.

For example, the target market may differ in terms of their demographic, take-home income, family situation, and circumstances that are causing the problem.

But that’s ok – start broadly and then you can get more specific as you get to know the people you are attracting.

For example, more specific niches in weight loss for women in menopause could be things like:

  • Female corporate leadership roles who are tired and listless, struggling with sleep
  • Primary school teachers who are struggling to lose weight due to stress
  • Women in the beauty industry who want to lose weight because looks are important, but they’re going to lots of lunches and drinks
  • Women who are emotional eaters.

ANY of these could be viable and more specific menopause niches.

If you can’t pick an area of health and well-being, start with the type of person that you want to engage such as introverted women in corporate jobs, or mothers with two young kids, and find out what their problems are.

Six benefits of choosing a niche and niching down

Thinking about the more specific menopause niches I mentioned earlier – let’s say you are running group coaching and you put that bunch of women into a group together.

They’d all think and behave in slightly different ways. For example, you’d have teachers who are overweight in part due to stress, corporate leaders who are overweight in part as they are tired and struggling to sleep, and emotional eaters.

They might have some common ground, but they’ll potentially all be interested in different things.

And while that doesn’t matter too much in a 1:1 scenario when you are starting out, any groups you run will be WAY more cohesive and MUCH better equipped to create a community if they can relate to each other on a personal level. That’s benefit #1 of niching down.

Number 2 is that you’ll find it much easier to coach even in a 1:1 setting because you’ll be dealing with similar types of people or problems, rather than being stretched in lots of different directions.

No wonder new coaches think they don’t know enough! Having to face a barrage of different people and issues can make that worse.

Benefit #3 – imagine you have picked a niche and narrowed it down so it’s more specific. What does this mean for your business? Suddenly you are seen as a one-of-a-kind, unique business. It’s SO much easier to speak specifically to your audience, stand out from the pack and become a trusted go-to source of support.

Benefit #4 – you’ll become a proficient and confident coach much more quickly and easily. As you really get to know your audience, you’ll realise that you have really started to master the key areas that matter to them, the main coaching approaches that work, and the interactions with those clients.

Benefit #5 of niching down – you’ll be working less and achieving more. That’s because you won’t be customising your marketing content for different types of clients or needing to source tons of different resources – you’ll be diving deep into one area and using the same sorts of content and resources for all your clients, saving you LOTS of time. You’ll be marketing in one or two places where your niche hangs out, rather than all over the place, hoping someone will respond.

Benefit #6 is that you will have a bigger number of clients and more loyal, committed clients because you know them so intimately and deeply. In fact, your sales call conversion rates will be much higher because the more specific niche trusts that you know a lot about them and really understand what their problem is.

These are six great reasons why niching down is beneficial and valuable.

But start walking before you run – choose a target market at first, and with practice clients, start to really listen and learn more about them.

Now, let’s look at what coaching a niche involves. It’s actually not what you think!

What coaching a niche involves

Coaching a niche isn’t really much different from coaching different types of people more generally, or in different niches.

That’s because no problem exists in isolation.

Let me say that again – no problem exists in isolation.

No matter who you are coaching, and what their key problem and goal is, there are a lot of other areas of health and that they will need to be coached around.

For example, weight problems are influenced by sleep, nutrition, exercise, stress and mental health/mindset. Or some combination of these. What changes is the order of priority!

Or, for example, stress/anxiety problems are influenced by sleep, nutrition, mental health/mindset, and exercise. Same thing – it’s a particular combination, and order of priority.

Not all areas will be relevant for every person.

But what the CLIENT is thinking about is the bit that matters to them. Speak to that in your marketing, honour that in your coaching, and know that you will invariably be working around the other areas to some degree, anyway.

In addition, the likelihood is that the reason behind their perceived problem is a general skills gap.

For example, someone who is stressed and overwhelmed is likely not very good at setting boundaries, being kind to themselves, and/or making enough time for themselves.

Those three skills are also relevant to many other areas like eating, exercise, sleep etc.

So when you work with a niche, you are actually helping a client fill specific skills gaps (they develop the skills through experimentation) that will help them to solve many different problems they’re facing – all because of the same reasons.

As the saying goes, “The way you do one thing is the way you do everything”.

Summary

Today we covered what niching down means, and six of the benefits of niching down (there are others!)

Those benefits are:

  • More cohesive and connected clients when coaching groups
  • It’s easier to start with similar types of problems/people rather than being stretched
  • You’re seen as unique, one of a kind, standing out from all the other coaches
  • You’ll become proficient and confident more quickly
  • You’ll be working less and achieving more as you’ll save a LOT of time not customising marketing content and resources
  • You’ll have more loyal clients and higher sales conversion rates.

Finally, I discussed the fact that no problem exists in isolation. So while your niche thinks they have a specific problem (which is an area they want to focus on and which you might market to), you will end up coaching them around other areas. In other words, you will actually be helping people to develop skills in one area that are transferrable to many areas of health and wellness. All that changes is the priority!

Ready to get clarity on your pathway to success?

Understanding who you are and what you need will allow your business to thrive! If you’re truly ready to break old habits and get out of the rut I encourage you to check out the Habitology membership.

Learn more here:

Learn More

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E#214 Six ways to boost your professional credibility

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Six ways to boost your professional credibility

Are you finding it difficult to gain credibility with other health professionals? Are they confused about what you do, or facing lots of questions about your qualifications? Today I’ll outline six ways you can boost your professional credibility so that people understand what you do and have trust and confidence in your qualifications, training, skill set and capabilities.

In this episode, I’ll talk about 
* What professional credibility mean
* Why people question your qualification
* Six ways to boost your professional credibilit

I wanted to create this episode today because I’ve had two conversations recently that really got me fired up.

In one conversation, a recent graduate who is out marketing her services said she’d been constantly questioned by professionals about her qualifications – not by potential clients – but by health professionals.

In the other conversation, a seasoned coach is starting a degree, following what I would call professional bullying – being told by a health professional that she isn’t qualified enough to have enough expertise in wellness, and needs to do higher education.

After I got up from pounding my fists on the floor, I decided to develop this episode to help you to understand why these sorts of things happen, and what you can do about it.

What professional credibility means

To set the scene, let’s define professional credibility.

It can be simply defined as your education, experience, performance and demonstrated professional development in a particular field.

This definition gives some clues about what it takes to be a credible professional that is trusted and respected. Let’s dig a bit deeper.

Why people question your qualifications and professional credibility

According to an article in the Organisational Behaviour in Health Care book series, “…professional credibility is a source of legitimacy.” The chapter says that when professional credibility is combined with leadership, you can create respect and trust by peers, and engagement with followers.

So, when people question your qualifications or professionalism, they are looking for evidence that you’re trustworthy, capable, and skilled.

In a healthcare setting, it’s understandable that people might question anyone’s professional credibility because you may be dealing with people in health-critical or life-critical situations, complex medical or psychological conditions, and other professionals with significant experience in patient care and medical systems.

Somebody showing up with a coaching qualification may not fit into their paradigm.

In Australia, Health and Wellness Coaching is a relatively young profession and people don’t understand what it is or how it fits with existing medical frameworks, or within health professions.

Part of the challenge is the range of untrained and inexperienced people giving themselves coaching-related titles and offering services that are clearly not coaching-related.

Another part of the challenge is the diversity of coaching professions around – you can be a life coach, a wellness coach, a health and wellness coach, a health coach, an executive coach….and so on. What’s the difference? Which is the appropriate setting for each one?

I’ll address these three issues in a moment.

But to finish up this section of today’s topic, I wanted to say that there is something of a turf war going on in Australia. I have heard of this first-hand from a psychologist a few years ago, who told me that psychologists, psychotherapists and counsellors are fighting about who is credentialled enough for what.

Let me ease your mind a bit by saying that professional skills are important, our profession definitely needs some good promotion and PR, and our scope of practice needs to be clear, but please also know that human ego and professional bullying exist and is potentially always going to be there, no matter how well known, recognised and accepted our profession is.

In fact, the reason I left my previous career as a biological scientist is that I was sick of all the egotism, barrow-pushing and bullying that was going on in my industry back then. I wasn’t personally affected but I was disheartened by the behaviour, generally.

That said, there are things going on that you can do to move past the questions and to gain the credibility and respect you deserve.

Six ways to boost your professional credibility

Let’s look at 6 ways you can start boosting your professional credibility.

HCANZA – Look for the Logo

If you’re a regular listener of this podcast, you might remember an episode I did in May 2022 called How to boost your professional credibility. This episode was about showcasing the health coaching profession at the inaugural conference of our industry association, Health Coaches Australia and New Zealand Association (HCANZA), and how attending could give you ideas on how to communicate what health coaches do, and what our profession is achieving.

As a current board member of HCANZA, I can say that HCANZA is working hard in the advocacy of our profession at the highest levels of government, insurance and medical sector in Australia and New Zealand. HCANZA serves multiple purposes, including building the knowledge, understanding and reputation of health coaching in Australia and New Zealand. We are running a Look for the Logo campaign that educates the public and health professionals on how to choose an appropriately qualified health and wellness coach.

If you are a member of HCANZA, then you have access to resources to help you also advocate for our profession, and to promote yourself in a professional way. Hot off the press, HCANZA members now have access to a 25-page booklet called The Doctors Guide to Health Coaching, authored by Sandra Sheinbaum from the Institute of Functional Medicine and provided to HCANZA members for the purpose of awareness-building, advocacy and promotion of our profession.

If you’re a current member, this would have been sent to you by email and it’s available in the member toolkit. The document has been sent to 2,000 doctors in this past week.

Professional branding

Whether we like it or not, first impressions count.

That means that any imagery, documents, flyers, email footers, social media pages, websites etc that you have need to look professional.

Professional branding can cost as little as $200 or up to $15,000 but before you leap in, you need to work out your target market and ideal customer and get to know them intimately.

Why? Because your branding colours and styles need to appeal to your specific demographic, psychographic and desired feelings.

Before tackling branding formally, when you are getting started, at least develop a professional-looking email signature and a formal LinkedIn profile with a professional headshot and a well-written bio on it.

