confidence - Melanie White Inspiration Coach

Posted on June 26, 2023November 17, 2023 by Melanie White

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

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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Posted on April 24, 2023October 26, 2023 by Melanie White

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?

Learn more here:

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Posted on November 21, 2022July 8, 2023 by Melanie White

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?

Learn more here:

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Posted on August 8, 2022July 31, 2023 by Melanie White

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.

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.
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:

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

Ready to get clarity on your pathway to success?

Learn more here:

Learn More

Posted on March 14, 2022August 14, 2023 by Melanie White

E#183 How to Invite People to Market Research Interviews

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How to Invite People to Market Research Interviews

Are you struggling to work out what your niche is, refine your messaging or get clarity on your offer? Market research interviews with your niche are the key to getting these things right. But it can be tricky to find people who are willing to talk to you, and you may feel uncomfortable about asking.

Let’s talk about some easy, non-threatening ways to ask people to do market research interviews with you, that they find hard to resist!

In this episode, I’ll talk about

* Why Market Research Matters

* A Simple Written Formula

* Two Other Methods That Work

Market research is a critical part of a creating a client-centric business. It is a process that allows you to understand your client and their specific problem in great depth.

You will get a sense of what they want and need, why that matters, their triggers for seeking help, the results they want, what they’ve tried before, and what stands in their way.

When you know these things, you will be able to build a business that people love, where they felt heard and understood, and that truly serves them.

As you can see, finding out what people want, why and how, is an absolutely essential part of your success.

Market research can involve searching online to understand buying habits and main trends but speaking to people in person gives you much more information.

You get to hear the emotion in their voice, see it in their body language, and truly understand what matters to them. Plus, you build rapport and trust in live interviews that might be lacking in a written message or survey.

Once you have done those interviews, you can look for common trends, common words used, and which parts of the conversation created heightened emotion or a more in depth response from the client. These are the more important parts that matter to the interviewee. They give you clues as to where to focus your programs, marketing content and support.

This episode came about because a student in my current Passion to Profit course asked how to approach people to take part in market research interviews, and it was such a great question I decided to podcast on it.

A Simple Written Formula

In response to that student, I created a ‘template’ – a simple written formula that could be used in an email, private message or post to invite people to do market research.

You can adapt this to suit your niche and needs. Here it goes.

Do you want to (stop/start doing something/solve problem), but aren’t sure where to start or are finding it hard to stick to?

I would love to have your help. I am a student Health and Wellness Coach with a passion for YOUR PASSION (which relates to the problem).

As part of the course, I have an assignment to speak with 5 people about their opinions, needs and challenges in these areas so I can more easily help people with these struggles to achieve (result).

If you are available for a private 20-minute phone conversation with me (no strings attached), please contact me before (date).

This is really short and sweet, and it contains elements that get people interested in helping you.

These elements are:

(1) Starting with a question engages interest.

This question qualifies the person who is not just struggling, but is ALSO ready, willing and able to get help. This screens out tyre kickers and time wasters, or people who are ambivalent. You want people in the preparation stage of change, so your question should speak to them specifically.

(2) People love helping and giving opinions. This is a key hook in this formula.

(3) Mentioning the results that they want gets them more interested.

(4) If it’s a short, private conversation, they might be more willing.

(5) Be clear that there are no strings attached and no pressure to buy anything. It’s just an assignment.

(6) The due date compels them to take action.

When you get this right, you get people engaged and ready, willing and able to help.

Two other methods that work

Beyond sending out an email, message or broadcast, there are other methods you can use to engage people in market research interviews.

(1) Make it a competition, with a prize

People love competitions, so if you offer a $20 gift voucher or similar, it might appeal to the right person.

To make sure they’re not just in it for the prize, you might want to be more specific about who the offer is targeting, and who it’s not for. In this case, it’s totally ok to list a few more criteria about the person you want to interview.

(2) Offer a freebie in exchange for their time

Some people might be attracted by a free coaching session or a tool or resource that will help them with the specific problem you are interviewing about.

Summary

Today we talked about how market research interviews give you so much valuable information and can help you to clarify, understand and market to your niche more effectively.

But it can be hard to engage people to help.