Mentioning your qualifications, training and HCANZA membership is valuable for your professional standing and to raise awareness of our industry association.

Your main goal initially is to have consistent visuals and messaging across any promotional material. If you start with LinkedIn and an email footer, and any other online presence, they should all look similar, use the same fonts, and have the same feel about them. If you are an HCANZA Professional member, log into your account and look inside your member toolkit for tips on creating a professional bio, getting noticed on LinkedIn, where to use your HCANZA logo, and crafting an elevator pitch (who you work with and the general area – e.g. I help professional women in their 40’s who are struggling with menopause). We also have an HCANZA-badged brochure that talks about the benefits of working with an HCANZA-accredited coach.

A clear value proposition

When you can clearly and confidently describe who you work with (elevator pitch) and how you help your niche (value proposition), it lends credibility and professionalism – and legitimacy.

A value proposition describes the tangible results someone will get from using your products or services. I did an episode unpacking how to do this recently using a tool called a Brand Ladder, which you can listen to, here.

A value proposition might be longer than an elevator pitch and speak more specifically to the tangible results. For example, compared to the elevator pitch I just mentioned, a related value proposition might be something like this:

“I use an evidence-based methodology to help menopausal women to become aware of what impacts their menopausal symptoms, and to develop health-giving routines to help them reduce their symptoms naturally and feel healthy, productive, energized and calm”.

When you can clearly explain how you help people, they see the value in working with you.

It’s clear that you know what you’re talking about, and that you are confident in what you do and how it helps people.

Endorsement

Personal or professional endorsements are great ways to build credibility. If someone else likes and trusts you, and if you have proven success, this builds your legitimacy as a coach.

Endorsement can take on various forms, such as:

  • Being an HCANZA Professional member and listed on their website
  • Client testimonials (on your website or social media platform – or a widget like TrustPilot)
  • Client case studies
  • Professional recommendations (LinkedIn is a great example)
  • Media references
  • Employer references
  • Corporate or business client case studies

Even as a new coach, you can cover at least some of these.

Professional networking

While networking itself isn’t necessarily credibility building, the act of consistently showing up in professional networking spaces creates visibility and recognition and helps you to build relationships with like-minded people who can become your allies and advocates.

For example, when I started my weight loss coaching business, I made an effort to send introductory letters to prominent health professionals in my area and meet several of them for coffee afterwards.

I also attended various events and presentations in my local area such as Medicare presentations, health expos and health practitioner lunches, where I could leverage those initial contacts and become known in the area.

Also, I started my business by running a pilot program that involved my clients seeing their doctors or health professionals for a health clearance before starting. This gave those professionals firsthand experience in the success of my coaching program, and therefore professional endorsement and recognition.

In the end, GPs and podiatrists, chiropractors and diabetes educators were referring people to me for weight loss, having seen improvement in my clients’ weight, BMI, blood pressure, insulin, etc.

You can do this in your local area (four or five surrounding suburbs) or the nearest health hub.

Publishing and speaking

Finally, being published in online articles, interviewed on the radio or podcasts, and published in print newspapers or magazines, all give you visibility and credibility.

After all, nobody will publish you or interview you if you’re not credible.

While this is a marketing activity, it also gives you a chance to be seen, heard and known by different audiences, so they can validly assess (in their own minds) how professional you are.

Summary

Today we talked about the challenges we face in being recognised as credible professionals. The truth is, no matter how experienced and qualified you are, someone will always take a shot at you or doubt your credentials.

That aside, there are six things you can do to boost your professional credibility right now:

  • being an HCANZA member
  • ensure you have professional branding
  • develop a clear value proposition
  • gain endorsements
  • professional networking
  • publishing and speaking

Ready to get clarity on your pathway to success?

Understanding who you are and what you need will allow your business to thrive! If you’re truly ready to break old habits and get out of the rut I encourage you to check out the Habitology membership.

Learn more here:

Learn More

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E#211 How to Succeed by Showing Up

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How to Succeed by Showing Up

Are you struggling to find enough clients, do a good enough job, or achieve your goals, and wondering how to make it happen? Let’s look at why showing up is the key to your success.

What is showing up?

Showing up refers to your ability to do things consistently and to be accountable to yourself for that. It’s a simple as that, but it’s also essential for achieving any outcome goals you have

In this episode, I’ll talk about 
* What is showing up?
* What does showing up create?
* How do you commit to showing up?

Losing weight.

Launching a successful business.

Attracting clients.

Completing a qualification.

It doesn’t matter what you are trying to achieve – it’s the same principle. Showing up is required for success, and it means that you are committed, disciplined, and consistent with your efforts no matter what, which makes the results possible.

A lot of people I meet come to me for coaching because they are getting half-baked results or no results. A lot of the time it’s about not showing up for yourself consistently.

A lot of things happen if you don’t show up.

For example, in marketing one of the keys to becoming visible and known is that you show up regularly and keep your promises to yourself and your audience. It might take 6 to 12 months before somebody even knows that you exist, so you need to be putting yourself out there consistently and regularly in the same places over a long enough period of time that people can start to see you and get to know you, let alone want to buy something from you.

A lot of coaches I meet try something here and there for a month and then give up saying that nobody is interested. Not long enough! And likely, not consistent enough.

The same goes for eating and exercise for example. If you want to be athletic, lose 5 kg of body fat, gain 3 kg of muscle, run a marathon or consistently follow a Mediterranean diet, then you need to show up for yourself and exercise, eat well or train several times per week and every week consistently for a period of time – usually at least 3 months.

It’s great to start with planning to do something, but that is the easy bit. You feel excited at the prospect of achieving the result. You feel satisfied that you’ve mapped out all of the steps appropriately. You feel like you are ready to go.

But the reality is, as you start to implement your plan life is going to throw you curveballs. That’s a definite – and showing up requires you to figure out how to keep showing up for yourself, for others, or both.

I know for myself, for example, at least two or three nights a week I sleep poorly at the moment. And while it might be tempting for me to take a day off the next day, I have responsibilities and things that are important for me to do so I dig deep, and I show up. I make myself get up on time, shower, get dressed in colourful clothing, eat something nutritious, and prepare myself mentally for the meetings and tasks ahead. Obviously, there are exceptions, like if I am really sick, but otherwise, I just get over the mind games and move forward.

ALL of us have obstacles in life that prevent us from showing up and that is why working with a coach to be so helpful because it’s about learning how to navigate, troubleshoot, and problem-solve those obstacles so that you can be consistent and get the results you want.

Why is it sometimes hard to show up? Simply, because our brains work against us. Our brains are wired to seek pleasure, avoid pain and expend as little effort as possible. This is why we tell ourselves all the lies and excuses that stop us from taking action!

But if we work with our brains, we develop better habits that help us to show up and create results.

What does showing up create?

So, what happens if you do manage your brain better and show up consistently?

Well, let’s look at some real-life examples.

I have been running this podcast every week for over two years. I have committed to consistently publishing episodes every week no matter what. For example, my father just passed away a couple of weeks ago, and knowing that he was unwell I recorded a couple of episodes in advance so that I could keep showing up.

Some days I don’t feel like recording a podcast but I do it anyway because I am committed to this activity.

People ask, where do I get the motivation? Well, I have learned to embrace this process because it builds my audience over time with more and more people listening to this podcast. I don’t want to let them down by not showing up. If I don’t do an episode or two, or if I’m late, people will get the impression that I’m unreliable and untrustworthy – definitely not helpful! Therefore, I have strategies in place to make sure that I show up every week no matter what.

Actually, weight loss is a really good example of what’s required for showing up. In my experience of coaching people around weight loss, it often takes several weeks before they start to see the impact of the habit they have changed. In the meantime, they may get sick, lose motivation, feel overwhelmed with stressors or feel tired as their body changes. But by committing to themselves they can overcome those challenges and still show up for themselves in order to achieve the result that they want.

The interesting thing is that it’s actually not so much about the result because that is a one-off thing. Showing up is actually about embracing the process and developing the habits that will make you a success.

Those habits become who you are, your new identity, and a new way of living.

In the weight loss example, people talk about losing weight and then gaining it again. It just means that they stop showing up for themselves and go back into their old habits which no longer serve them.

In another example, I think about myself as a business owner running my signature weight loss program in my local area for 3 1/2 years.

It didn’t matter how tired I was, or down, or what the weather was like, I showed up consistently for those groups of clients and got myself into a positive mindset to foster an exceptional experience for those clients and hold the space for them so that they could achieve their goals.

Sometimes I definitely didn’t feel like running those group sessions, but I had strategies in place to make sure that my clients got incredible value from those sessions and from working with me. After all, it was the results they got and the way they felt in those sessions that created multiple referrals and sold-out programs every time.

What do you think would’ve happened if I cancelled sessions because I didn’t feel like going, or if I showed up half-hearted and listless?

Showing up – or not – creates your results.

How do you commit to showing up?

So how do you commit to showing up for yourself and for other people?

It’s really all about managing your mindset, your energy, your motivation, and maintaining your level of commitment to yourself and or other people.

If you want to show up for yourself or others consistently, the first thing you must do is to define a really good reason why you want to do a particular thing. In my example of podcasting, this is tied in with my ability to have an impact on the lives of other people and to help people to bring their greatness to the world. This is a huge part of my purpose, so if I don’t do this podcast consistently, I might lose my audience, and that might mean that I don’t get to fulfil my purpose.

The nutshell is that having a big why or lots of whys is really important for committing to something.

The second thing is that you have to be doing something that is truly meaningful and important to you. If you are trying to do something that you think you should be doing but don’t really want to do and then it’s going to be hard to stick to. This ties into your why, but is slightly different.

For example, reaching my audience is important to me, but my actions for getting there must be meaningful and aligned. When I tried to run a Facebook group over about a 14-month period, I struggled because I absolutely hated being on Facebook and so I wasn’t able to make myself be consistent and show up for that and I learnt a really important lesson by failing at that. I realise that I was doing something that I thought I should be doing but didn’t really suit me or feel right and it didn’t suit my audience either.

So, choosing activities and goals with importance and meaning is an essential part of showing up.

The third thing is that if you want to be able to show up for yourself or others consistently, choose habits or activities that play to your strengths, or find ways to use your strengths to complete those activities. It’s much easier to be consistent when you are doing something that you are good at or have the potential to develop skills in.

The fourth thing and this is probably a really important one, is that you just have to stop overthinking things. It’s really easy if you’re tired or stressed to want to give up on yourself and to tell yourself stories about why you can’t do something. That’s just your brain trying not to make the effort.

If you think about it, it’s actually the discomfort of doing something under adversity that helps you to come out stronger and with a greater sense of self-belief. If you give in every time and don’t be consistent, then you are just proving to yourself that you can’t. If you grit your teeth and get

through something challenging, you gain a sense of pride, efficacy and a glimmer of hope that you can do it again. This gives your untrusting brain the proof it needs to believe you can succeed.

It’s way better to find some strategies and cues and just make yourself do something and get across the line to prove to yourself that you can because that will create momentum and an upward spiral.

My best strategy to overcome mental hurdles is talking myself into doing the activity and outlining all the reasons it’s important.

The fifth thing is that planning is really important in terms of being able to show up for yourself. Imagine if I was trying to record a podcast every week but didn’t have any sort of activity put into my calendar. I’d probably forget will be trying to squeeze it in around other appointments or double-booking myself and then it wouldn’t get done. Planning means you are intentionally making space – a dedicated time slot every week – to record an episode, doing the gym workout, or posting on LinkedIn – whatever it is you want to commit to.

Planning offers you more than just the ability to complete the task. By making space for what matters to you, it prompts you to clear out the low return tasks so that you don’t waste time and become more efficient and productive. When your schedule is based around important but not urgent tasks and not too many of them, then it’s much easier to show up for yourself.

The sixth thing I want to talk about today in terms of showing up is that sometimes you’re going to need support from another person or some sort of system to help you show up. It could be a coach. It could be an alarm. It could be a ritual or process you used to get yourself into the right headspace. But whatever it is, if you find it hard to be self motivated and self disciplined at times, think about the things you can do to help you show up for yourself.

Using this podcast as an example once again, if I’m not in the mood or am lacking inspiration, I have a few uplifting podcasts that I listen to that help me to come up with a more positive mindset and create some of my own ideas for content. I also have content that I’ve created in the past and I can always go back to that and re-purpose it for a podcast episode if I need to. I have a system of dictating into my iPad or phone so if I get an idea while I’m on the run I can capture it in a document using the microphone function and that means I am constantly adding to the content when the ideas strike me. These are three of my personal strategies for making sure I show up and do this podcast every week no matter what.

The seventh and final thing that will help you to show up is the 7-minute rule. In the practice of yoga, there is a saying that if you just do 7 minutes then you will likely keep going. I apply the same principle to anything else that I need to show up for. Just seven minutes writing some notes for a podcast. Or just seven minutes getting my mind in order so I can still see my clients today and not cancel any appointments. You get the idea. Doing a tiny amount of something means that you get over the initial hurdle of starting and that you are more likely to keep going

Summary

Today we talked about what showing up is and why it is important.

I also talked about seven ways to help you show up for yourself:

  1. Define a specific why, or many whys
  2. Focus on activities that are meaningful and important to you (linked to the why)
  3. Choose activities that play to your strengths, or find ways to use strengths to complete them
  4. Stop overthinking things and just do them with the help of strategies and cues.
  5. Planning specific activities for specific time slots
  6. Get the support you need from others, systems or tools
  7. Commit to just 7 minutes so you get over the hurdle of starting.

Showing up for yourself means that you can do meaningful things in your own life and succeed at those things and feel like you are living a purposeful and intentional life.

It is about learning to embrace the process and become good at that, rather than just focussing on the result. This not only helps you achieve the result, it also helps you to become committed to the regular actions that create your results!

Ready to get clarity on your pathway to success?

Understanding who you are and what you need will allow your business to thrive! If you’re truly ready to break old habits and get out of the rut I encourage you to check out the Habitology membership.

Learn more here:

Learn More

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E#209 How Long Does It Take to Form a Habit?

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How Long Does It Take to Form a Habit?

Are you thinking about making a change but lacking in motivation, and wondering how long it will take to form a new habit that happens automatically and effortlessly?

By knowing how long it takes to form a habit, it can help you to manage your expectations, decide if you are ready to start and hang in there long enough to be successful.

I’m sure you know what it’s like. At some point in your life, you have wanted to lose weight, or tone up, or establish a better sleep routine, but it can be hard to get started when you’re not clear on how long it will take, and whether you have enough time and energy to even start.

In this episode, I’ll talk about 
* The Architecture of Habits
* What Type of Habit Do You Want to Change?
* What Type of Person Are You?
* What is Your Situation? What is Your Mindset?
* What Does the Research Say?

If you search the internet for “how long does it take to form a habit”, you will find a range of answers. Today I want to share the most recent research to answer this question, with caveats included!

The Architecture of Habits

To set the scene, let’s look at the architecture of habits. I have done a deep dive on this in previous episodes, so for now, let’s recap.

Firstly, any habit has a cue or trigger – something that causes it to happen.

Then there is a routine or process that you go through.

Then, there is a reward you receive by going through the process.

The craving for this reward can motivate you to keep coming back.

What this means for you is that if you want to change a bad habit or form a new habit, you need to work on the elements of this ‘habit loop’ to help you get there faster.

Let’s look at how to do that, with some examples.

What Type of Habit Do You Want to Change?

Firstly, consider the type and complexity of the habit that you want to change. Let me give you two examples from my own life so you can see the difference.

If it’s a simple habit you want to form like flossing your teeth once per day, then you can bet that it will happen a lot sooner and become automatic more easily compared to a more complex habit.

A few years ago, a friend of mine told me he had started flossing his teeth each night. This is something I’ve wanted to do for teeth hygiene reasons, but never quite found the motivation and momentum to be consistent. This is probably because I found it to be a rather fiddly and sometimes painful task, and I had told myself that I hated flossing my teeth, or that I couldn’t be bothered.

But as soon as my friend mentioned he was doing this, I decided that I’d have a go too. I didn’t tell him or anyone else – I just decided one day that I would have a competition with myself to do it every night for 12 weeks, as an experiment to see whether I could turn this into an automatic and effortless habit.

The trigger part of the habit was easy – I would floss before brushing my teeth each night. This is called habit stacking, or as I like to call it, piggybacking. I simply put a package of floss next to my toothbrush and voila, I remembered to even think about doing it each night!

I got off to a good start and in the first few weeks, I realised a few things.

Firstly, I realised that each night I was approaching this habit in the wrong way.

When I got ready to floss, I noticed that I was thinking about how annoying this was, or how I didn’t feel like doing it, or how yukky and gross it was – unhelpful thinking! Instead, I decided to come up with more neutral or positive thoughts as I was flossing. I started thinking things like “I did another night! Yay!” or “This is good for my teeth!”

Secondly, I realised that if I was going to be consistent with this, I would have to be clear on the process. I had recently been to a new dentist, and they’d provided some written instructions on how to brush and floss your teeth. To make it more interesting, I decided to geek it up and deep dive into the technique, trying to bring some fresh energy and interest into the process.

I learned about flossing on angles and how long it should take.

Those two things kept me going in the beginning.

Then I started thinking about the reward in earnest, rather than just having that sense of achievement. Sure, that was a reward, but I also ran my tongue over my teeth and made a smug ‘ah’ sound, really celebrating the clean teeth and how I was maintaining the dentist’s good cleaning work.

Something funny happened about 11 or 12 weeks into the routine. I had had a late night and a few drinks and was getting ready for bed. And even being so tired, I realised that I simply couldn’t go to bed without flossing my teeth before brushing.

It was a huge win! I could celebrate more than just the fact that it had become automatic and effortless – I also wanted to floss my teeth because I had created an attachment to the rewards of achievement and cleaner teeth (as opposed to the old rewards of getting out of a boring task).

Now compare that with something like giving up smoking. Smoking is something you do multiple times per day, and your desire to smoke might be triggered by multiple different things.

I smoked socially in my late teens, and in earnest when I was 21 years old after a stressful series of events. It had become a coping mechanism and a way of fitting in socially (these were the rewards).

After a year, I decided it was ridiculous to smoke and I wanted to give up but it was difficult! This wasn’t just one habit loop – it was many habit loops happening in tandem.

For example, there were various cues or triggers for smoking.

After breakfast. While driving. After lunch. When stressed. While hanging out with certain friends. While drinking alcohol. At a pub or nightclub (a common hangout when I was this age). At the end of the day as a pleasant wind down ritual on the balcony of my unit. Looking cool in front of boys (or so I thought).

Coupled with the perceived rewards of coping better and looking cool (yes, I am groaning about these), I also had a serious nicotine addiction by now so had chemical drivers.

This habit was a lot more complex than teeth flossing!

In the end, I dismantled my smoking habit one piece at a time.

Firstly, I switched from menthol cigarettes (which tasted better) to plain cigarettes and the worst-tasting ones – in other words I made the habit more unpleasant.

Next, I substituted those cigarettes for ones that tasted bad AND had the lowest nicotine.

Then, I started delaying my first cigarette. So instead of around 9am, I would wait until 10am, then 11am, then after lunch.

By now I was smoking fewer per day, so I started buying smaller packets.

I started hanging out with different friends – friends who didn’t smoke. This was a game changer for this habit because it removed temptation and also helped me frame a healthier identity – by hanging around people who placed a higher value on health.

I was going to nightclubs to dance instead of smoking. I was going to the beach in the daytime instead of pubs to play pool.

By the end of about 6 months, I was down to one cigarette per day – the one on the balcony late afternoon. This was the hardest one to give up because I had a positive ritual and feeling of me time. However, I made the decision to stop and do something else at this time.

Voila, the habit was gone.

I had cravings for a while, but it was easier to ride them out once I got this far.

As you can see, more complex habits take longer to break or form and are more involved.

Some people go for substitution for gum or other things, but for me, I wanted to break the habit and rewire all the different areas of my life rather than swap one vice or habit for another.

What Type of Person Are You?

Complexity aside, I think a lot comes down to the type of person you are.

If you are motivated, focused, achievement-oriented and proactive, it’s probably easier for you to form a new habit or break a bad habit.