There are a few things that motivate people to do interviews like these – the idea that they are helping you, getting the chance to be heard by giving an opinion, or that they receive something of value in exchange for their time and insights.

I covered these things in a simple written formula that you can use to invite people to speak with you on various forums.

We also covered two other methods that involve an exchange of value:

Creating a competition, and
Offering something of value in exchange for the session.

In any case, your success in securing interviewees depends on you going out and speaking to people to proactively invite them to do you a favour.

Some people will say no, but some will say yes. Ultimately it is a numbers game.

Rather than focusing on the potential rejection, I encourage you to focus on the number of invitations you make, knowing that is actually your secret to success.

If you need help to prepare for market research interviews and analyse your results, book a good fit call to see if I can help you. My books are closed to personal clients until July, but I have space in my June Passion to Profit program if you need help to build the foundations of your business.

Ready to get clarity on your pathway to success?

Learn more here:

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Posted on October 4, 2021September 17, 2023 by Melanie White

E#160 Trusting yourself

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Trusting yourself

Trusting yourself as a key to developing self belief – and in creating a thriving business.

That’s because if you can’t follow through on your commitments, you will lack self-belief and self-confidence, and you will also be seen as unreliable or flaky by others.

How can you learn to trust yourself more and build more self belief, so that you can show up confidently and achieve what you want in the world?

That’s what I want to discuss today.

In this episode, I’ll talk about

* What Erodes Self Trust?

* What gets in the way of self-accountability?

* How do you find the motivation to do things?

What Erodes Self Trust?

I want to start by providing some backstory to this and outlining some basics on how the brain works and how self-trust can be formed or eroded.

Firstly, you will only believe something is true if your brain has enough evidence to prove it.

For example, if you have previously run and won (or come close to winning) a 5K race, then you probably trust that you can probably win a 5K race in future.

Here’s another example.

Let’s say you have previously gotten up at 7 a.m. each day and created a daily work plan and then completed all of the tasks in your plan. You didn’t need anyone telling you to do it; you were self-motivated and just got it done.

Because you’ve had that experience, you trust that you can do it again.

Where I’m heading with this is that if you’re willing and able to be accountable to yourself, and do the things you set out to do, at least for a little while, then you will start to build self trust.

But if you consistently start things and give up right away, or focus on what you haven’t followed through on, then your brain will notice the unfulfilled promises and tell you that you’re only capable of making empty promises and that you’re not to be trusted.

For example, if you keep meaning to walk each weekday after work but it doesn’t happen, maybe you never even start, then you will start doubting your ability to do things.

Or maybe, you just can’t be bothered!

Let’s talk about these two important pieces – self-accountability, and motivation – because they are so important for anybody who wants to achieve anything in the world.

What gets in the way of self-accountability?

Have you ever wondered why it can be so hard to be self accountable?

The first reason is that when you always put other things and other people first, you often end up doing that at your own expense, and therefore letting yourself down.

Or, if you have too much on your plate and so you constantly struggle to get everything done, you are also letting yourself down.

In either scenario – putting yourself last, or having unrealistic expectations – you are eroding trust in your ability to start, persist or complete something.

Let’s project this outwards for a moment and see how it feels to be on the receiving end.

Imagine that you were working with somebody who constantly let you down.

They would promise that they would do certain things by a certain time, or that they would have that report finished by Friday, yet they never ever met those deadlines.

How do you feel about that person? Would you trust them? Would you be relying on them for things? Would you believe in their capacity to do things?

When you don’t meet your own goals and expectations, you end up feeling that way about yourself, and also, you become known as someone who is unreliable or flaky – which erodes trust from your client base!

How do you find the motivation to do things?

There are three things to think about here.

Firstly, what looks like lack of motivation is often lack of energy.

That’s why people who are overloaded may find it hard to make decisions, feel overwhelmed and exhausted at the thought of doing anything new, or finding the mental energy to be consistent with habits.

Secondly, motivation may come after you have made a commitment to something.

Thirdly, motivation may come only when you know what to do and/or have taken the first steps.

So, if you have avoided making decisions or if you haven’t mapped a clear plan or pathway, you might get stuck in an avoidance pattern where you don’t take any action because you aren’t committed or clear on what to do.