Some people have more addictive personalities – and I am one of these (as revealed in a genetic test I had done a few years ago to look at disease risk factors).

Some people like putting others first and even at their own expense, which can get in the way of forming new habits.

These are all factors that affect your ability to form new habits and the time that it takes.

What is Your Life Situation?

Your life situation impacts your ability to form a habit and the rate at which it happens.

Why? Because making change is hard. It requires a lot of focus and energy from your brain, and brains like taking the easy, low-cost, low-effort route.

That means if your life situation is busy, overwhelming, stressful, painful, difficult, or involving major shifts or even crises, forming a new habit is going to be pretty difficult. Not just in terms of starting but in persisting.

The best time to form a new habit is when there’s little stress in your life when things are on an even keel, and when there aren’t many other pressures in life.

This is not always possible, but at least you can clear the decks to make time and energy to focus on doing something new, or something different.

The less stress you have, I believe the faster and easier change will be.

This is where working with a coach can be so helpful, because they help you make the time and create the focus, and clear the decks so that you have enough brain power for forming a habit.

And not too many at once!

What is Your Mindset?

Finally, your mindset is a critical piece of the puzzle.

You heard me say earlier in the teeth flossing and quit smoking examples, that I had decided to do it. And after 13 years of coaching, I can say that the majority of my clients use similar words.

They say that they have decided, or they are in the right headspace, or they are really ready. There is determination in those words.

And to be successful and persist for long enough so that you can form and automate a habit, you need to have a good enough reason which is meaningful to you because this is your motivator to keep going.

What Does the Research Say About Time Required to Form Habits?

I’ve just given you a lot of backstory about habit formation that sets the scene for discussing the research.

A 2009 paper by Phillippa Lalley et. al. was published in the European Journal of Social Psychology.

The study involved 96 volunteers over 12 weeks. Those volunteers chose an eating, drinking or activity behaviour to carry out daily in the same context (e.g. after breakfast).

The time it took to form the habit and for it to become largely automatic was 18 – 254 days, with an average of 66 days (9.5 weeks). A huge range!

It is known that behaviour is likely to become habitual when it is frequently and consistently performed in the same context, this study found that a habit could be formed and become automatic even if it was missed a few times.

More recently, a longitudinal field study considered how self-control capacity affected the development of habits over a period of 90 days.

Contrary to expectations, self-control capacity did not seem to affect the habit formation process and opened the opportunity for future research.

The recent research reveals a few keys to easier and potentially faster habit formation and habit automaticity:

  • Habit strength increases steeply at first then levels off
  • The more often the behaviour is completed, the quicker the habit forms
  • The more inherently rewarding the behaviour, the easier it is to form a habit
  • If the environment is comfortable (no threats/obstacles), habit formation is easier

To me, these findings back up my experience with my own habits and with clients.

The recipe for success seems to lie in the goal-setting process and the situation, as described earlier.

If you clear your decks to make time, set specific goals around behaviours that are rewarding, and commit to doing them frequently, you will more likely succeed.

Having the support of a coach will probably help you get there faster!

Summary

Today we talked about how long it takes to form a habit and covered some of the factors that influence the timing and ease of habit formation.

There is a lot of scope for future research in this area, with the most recent studies having shown that your capacity for self-control is not critical to the process!

Rather, the intrinsic reward, frequency of behaviour, commitment, environment and in my experience, situation, mindset and personality, might all play a role in the timing.

References

Lally, P., van Jaarsveld, C.H.M., Potts, H.W.W. and Wardle, J. (2010), How are habits formed: Modelling habit formation in the real world. Eur. J. Soc. Psychol., 40: 998-1009. https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.674

van der Weiden Anouk, Benjamins Jeroen, Gillebaart Marleen, Ybema Jan Fekke, de Ridder Denise. (2020). How to Form Good Habits? A Longitudinal Field Study on the Role of Self-Control in Habit Formation. Frontiers in Psychology 11. URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.00560

Ready to get clarity on your pathway to success?

Understanding who you are and what you need will allow your business to thrive! If you’re truly ready to break old habits and get out of the rut I encourage you to check out the Habitology membership.

Learn more here:

Learn More

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E#205 How to Develop a Magnetic Value Proposition

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How to Develop a Magnetic Value Proposition

A lot of coaches find it hard to really communicate the value of what they do in their marketing and craft a viable value proposition. Today, I want to unpack the ‘brand ladder’ with you – a helpful marketing tool that helps you define what motivates people to buy and craft a compelling value proposition that is guaranteed to attract new clients.

Before you develop any marketing strategies to get out there and start becoming known, liked and trusted to attract clients, you have to know what to say and how to describe the value of what you do. A solid brand ladder will make all the difference. It’s what will rocket fuel your opportunities.

In this episode, I’ll talk about 
* What is a Brand Ladder and Why Do You Need One?
* The Five-Step Brand Ladder Process
* Crafting Your Value Proposition

What is a Brand Ladder and Why Do You Need One?

In all marketing and advertising, we want to write, speak or engage with emotion and values that are aligned with what the clients want to feel and be because this is appealing and attractive to them.

If you listened to my last episode, you might have heard me mention that 90% of a buying decision is based on emotion, and only 10% is based on logic.

So, how do you create that emotively based value proposition?

Brand laddering is one exercise to help you uncover the right language to develop your value proposition. This tool helps you to unpack the mental and emotional process your potential client goes through as they are becoming engaged to buy, and it leverages coaching concepts including positive psychology, Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, and unpacking the “why behind the why”.

They start by outlining your service’s most important feature, then its benefits, the emotional value to the person, and how those benefits and values might change someone’s life.

The Five Step Brand Ladder Process

Let’s walk through the five-step brand ladder process, so you can use this to create compelling copy and a rock-solid value proposition that is irresistible to potential clients.

Bottom Rung – Features

Features are the factual statements about you service, about what it can do or what it includes, and why it’s the best choice.

This rung answers the question – “so what is this program, and who is it for?”

If your service is a coaching program, then factual statements might include:

  • Weight loss program tailored to women in their 40’s
  • 8-week, evidence-based program to help you reduce stress at work

You can hear the points of difference here – firstly both are specific to a problem, the weight loss program is tailored to a specific group, or the 8-week program is evidence-based.

These types of statements speak about the strengths or differences of your service and therefore why it is a better choice.

You will notice that the wording is specific, not general. That way there’s no room for misinterpretation or misunderstanding. This is important for all rungs of the ladder.

Second Rung – Functional Benefits

Next are the functional benefits that these features provide. These are the end results of what the service can accomplish for your client.

This rung answers the question – “So what do I get?” or “What’s in it for me?”

Functional benefits are things that help people to:

  • Stay connected – e.g. friends, family, socially
  • Save money – e.g. reduce time, add value, track success, reduce costs
  • Make you smarter – e.g. build skills, support, information, step-by-step process
  • Help you be healthier – e.g. prevent, restore, mental health, lose weight, exercise
  • Work better for you – e.g. faster, safer, evidence based
  • Help you take action – e.g. awareness, motivation, confidence
  • Simplify your life – e.g. efficient, easier, time-saving, streamlined, organised.

For a coaching program, these could be things like:

  • Making simple changes to your eating habits to help you achieve a healthy weight
  • Learning how to better manage your schedule and leave work on time, so you can switch off more easily and have the energy for friends, family and fitness after work.

Notice once again that the language is specific to the client and what their daily life experience might involve. Market research and conversations with your client can help you get there.

Third Rung – Emotional Benefits

Next are the emotional benefits that these functional benefits provide.

This rung answers the question – “how will this make me feel?”

It’s a bit like peeling off another layer of the why in a first coaching session, asking “So if you were to achieve that vision, how would you feel?”

Emotional benefits are commonly things like:

  • Curiosity for knowledge – e.g. competent, smarter, aware
  • Sense of optimism – e.g. motivated, successful, inspired, special
  • Feeling comfortable – e.g. relaxed, nurtured, compassionate
  • Feeling free – e.g. alive, excited, exhilarated
  • Getting noticed – e.g. playful, popular, sexy
  • Feeling liked or self-assured – e.g. friendly, happy, fulfilled, confident, empowered
  • Staying in control – e.g. respect, safe, trust, reliable
  • Feeling myself/my values – e.g. honesty, standards, purpose, family, authentic
  • Feeling revitalised – e.g. active, more energized, youthful, getting the old me back
  • Having a sense of pride – e.g. leadership, overcoming, accomplishment

For a coaching program, these could be things like:

  • This program is designed to help you feel more confident, comfortable in your own skin and aligned with your values
  • By mastering your work schedule, you’ll feel more in control of your time, gain a sense of achievement and have a more relaxed time with the ones you love.

Notice how we are tapping into the client’s aspirations here. We are not promising that the program does this – we are saying how they might feel if they can get on top of their obstacles.

Working with your niche clients to help them create a vision can help you to work out these ‘feeling words’ more specifically.

Fourth Rung – Transformational Benefits

Next are the transformational benefits that are possible when a client can make lasting changes.

This rung answers the question – “how will this change my life?”

This is like peeling off yet another layer of the why in a first coaching session, asking “Why is this vision so meaningful for you?”

For a coaching program, these could be things like:

  • I’ll be a better, healthier role model for my kids and know that I am doing the best for my health
  • I’ll have better, more meaningful relationships with my family, have more fun in life, and perform better at work.

Notice how we are tapping into the client’s deeper values and motivators here. Reflect on how you feel even just listening to these transformational benefits!

(Sometimes) Fifth Rung – Social Impact

Some brand ladders have another layer – related to the social impact of the company or even of the person using the company’s services.

This rung answers the question – “how does this change society?”

In a coaching context, this might only really apply to specific niches, but it could also speak to the values of your business and its greater mission in the world.

For example:

  • XYZ Coaching is on a mission to put an end to diabetes and other avoidable lifestyle diseases. This is your chance to be part of the change and inspire your friends and family with healthier choices for a healthy weight.
  • Burnout is a global problem. For every program purchased, we will donate $10 to Beyond Blue, an organisation that supports and advocates for better mental health.

By now, your potential client will feel on a high and be excited to work with you!

Crafting Your Value Proposition

So, how do you use this information to craft a value proposition?

It’s about pulling together the key elements of the ladder into something that speaks to the value of what you do.

Using the weight loss example:

If you’re a woman in your 40s who is struggling to lose weight, XYZ coaching will take you through a step-by-step process to make weight loss easier. You’ll finally start to feel more comfortable in your own skin and be the role model you want to be for your

Using the stress management example:

If you’re sick of feeling overwhelmed by workplace stress, this evidence-based program will help you to manage your time better and feel more energized so you can switch off more easily and have more quality time with the people and things you love.

Summary

The brand ladder exercise is a great tool to help you unpack a statement that truly conveys the value of what you do – your value proposition – and taps into your prospective client’s emotional drivers.

You can build a brand ladder using the words your clients use in their initial vision sessions, by peeling off the layers of the why.

Assuming that you have the best intentions for your client and will do your best as a coach, this is an authentic way to get excited about what you do and the difference you can make in the world.

It helps you to stand out and be emotionally engaging with the right people.

And if you get this right, you’ll easily have more clients heading your way.

Ready to get clarity on your pathway to success?

Understanding who you are and what you need will allow your business to thrive! If you’re truly ready to break old habits and get out of the rut I encourage you to check out the Habitology membership.

Learn more here:

Learn More

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E#204 How to Better Explain What You Do So You Can Attract More Paying Clients

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How to Better Explain What You Do So You Can Attract More Paying Clients

A lot of coaches have trouble explaining what they do, what health coaching is and how it works. And that’s why I want to get a bit ranty today. We’ll talk about the #1 reason why you may NOT be getting the leads you want, and how best to explain what you do so that you can confidently speak to people and attract more paying clients.

In this episode, I’ll talk about 
* Advocacy vs Niche Marketing
* Appealing to Emotions
* Brand Laddering
* How to Attract Paying Clients

Advocacy vs Niche Marketing

I want to start this episode by talking about advocacy versus niche marketing. The problem I see is that a lot of coaches are so stuck on telling people what health and wellness coaching is BUT they’re not really communicating the value of health and wellness coaching. Let me explain.

For starters, people buy things that they believe will get them a result.

But if you are trying to explain your services in terms of how your profession works, then you’re not really talking about how you help the individual or the results they will get.

For example, imagine a doctor explaining how doctors work. He might say something like:

“Well, patients come to see me when they’re not feeling well. They come in and make an appointment and then we sit down and go through the health history, and I work out what’s going on with them now and I may prescribe medication or treatment that will help them to get better. They might come and see me again in a couple of weeks to make sure everything’s been resolved and that’s how being a doctor works.”

Now, I know that’s a really obvious example, but it illustrates what some coaches are trying to do when they’re explaining Health and Wellness coaching to people.

When you talk about helping clients to set visions and create goals and make a lifestyle change, then you’re talking much more about how professionals in our industry work within a session with a client.

For the sake of clarity, let’s call this type of explanation “advocacy”.

The term fits pretty well with the dictionary definition of advocacy, which is “the act of pleading for, supporting, or recommending; active espousal.”

How do you know if you’re going down the road of ‘advocacy’ in your marketing?

Well, your copy would include words that focus more on our profession. The language you use would be broader and perhaps more about you as a coach. If you are using more thinking, factual or logical words to describe what you do. He might be also talking about qualifications and standards, professional affiliations, or the science behind what you do.

Let’s be clear – There is a role for advocacy in your marketing particularly if you are talking to other health professionals for the sake of building relationships to gain referrals. But you are not likely to get clients this way directly, because you were not speaking to them emotively in their language.

This is why I’d like to talk about niche marketing now.

Niche marketing is very different to advocacy. In niche marketing, your language focuses more on the person, not the profession. You’re using more feeling words and specifically, the words that your clients used to describe their pain points and desired feeling-based solutions. You’re talking about their unmet needs, their perceived problem, how that plays out in their daily life, their desired solution and your value proposition. As a refresher, a value proposition is defined as a basic statement that communicates the benefit you promise to deliver to your customers post-purchase.

This is how the hypothetical doctor might discuss his value proposition with a prospective client.

“I’m a Doctor who specialises in helping people who have just been diagnosed with metabolic syndrome, pre-diabetes or diabetes. I understand that being diagnosed with this might be a shock and leave you feeling overwhelmed. Maybe you are confused about your treatment options, meditation and their side effects, or which areas of your health require attention.

I understand how worrying this can be, especially with your work and family responsibilities at this time of your life. As someone who has treated metabolic conditions for 10 years, I am here to help you to navigate your condition, understand what’s going on in your body and take action to prevent the progression of this condition by taking action to lower your cholesterol, reduce your waist circumference, normalise your liver function and improve your physical and mental health.”

Can you hear the difference in the language? Of course, doctors don’t usually describe their work like that or use emotive language.

But if you had a metabolic condition and you heard those two descriptions, one based in more advocacy language and one about the challenges that someone with metabolic syndrome faces, which one would be more appealing?

Which one of those doctors would you trust more?

Appealing to Emotions

As I mentioned earlier, if you want to explain what you do really clearly and in a way that grabs attention then it’s important that you appeal to their emotions. And to appeal to someone’s emotions, talk with emotional words about things that they are emotionally engaged with.

You want to tell a story, but not just any story – you want to tell the niche client’s personal story.

You want to use descriptive and emotive words, and real examples of what the person might be thinking, living, experiencing and feeling. This portrays your understanding of them as a person and not just as a prospective client. This naturally brings a flavour of empathy, compassion, understanding and relatability to your words and messages.

Imagine how confident you’d feel knowing you had something that engaged people at their very heart and soul!

Brand Laddering

So how do you work out how to describe what you do in a more emotive way?

Brand laddering is one exercise you can do to bring more emotive language into your marketing copy, and to make it more about the person than about your profession. I will talk about that in the next episode, but the premise is that it helps you peel off the why’s behind the service.

It helps you to unpack the mental and emotional process your potential client goes through as they are becoming engaged to buy.

It works just like our very own coaching process of exploring the whys. As coaches, we explore a client’s challenge and desired solution with them by asking several why-type questions to uncover their values, motivators and drivers.

More in the next episode! But first, let’s back up a step and talk about a four-step process to help you improve the way you describe your services to potential clients.

How to Better-Attract Paying Clients

If you want to get better at attracting paying clients, you will need to switch out of advocacy marketing and into niche marketing.

Here are four steps to better-explain how you work, and more easily engage paying clients.

  1. Conduct LIVE market research interviews with your niche to hear what they are emotional about, and to hear the words they use to describe their problem, desired results and bigger why outcomes.
  2. Create a brand ladder that captures the key words from these interviews, moving beyond the ‘features’ of what you do and into the emotional and transformational benefits.

3. Use this to craft a value proposition that clearly explains the tangible emotional benefits that your niche client wants.

4. Ask some of your niche clients for feedback on the value proposition. Why do they like it or why not? What does it mean to them? What would be more appealing, if anything?

Engaging people in your niche for feedback is ALWAYS, 100%, the best way to get your marketing copy, your explanation of what you do, and any descriptions of your services, spot on.

If in doubt – contact a business or marketing coach for support!

Summary

Today we talked about what coaches typically do wrong when describing what they do as a profession, and why it doesn’t work.

We compared the more factual, profession-based ‘advocacy’ approach to marketing, versus the more emotive, client-focused niche marketing approach.

Your ability to attract clients is all about appealing to their emotions. If you want to attract more paying clients, try following my four-step process:

  1. Conduct market research interviews with your niche
  2. Create a brand ladder to draw out the more emotional, why-based words
  3. Develop a value proposition using more emotive, client-focused words
  4. Practice it on your niche before sharing your insights in your marketing!

Ready to get clarity on your pathway to success?

Understanding who you are and what you need will allow your business to thrive! If you’re truly ready to break old habits and get out of the rut I encourage you to check out the Habitology membership.

Learn more here:

Learn More

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E#201 Alcohol and Mental Health

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Alcohol and Mental Health

Let’s face it – Australia has a drinking culture, which started in colonial times when convicts were partially paid with rum. (1, 2) 

Most of us associate drinking alcohol with relaxing, celebrating, sports and ‘fitting in’ with social norms. We might feel that alcohol helps us cope better with stress and anxiety, but is alcohol good for mental health? 

In this episode, I’ll talk about 
* How We Think Alcohol Helps
* The Physical and Mental Effects of Alcohol
* Longer-Term Impacts of Alcohol Use and Misuse
* Who is Most at Risk of Alcohol-Related Health Issues?
* What We Can Do

How We Think Alcohol Helps 

Alcohol is a depressant, which means that drinking alcohol can make you feel calmer and more relaxed. Some people say it helps them manage anxiety in social situations. Others use alcohol to ‘blunt’ their heightened emotions at the end of a stressful day, or to fall asleep easier. 

It’s tempting to think that alcohol is helpful, but is it really? 

The Physical and Mental Effects of Alcohol 

While you might feel that alcohol is relaxing you, it’s doing the opposite. There is overwhelming research on the effects of alcohol on mental health and physical health – and the news isn’t good.  

A 2021 study shows that binge drinking increases muscle sympathetic nerve activity (fight or flight response), reduces rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, reduces sleep quality overall and increases morning-after blood pressure and heart rate. (3)  

In other words, alcohol intake in the evening causes ‘stress’ while you’re sleeping. For example, you might think you fall asleep easily after a few drinks, but then you wake up between 1am and 3am and can’t get back to sleep, or you have ‘night sweats.’ 

As Head of Growth at Philia Labs,’ I’ve certainly seen these sorts of results in our 2022 data collection studies, in participants who consumed alcohol. Even though they felt more relaxed after drinking, their heart rates were higher and they had a lower amount of deep sleep on the nights they consumed alcohol. 

Adding insult to injury, this overnight stress disrupts your body’s natural rest and recovery process that occurs during sleep. These processes include physical recovery, blood sugar regulation, brain detoxification, immune system regulation, learning and emotional processing, and memory consolidation. 

And depending on your intake, you might wake up to the symptoms of drinking too much alcohol. 

These include elevated heart rate and blood pressure, sweating, irritability, mood swings, lower energy levels, reduced memory, poor focus and impaired work performance.  