Three things to build more trust

With all that said and done, hopefully you’re clear on why you might not trust yourself.

But if you want to flip this around and start trusting yourself, you need to stop doing those things and change your behaviour.

Here are three things that can help you to build trust.

(1.) Honesty

Firstly, be honest with yourself. If you want to be consistent with something but you don’t have the energy, time or commitment, be clear on that and park the idea.

Schedule a date to revisit it when you think you might have some more breathing space.

Secondly, be honest with others.

Honesty also extends to your responsibilities at work and in your relationships. If you don’t have the capacity to do something, or the bandwidth to contribute, say so.

Don’t burn yourself out for the sake of someone else’s happiness.

Don’t put yourself last and expect to muddle through it. It won’t work.

By being honest with yourself and others, you will be able to set boundaries that give you time, space and capacity to actually do things for yourself.

Then you will be able to do those things, stick with them, and build trust.

(2.) Decide what you will commit to

One afternoon when I was 14 years old, my best friend’s mother came into their kitchen and hung a rubber disc on the wall. It was the size of a dinner plate and it had writing on it.

“What IS that?” we said.

‘It’s a round tuit.” she replied. Sure enough, the disc had those words on it.

She said, “It’s a fun little reminder of all the things that I keep saying I will get around to doing one day.”

We all have things that we’d like to get around to doing one day, but as long as those things are hovering around in your brain without any action, there is a clear lack of commitment, importance and/or energy.

If you have a list of ‘round tuits’, I suggest you write them all down and look at the list with honest eyes and make some decisions.

Decide what you’ll never do and cross it off the list.

Decide which ones have merit and evaluate them. Visualise yourself actually doing them, and then, cross off any that aren’t important, realistic or likely.

Decide which ones you will do at some point, and diarise time slots to revisit each one and make a project plan.

When you have done this, your round tuits will become actionable projects that you feel honestly committed to.

One last thing on this. We all have to do things that we don’t like doing or find difficult, like writing a blog, or exercising.

But we may need to do those things in order to succeed, so we can choose to make those things more enjoyable somehow, focus on the outcome we’ll get, or find ways to make those tasks a bit easier.

When you are committed to doing something, this part is much easier!

Rather than doing something ‘when you feel like it’, you will have a not negotiable, automatic habit that you do no matter what.

(3.) Set specific goals and build in self-accountability.

Once you have done the first two steps, you can create specific, tangible goals which are based on clearly defined, realistic actions with their own unique days and time slots.

Be clear to identify whether you need training or support to take each action.

Make sure your confidence of achieving each one is at least a 9/10.

Troubleshoot in advance – plan away the roadblocks and create cues and support to help you succeed, like reminders to complete a plan, or developing a checklist you can use to complete the steps.

This is the secret to setting and actually achieving all of your goals, and building self-trust through self-accountability.

When you start doing this, you will start to feel good about yourself, and the outside world will see and feel it, too.

Summary

If you can’t follow through on your commitments to yourself, you will lack self-belief and self-confidence, and you will also be seen as unreliable or flaky by others.

That feels terrible.

It can be hard to commit to yourself if you normally put yourself last, overcommit, or otherwise lack motivation.

Luckily, you can change ALL of these things, by

Being honest with yourself and others about what you want to do and can do,
Making decisions on what you will and won’t commit to, and
Setting specific goals with built-in self-accountability.

The more you commit to and achieve your own objectives, the greater trust you will have in yourself, the more confident you will feel, and the more self belief you will have.

Ready to get clarity on your pathway to success?

Learn more here:

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Posted on May 24, 2021October 15, 2023 by Melanie White

E#141 How to Bust Your Decision Blocks

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How to Bust Your Decision Blocks

Includes offer to free P2P info session

If you’re struggling with making decisions in your business or your life and you’re feeling overwhelmed and procrastinating then this episode is for you. I want to help you to bust through your decision-making blocks and start taking action so that you can create the business in life that you want and do it your way.

In this episode, I’ll talk about

* Knowing and identifying decision blockers

* How research can help you bust these blockers

* How planning can help you overcome these blockers

Decision Blockers

I’m currently reading Lisa Sasevic’s book Meant for More. It’s a really inspiring book and I am totally aligned with what she says, she says what I think so eloquently. So I’d like to share some insights from her book in this episode.