In other words, you’re starting the next day ‘behind the 8-ball’ in a ‘fight or flight’ state.  

Longer-Term Impacts of Alcohol Use and Misuse 

Research shows that alcohol use and misuse accounts for 3.3 million deaths each year (6% of deaths worldwide) related to accidents, violence, cardiovascular disease, cancer and other diseases. (4, 5) 

We also know that mental health tends to have a reciprocal relationship with alcohol. That is, people who are dependent on alcohol are more likely to have mental health issues, and people with mental health issues may drink to self-medicate. (4)  

This was reinforced in a cross-sectional study of alcohol intake and mental health during COVID-19 lockdowns. The study found significant links between increased alcohol consumption and poor overall mental health, depressive symptoms and lower mental well-being. (6)  

The long-term mental health impacts can include increases in aggressive and/or risky behaviours, self-harm, anxiety and depression. (6, 7)  

Other risks of alcohol use include the increased chance of having an accident or injuring yourself or others, poorer job performance and negative effects on relationships. 

Who is Most at Risk of Alcohol-Related Health Issues? 

Certain groups of people may be more likely to drink, or drink more, and therefore be at greater risk of (physical and) mental health problems. Research on US populations (4) shows that:  

  • men are more likely to drink heavily or binge drink than women,  
  • Caucasians tend to drink more overall,  
  • people of higher socioeconomic status tend to drink more frequently, and  
  • lower socioeconomic groups tend to drink larger quantities of alcohol.  

Isolation is another risk factor for increased alcohol consumption and related mental health issues, particularly for some age groups.  

In 2021, a study of alcohol consumption during COVID-19 lockdown (self-isolation) in the UK showed that increased alcohol consumption was most prevalent in 18–34-year-old people compared with older age groups, and that poorer mental health was significantly related to increased alcohol intake (versus no increase during the study). (6) 

Certain work sectors are also in the higher risk category, such as remote mine sites. The fly-in, fly-out (FIFO) workforce experiences stressors including isolation, extreme environments and shift work disorder. Levels of psychological distress are significantly higher compared to the general population (8). Drinking is also part of the mining culture. Recent studies in the FIFO workforce in Australia indicate that the odds of risky and harmful alcohol use are much higher in certain groups (8, 9, 10): 

  • males,  
  • younger workers,  
  • smokers,  
  • people working primarily for higher income, 
  • working in underground mining (vs open cut) 
  • those with previous alcohol and other drug problems  
  • those who report psychological distress, and  
  • those with a history of anxiety and/or depression. 

Advertising, marketing and cultural norms (including in the workplace) all play a role in drinking habits, as do lack of support and exposure to stressors. 

What Can We Do? 

Alcohol intake is a cultural norm in many countries, and it is linked with a complex array of individual and societal factors. There are several ways we can reduce the impacts of alcohol on health and mental health.  

Firstly, education on the risks of drinking and binge drinking is important. Knowing the recommended drinking guidelines is a good starting point to work out whether you have risky drinking behaviour. You can use these yourself or share them with others. 

Secondly, being self-aware of your drinking habits and after-effects is important for identifying your own risky behaviours and it might help you feel motivated to change your habits or get some support to do so. 

There are various levels of support available. Alcoholics Anonymous is one association, but also, several health and wellness coaches offer support and behaviour change for grey-area drinkers – those people who aren’t alcoholics but are concerned about their drinking habits. Sarah Rusbatch in WA is a leader in this area and has a free community. You can also ask a trusted friend, family, mentor or colleague for support.  

Workplace culture is another place that can support positive change. A lot of workplaces support, condone or endorse a drinking culture that can be uncomfortable and create pressure on people who don’t want to drink.  

As an individual, you can approach your HR department to discuss initiatives, find ambassadors and request support to change the workplace culture. As a business owner, you can review employee behaviour and social drinking norms to look for opportunities to better support your organisation. 

Whatever you do, by drinking less, you will feel better for it, you will look better, and you will reduce your risks of chronic and acute disease. 

Summary 

The message is clear – drinking alcohol can seem to have benefits in certain situations, but the reality is, it’s putting stress on your body that can impact your physical and mental health.  

There can be flow-on effects to your work performance, career opportunities, relationships, and life satisfaction. 

Self-awareness is always the starting point for change, so by understanding the guidelines and reflecting honestly on your own drinking habits, you are better equipped to know whether you need help, and what sort of help you might need to make some positive and more healthful changes. 

 

  1. VicHealth. Exploring the Role of Alcohol in Victorians’ Lives. Website accessed 16.6.22 
  2. Moodie, Prof. R. 2013. A Brief History of Alcohol Consumption in Australia. The Conversation Website, accessed 16.6.22. 
  3. Greenlund, I.M. et al. 2021. Morning sympathetic activity after evening binge alcohol consumption. Am. J. Phys Heart Circ Phys 310(1), H305-H315. 
  4. Sunhinaraset, M. 2016. Social and Cultural Contexts of Alcohol Use. Alcohol Res 2016; 38(1); 35-40. 
  5. Alcohol and Drug Foundation, 2021. Every alcoholic drink increases your risk of cancer. Website accessed 16.6.22. 
  6. Jacob, Louis, et al. Alcohol Use and Mental Health during Covid-19 Lockdown: A Cross-Sectional Study in a Sample of UK Adults. Drug and Alcohol Dependence, vol. 219, 2021, pp. 108488–108488., doi:10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2020.108488. 
  7. Headspace. How does alcohol affect mental health? Headspace website accessed 16.6.22. 
  8. James, Carole et al. Correlates of psychological distress among workers in the mining industry in remote Australia: Evidence from a multi-site cross-sectional survey. PloS one vol. 13,12 e0209377. 20 Dec. 2018, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0209377 
  9. James, Carole L., et al. Alcohol Consumption in the Australian Mining Industry: The Role of Workplace, Social, and Individual Factors.  Workplace Health & Safety, vol. 69, no. 9, Sept. 2021, pp. 423–434, doi:10.1177/21650799211005768. 
  10. James, Carole et al. Factors associated with patterns of psychological distress, alcohol use and social network among Australian mineworkers. Australian and New Zealand journal of public health vol. 44,5 (2020): 390-396. doi:10.1111/1753-6405.13037 
  11. Alcohol and Drug Foundation Australia. Australian Alcohol Guidelines. Website accessed 5.7.22. 
  12. Alcoholics Anonymous. Zoom Meeting attendance information. Website accessed 5.7.22. 
  13. Sarah Rusbatch – Grey Area Drinking Coach. Website accessed 5.7.22. 

Ready to get clarity on your pathway to success?

Understanding who you are and what you need will allow your business to thrive! If you’re truly ready to break old habits and get out of the rut I encourage you to check out the Habitology membership.

Learn more here:

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E#200 How to Coach Around Nutrition and Eating Habits

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How to Coach Around Nutrition and Eating Habits

I was recently asked, ‘How do you coach around nutrition and eating habits without being an expert’? Today I’ll illustrate a few ways to do this with some examples. 

When Clients Ask You What They Should Eat 

Let’s say a client comes to you and wants to be told what to eat, and whether she should follow a diet plan. 

In this episode, I’ll talk about 
* When Clients Ask You What They Should Eat
* How to Discuss Portion Sizes
* Coaching for Weight Loss

A good starting point is to ask what the client already knows and acknowledge why that matters to them – what is behind this change in eating and how will that impact their life?  Their answers may reveal some important values that will help them to create a compelling vision. 

Next, you would explore what they know already about healthy eating. Most clients have a reasonable amount of knowledge – just not how to fit it into their busy lives. But if your client doesn’t know much, you might point them to relevant guidelines, or refer them to a professional who is qualified to help.  

The most important thing is that you are not here to educate clients or tell them what to do. Instead, your role is to draw out what your client knows and help them make sense of it, identify any knowledge gaps that require a referral, and otherwise help them to create safe and effective goals to achieve their vision. 

How to Discuss Portion Sizes 

Let’s say your client isn’t clear about portion sizes or serving sizes but sees this as an important part of eating well. How do you tackle that? 

Firstly, there are published guidelines on these aspects that you can share with a client. The way to introduce them is to ask permission – would you be interested in looking at the guidelines on portion sizes and serving sizes? 

In sharing the information, you can ask the client questions that will raise their self-awareness. These might include questions like: 

  • How much of this did you already know? 
  • What surprised you? 
  • What have you learned? 
  • How might you use this information? 
  • What would you like to experiment with? 

There is much to be learnt about healthy eating and there is also a lot of misinformation out there.  Your job is to support your clients as they consider changes they may make, provide well-documented information when required and step in if they are planning to set goals that are unsafe in any way. 

Coaching For Weight Loss 

People might want to change their eating habits and diets for many reasons including to reduce arthritis or other inflammatory conditions, to lower blood pressure, or address a chronic illness like type 2 diabetes or an autoimmune condition, or to boost their energy.  

But a lot of clients who want to change their eating habits are concerned about weight loss, either as a stand-alone concern, or coupled with one of the other aspects.  

So how do you have conversations about plateaus, popular diet trends and supplements? 

The starting point is always about finding out what the client knows already, and what their perception is about this area. 

What do they know about this diet trend or supplement, its safety and efficacy?  

Or in the case of a plateau, what do they know about energy balance? 

What is attractive about the solution they’ve found? 

And what’s behind that? 

Often clients are drawn toward things that seem to offer a quick solution to their challenges. Unpacking conversations can reveal underlying fears, concerns or motivators, and awareness of these can lead a client to reasonably assess whether their thought processes are helpful. 

If there are any remaining concerns or desires to try certain approaches, you can easily refer a client to a doctor or dietician for more specific advice. 

But often, you get the chance to turn the conversation back toward the longer-term goals, the sustainable habits they are doing, how they feel about the habits, and also, basic principles about mindful eating and tuning into natural hunger and satiety signals. 

You may invite a client to watch their thoughts and/or track their responses to food, any ‘rules’ they set around eating, how they feel in social eating settings, what thoughts they are having about other people’s results etc. In doing this self-reflection, the client can learn the valuable skill of critical thinking to help them work out for themselves if they have legitimate concerns or not. 

A little information and some self-reflection can be used to help your clients develop the skill of understanding what their bodies are telling them so that they can self-regulate their behaviour more easily. 

Two key drivers of unhealthy eating habits and weight concerns are stress, and faulty thinking patterns that lead to unhelpful feelings and beliefs. In that sense, while the initial work in weight loss coaching is around more superficial topics like what to eat and how to get organised, the deeper work for lasting change is around the individual’s ability to set boundaries, manage their lives and their emotions.  

Summary 

Today I shared three examples of how to coach around nutrition. We covered: 

  1. What to do if a client wants to be told what to eat 
  2. How to coach around portion sizes, and 
  3. Coaching for weight loss including popular diets, supplements and other people’s success. 

We’ve only just skimmed the surface of weight loss coaching, but these are three common questions that I have been asked by coaches who want to coach clients around nutrition and eating habits. 

I hope this episode was useful. Please subscribe to my podcast on iTunes and I’d appreciate your rating and feedback if you are enjoying this! 

Ready to get clarity on your pathway to success?

Understanding who you are and what you need will allow your business to thrive! If you’re truly ready to break old habits and get out of the rut I encourage you to check out the Habitology membership.

Learn more here:

Learn More

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E#192 How to Network Effectively at Events

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How to Network Effectively at Events

I have a slew of networking events coming up and I am mapping out my business and marketing goals for these events so I can network effectively and make the most of my time there. Today I’ll take you under the hood and share my top tips for effective networking at events.

If you’re like most people you might attend networking events, listen to the speakers or meet a few people, swap a few business cards and then go home. You might spend a lot of money or time to get there, for little or no return.

In this episode, I’ll talk about 
* Finding relevant events
* Starting with the Why – and Clear Goals
* Speakers and Attendees
* Breaking the Ice and Connecting
* How to follow up

I want to walk you through a process to make the most of any networking events that you attend so that you do more than just show up – you learn how best to network effectively, exchange value and gain important insights that will help you grow personally and/or professionally.

Finding Relevant Events

It’s one thing to decide that you’ll attend events, but I suggest that you focus on finding truly relevant events that are going to give you the most impact on your business.

For example, it might be tempting to attend events that are short, cheap or purely online, when it actually might be better for you to attend live events or to pay more money for bigger or better events that will progress your business.

You’d be looking for events that interest you, are related to your specialty, and might link you with potential clients and/or referral partners. The idea is to maximise your exposure to quality people and good opportunities for collaboration, introduction to clients or professional visibility and reputation.

Most industries have lists of events that occur throughout the year. For example in coaching, you can find relevant events in a few different ways:

  • Search online for ‘coaching conferences 2022’,
  • Join a newsletter list of a coaching organisation that regularly hosts events e.g. HCANZA, ICF, Institute of Coaching, so you can see what’s coming up and find something relevant.
  • find events in your niche area that might attract niche clients or collaborative businesses. o Event Brite is a good place to start o LinkedIn Events is another great option.

Start With the Why – and Clear Goals

There’s generally at least one good reason why you decide to attend a particular event.

Rather than just showing up to the event ‘because it’s interesting’ like a lot of people do, I encourage you to unpack all the whys for attending in advance. Doing this might help you to identify some marketing or other opportunities to make the most of your time at the event, which enables you to set some really clear goals for the event.

For example, I am presenting at or attending three events soon

  • The Share Your Brilliance Online Summit (May 23 – 27) (Free tickets here!)
  • The Digital Health Festival in Melbourne (May 31 – June 1), and
  • The HCANZA Coaching Conference on the Gold Coast (June 2 – 3).

I have mapped out a why for each of these events so that I make the most of my attendance.

For example, I have three marketing goals for the Digital Health Festival:

  1. To connect with like-minded people who are working to advance remote monitoring in mental health, so I can stay abreast of cutting-edge knowledge that might help the company I work for (Philia Labs),
  2. To meet some important networking contacts who can refer potential partners or investors, or who can provide support to Philia Labs, and
  3. To secure a certain number of appointments for demonstrations of PhiliaLabs’ product.

Also, I have three goals for the HCANZA conference (tickets here!):

  1. To inspire coaches in my presentation by explaining how to break ground and create an impact in your coaching businesses (with some great case studies)
  2. To meet network connections and potential collaborators on digital health and women’s health projects I’m working on, and
  3. To engage with my students and clients who I have only ever met online, catch up on their business progress and identify how I can best support them or connect them with opportunities.

For each event, I have worked out which people I want to talk to and how many follow up appointments I’d like to book.

Having these more specific targets means that I can show up and network purposefully and professionally and achieve some goals that will progress my business activities and growth.

Speakers and Attendees

As you’ve heard with my goals, it’s great to identify both speakers and potential attendees at an event you will be attending.

For example, at Share Your Brilliance Summit, I identified some wonderful speakers who could help me or my clients with different specialist areas of business.

At the Digital Health Festival in Melbourne, there are definitely speakers I want to talk to, but I also know that potential clients, competitors or collaborators might be wanting to see those same speakers. That means I’ll be primed to network with the audience at some of those presentations.

Breaking the Ice and Connecting

It’s one thing to attend an event and identify people you want to meet – but on the day, you need to be clear and confident about how you will approach them! It’s great to think about some interesting ice-breakers to start conversations and to practice your elevator pitch, so you feel ready and confident with engaging.

Check out the link in the episode notes.

Once you get past that first hurdle of breaking the ice, then you’re ready for connection – simply put your coaching hat on and ask, listen and reflect.

See if you can work out the person’s needs, wants, gaps in knowledge, common ground or synergies.

And if they seem like someone that you’d like to build a professional relationship with – invite them to follow up.

Those people would probably fall into one of six categories:

  • Ambassadors for your business
  • Influencers to help you gain visibility,
  • Referrers (to clients or opportunities)
  • Collaborators or partners
  • Leads (potential customers), or
  • Prospects (engaged and interested in buying).

It’s great to keep notes of the people you like (perhaps on your phone) – add their name and perhaps their website, phone number and also the category you’d assign them to.

Following Up

You’d probably be looking to create follow-up situations in one of several ways.

At a live event, swapping business cards is a great way to follow up – but take it one step further and agree on a date for a ‘coffee catch up’ online or in person.

The way you decide to connect would depend on the type of category that person falls into

For example, if you met an ambassador who wanted to showcase you or an influencer who wanted to mention you, then following them on social media and sending a private message would be one way to stay connected to them. You might also share some of their posts.

For referrers and collaborators, you might organise a Zoom meeting or a coffee date so you could talk about how you could help each other out.

For leads and prospects, you might invite them to follow you, and you might email them an article or podcast you created that might be interesting and valuable to them. Following that, you could organise a Zoom meeting or a coffee date to follow up.

Summary

As you can see, there’s more to events than just booking one and attending.

They present an opportunity to create connections that can help you to grow and build your business.

As we discussed, it’s about finding relevant events that give you the best opportunities first, then working on your why, your goals, who is attending, and how you will connect and follow up.

Ready to get clarity on your pathway to success?

Understanding who you are and what you need will allow your business to thrive! If you’re truly ready to break old habits and get out of the rut I encourage you to check out the Habitology membership.

Learn more here:

Learn More

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E#191 Share Your Brilliance!

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Share Your Brilliance!

Today I want to talk to you about sharing your brilliance. After all, you are an amazing practitioner who wants to change the world, and therefore, you need to be able to let people know how you do this, and then, do it well. 

I am talking through the lens of a summit I’m speaking at shortly and will share some tips and insights to help you get your brilliance into the world!   

In the show notes, I’m sharing a link to your FREE ticket to the Share Your Brilliance Summit, being held from May 23 – 27, 2022. 

In this episode, I’ll talk about 
* What Sharing Your Brilliance is All About
* What Gets In the Way of Your Brilliance?
* The FREE Share Your Brilliance Summit
* Three Steps to Share Your Brilliance

What is “Sharing Your Brilliance” All About? 

Brilliance means splendour or magnificence. And in a business context, I think that sharing your brilliance is about bringing your greatness, your zone of genius and your special skills and talents into the world. 

Why does this matter? 

Because as an authentic person who is in the business of helping and supporting others, you are in this world to make a difference, to have an impact, to help others to overcome their fears, challenges and find the joy and fulfilment they deserve. 

Further, if you have greatness and the power to help others, it would be an absolute travesty if you DIDN’T share your brilliance. 

Everyone would be missing out on the impact of your superpowers! 

What Gets in the Way of Your Brilliance? 

I think you and I both know the answer – it’s the stuff between your ears. Your fear, your lack of confidence, your scattered thoughts, your impostor syndrome. 

Feeling not good enough. 

Not knowing where to start. 

And when you say those sorts of things to yourself repeatedly, they become beliefs. This is how beliefs are formed! 

Now, I know how confusing business can be – especially if you are running an online business.  

You’re on the journey of building a client base and getting things right in your business. But if you have any sort of impostor syndrome or self-doubt, there are a billion people out there trying to sell you the magic solution. 

With SO much noise and information out there, so many people to compare yourself with, and so many shiny objects….it can lead you away from your integrity. 

It can be a challenge to work out how to get started and succeed in sharing your brilliance, and, to find business strategies that suit multi-passionate, intuitive types like us. 

The Share Your Brilliance Summit 

That’s why I’m so excited to tell you about the Share Your Brilliance summit from May 23 – 27!  

Most importantly, this event is totally, 100% FREE. No cost. 

For 5 days, May 23 to 27, Natasha Berta of Connected Marketing is bringing you presentations from 25+ heart-led business owners who have found ways to grow their businesses without selling out on their souls. You’ll hear about everything from mindset, sustainable business foundations, content creation + creativity, your offer, how to reach more people, and more.  

It features 25+ amazing presenters who are ready to teach and mentor you on how to book more sessions and have greater clarity about your value. 

Let’s face it, these things are the secret sauce for building a purposeful, profitable business. Communicating your value and booking more sessions with paying clients. 

The goal for this summit is different than most. It’s going to be more like an online retreat than a summit with morning movement sessions, daytime learning sessions and wrapping up each day with sound healing to integrate it all.  

Plus, there is a theme for each day tailored to people in business who are just like you – waiting and wanting to share YOUR brilliance.  

For example, I am going to be speaking at the summit, on How to Create a Client Centric Program that Sells. 

I am so excited to be featured alongside some pretty big names in business, including: 

  • George Kao 
  • Danielle Gardner 
  • Karen Humphries 
  • Lucine Eusani 
  • Bridget Avgoustakis 
  • Claire Kerslake 
  • Aesha Kennedy  
  • Chantal Khoury 
  • And a whole lot more! 

 There’s a free option and an affordable VIP pass with tons of goodies.  

Each presentation will be available to you for 24 hours, but you can also get lifetime access (along with some other amazing bonuses) by grabbing the VIP All-Access Pass. 

 There’s more I’d love to tell you about this summit, but I’ll let you check out all the details for yourself – and you can grab a free ticket for the Share Your Brilliance Summit using this link! 

How You Can Share Your Brilliance  

So, how do you share your brilliance? 

Here are some ideas to get started. 

Firstly, clarify the value of working with you and the service you offer. 

  1. Write down all the skills and strengths you have – think about the things that come EASILY to you but are hard for others to do. 
  2. Make a list of your top three strongest values. What drives you, what makes you passionate about your work? 
  3. Write down three important reasons why your work is so meaningful. If you can do this work, what sorts of impact or result does it have?

Secondly, define the turning point that causes people to reach out for help. 

  1. What is the moment of realisation that they need to change? Where are they, what is the situation? 
  2. If you’ve been on the same journey, what was YOUR turning point? 
  3. What is the pain that becomes so big, that the person reaches out for help? 
  4. What is the result they know they desperately want? 

Finally, work out who your target audience is, and where they might be. 

  1. Think about the people that light you up, who ‘get you’, and who you love to be around. What kind of people are they? 
  2. The saying goes that your niche is the version of you from 5 years ago. What kind of person are you? 
  3. Think about where you like to hang out and find out about or buy services in your area. Where would you go, and what would your requirements for buying be – would you need to follow someone on LinkedIn for a while before speaking to them, or would you listen to their podcast, or something else? 

These three sets of questions help you to define your value, your people, what they need help with, and where to find them. Feel free to write out your own set of questions in these areas to help you get clarity. 

Also, go back to my previous episode 186 Three Proven Marketing Roadmaps for Coaches to help you get clarity on using your communication strengths to build your audience. 

Summary 

Today I talked about what sharing your brilliance is, and some of the things that get in the way of that. I mentioned a totally FREE summit in May 2022, with over 25 experienced speakers to help you learn how to share your brilliance. A link to your free ticket is in the show notes.  

Finally, I walked you through a three-step process to share your brilliance. What are you waiting for? Get out there and share your greatness with the world. I dare you! 

Ready to get clarity on your pathway to success?

Understanding who you are and what you need will allow your business to thrive! If you’re truly ready to break old habits and get out of the rut I encourage you to check out the Habitology membership.

Learn more here:

Learn More

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E#190 Fear Vs Faith-Based Business

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Fear Vs Faith-Based Business

Today I want to talk to you about running your business from a position of fear versus a position of faith. This is such an important conversation to have. If you’re operating from a place of fear, it can really hurt your business. But if you can switch that and operate from a position of faith that you’ll succeed, of optimism, and hope, then it’s a totally different ball game. 

If you’re a new coach, if you have just graduated with your qualification, and you are getting ready to start your coaching business or practice, it’s a really exciting time. You have so many opportunities ahead of you!  

In this episode, I’ll talk about 
* What a fear-based business looks like
* Flipping the Switch
* What a faith-based business looks like

You have so much enthusiasm for making a difference in the world!  

But for a lot of people starting out as a coach in business, there is this challenge around self-confidence self-worth and self-value. 

Impostor syndrome is incredibly common.  

And that’s why today I want to talk about the impact of starting your coaching business from a position of fear, versus starting your coaching business from a position of faith.  

I want to give you some practical tips and tools to help you come from a better place so that you can build your coaching business easily more quickly and be more successful. 

What a Fear-Based Business Looks Like 

I want to start here so that you can see the impact of having this fear-based mindset on both your ability as a coach, and on your business.  

From a business perspective, a fear-based approach reduces your ability to make money, attract clients, and get ahead.  

A fear-based mentality is a little bit like a circular reference. It might start with impostor syndrome – who am I to coach? I’ve never run a business before – how will I ever succeed? 

You might be comparing yourself to others who have spent 10 years of blood, sweat and tears to build their business. 

And as a result, you feel like you won’t get things right, or you’ll fail or you won’t be able to find enough clients, or you won’t be good enough. 

That puts you into this repeating cycle of not taking action and worrying about the action that you do take – giving your brain the proof it needs that you’re not good enough. 

There is a confounding factor in this cycle that I want to alert you to. 

Here is a pro tip – If you start working with practice or paid clients who are ready, willing and able to change – even desperate to change – chances are they will love coaching with you and get great results. 

A lot of coaches starting out with this fear-based mentality want to find anyone with a pulse!! 

But, if the client is not ready, willing and able, they’ll probably be resistant, disinterested, unfocused and uncommitted.  

The kicker is that YOU will feel like a failure, but it’s actually probably not you! 

See how this fear-based ‘I need any clients I can get!’ mentality is hurting your self-value and self-efficacy – and your business?  

The fear-based approach sets you up to start looking for – and finding – evidence of failure. In other words, if focus on your fear of failing, then all you will see is the evidence that this is true.  

How does this kind of mindset affect your ability to start marketing your business?  

What happens to your ability to proactively go out to meet new people, talk about what you do with confidence, or become a specialist in a particular niche area if your head is full of this negative stuff? 

I know that when I started my own coaching business, even though I had been incredibly successful in other businesses, I had that same mindset.  

I kept asking myself questions like, where will I find clients, what if they don’t get very good results, what if I can’t make a living out of this, and what if I’m no good at this, how would I ever know? 

What happened is that I started to get more and more agitated and wound up about not succeeding, and I started to doubt myself and feel threatened and judged by everybody around me who knew what I was trying to do. 

I felt disheartened. For the most part, what was going on for me was that I didn’t have a specific enough niche, so people didn’t understand my messaging, and I wasn’t going to the right places therefore to find the people who I wanted to work with. 

If this sounds like you, then stick with me because now I’m going to talk about flipping the switch and having more faith in yourself, and having a more positive attitude to your business so that you can start attracting clients more easily and becoming a better coach more quickly, and make more money. 

Flipping the Switch 

A turning point for me was doing some research to find out that there was a need and want in my community. Identifying a need isn’t enough. After all, lots of people need help, but not many are ready, willing, and able to seek and pay for help. So I had to find those people who were motivated to change and were willing to pay to get my help.  

As soon as I did this, everything changed. And it’s a story I have seen time and time again with other coaches who have been successful.  

As soon as they committed to one thing that they knew people were willing to pay for, everything changed. 

If you do that, you create an upward spiral of thinking and acting positively – and this is how that can play out for you. 

My second pro tip for this episode is to create a little roadmap of how to beat the imposter and get started. Here’s how. 

First of all, find some practice clients to work with who REALLY want to change and are ready to do so.  

Then, invite interest to be part of a pilot program, which is a safe, confidential environment for you to be imperfect, for them not to expect the world, and to get their honest feedback without too many expectations upfront.  

Be vulnerable and let them know it is a test for both of you and that their opinion and feedback will really help you to help others in exactly the right way. 

If you get that combination right – the right people and a test environment – then invariably those first pilot clients will stick with your program and finish it, and then, they will be more likely to succeed. 

And THEN, they will refer others to you! 

Imagine how you would feel having coached a handful of people who really wanted to change, and then were able to succeed and feel and look amazing. 

What would your mind be telling you in that situation?  

Would it be telling you that you were a failure or that you weren’t any good or that your results weren’t worth the money or anything like that? 

Of course not. And that’s the whole point.  

Once you start working with the right people and getting some initial results and focusing on them rather than your fears and inadequacies – a totally different region of your brain lights up. 

It’s the region associated with positive emotions, optimism, and hope.  

What a Faith-based Business Looks Like 

For me when I started my coaching business, as soon as I got those clients that were successful initially, I started wondering where can I find more of those people, how can I share those wonderful results, and how can I help those people to continue to succeed. 

The initial results that my first successful clients got totally shifted the language in my head. And instead of focusing on myself and my supposed shortcomings, I started to focus on the possibilities of change in my business. 

And pretty soon, most of my language was very different.  

Instead of asking why can’t I? I started asking how can I.

I had the confidence that what I was doing was working. And I started to look for more opportunities. Everything just unfolded as it was meant to because I was moving forward in my mind.  

I was believing in what was possible based on some initial results. And I was totally focused on pursuing opportunities knowing that I had something of value to offer, rather than being frightened of speaking to anybody in case I couldn’t figure out the words to describe what I was doing or in case I couldn’t prove my results. 

This is such an important episode. It takes courage and a bit of confidence to take those first steps into your profession, once you get those couple of important wins on the board it gives you the confidence to gain momentum to keep going and getting traction and continue taking action in the right direction. 

Your brain will switch from how will I ever do it, to where do I go next. 

Of course, you will probably need support to face and work on your fears, and probably your own personal and/or business coach. 

But please know this – as Henry Ford said – If you think you can, or you think you can’t, you’re probably right. 

Summary 

Today I covered the difference between a fear-based versus a faith-based coaching business. 

One involves getting bogged down in everything you can’t possibly do or succeed in and keeps you stuck there. And unless things change, you’ll probably fail in your business and as a coach. 

But, if you commit to a more faith-based approach, where you develop faith in your method and in your ability to succeed, and you put your clients first and find the right people, it will flick the switch in your brain and reveal a positive path of traction, momentum and success. 

Today, I walked you through a simple plan to develop a faith-based coaching business. 

What are you waiting for? Go out and get started.  

Ready to get clarity on your pathway to success?

Understanding who you are and what you need will allow your business to thrive! If you’re truly ready to break old habits and get out of the rut I encourage you to check out the Habitology membership.

Learn more here:

Learn More