Lisa talks about the concept of decision blockers. These are things that stop you from pursuing your dreams. These are the things that keep you stuck in the I’m not good enough or it’s not perfect headspace and prevents you from achieving what you wish for.

As Lisa rightly says, all transformation is preceded by a decision.

In this case, we are talking about daily and weekly decisions – the little things – as much as we are talking about the bigger decisions.

Reflect on that for a moment, like I did.

Maybe you’re trying to decide when to officially launch your business.

Maybe you’re trying to choose a colour and font set for your business branding.

Maybe you’re trying to finalise your website.

Maybe you’re finding it hard to commit to a niche.

Maybe you’re trying to decide which CRM to sign up for.

Maybe you’re trying to figure out whether you need a CRM, a certain email program, or a financial package.

Maybe you’re wondering whether you should do some specific training course to help you with your business, or hire a business coach.

Maybe you’re wondering if this coaching thing is really going to work and if you can commit to stepping away from your job so that you can transition into your business.

If you’re feeling overwhelmed just listening to this right now, that’s exactly what happens on a daily basis to a lot of people. You can see how this sort of thinking is not very helpful

Now, remember a time that you’ve made a decision about something, and how much clarity, confidence, and certainty about what you’re going to do next. Even if the thing is a little bit scary, at least you are clear and confident about the next steps.

So what gets in the way of making decisions like this and how do you get past that?

Here are some ways to bust common decision blockers, according to Lisa Sasevich and I.

(1.) Do “Just Enough” Research

Some people do a lot of research before they make a decision. And if you are researching all the time and then never making decisions it means that you are researching probably a bit much.

And while a little bit of research is great to help you make a decision, too much is going to tip you into decision blocking.

It’s easy to get stuck in analysis paralysis, especially if you are a questioner tenancy or if you lack self-confidence.

Here are two things you can do.

Lisa recommends that you tune into what you really want, hear the answer, and take action.

I recommend that you put a time limit on your research – a hard stop – so you contain it to equip yourself with essential information to make a decision.

(2.) Stop Seeking Opinions

We’re not talking about market research here. If you are constantly second-guessing what you are creating, wanting to put out there, or wanting to sign up for, then you can ask other people about their experience and opinion to a certain point, but once again it’s easy to go overboard with this.

Just remember that other people can give different perspectives but they have different values, goals, and resources.

So like doing research, it’s important that you put a hard stop on the amount of opinions you seek, and to seek opinions from people who you believe are wise and sound.

But ultimately, I recommend you use those perspectives to either strengthen your own opinion or reconsider it.

Here’s an example. Let’s say you’re thinking about getting a VA for your business. You aren’t quite sure if you want to spend the money or whether it will be worth it.

So you start asking other people what it’s like to have a VA and what they recommend. Because everybody will have a different VA and for different types of tasks and they will have totally different expectations of their VA compared to you.

Opinions can be a handy but subjective guide – take them as information and not gospel. As the expert in your own life, only you know what you want and need, why, and what your expectations are.

The same goes for software. People often ask me which CRM they should use, and which mail program they should use, and I just say do the free trials and see which one works best for you. That’s what I do because some of the most popular software doesn’t gel with me and my learning style, but you can only know that if you do a trial.

(3.) Trust Yourself

People are often researching and polling and getting opinions because they lack trust in themselves. Remember that you are your best investment. If you want to be light, respected, trusted, and invested in you and you need to do these things for yourself.

Start to trust yourself. Do you research, and get opinions, but make your own decisions for your own reasons.

Know that you will make mistakes along the way, but they can use this to tweak and fine-tune your decisions to get the best outcome anyway

Nobody else is you. Only you are you. Back yourself, and you will find that other people back you too.

As you can see, to make decisions easier on yourself, you are going to need to pull back from a few things, and let go of achieving. When you can tap into your courage you will bypass the overwhelm and you can try, and adjust as you go and learn.

It takes courage to do certain things in your life. And that’s really what we are talking about here.

(4.) Make a Plan

In my experience, every time you get decision fatigue and feel overwhelmed, you can get past that by making a plan.

Even if you plan to make a decision by a certain date, at least that is defining a hard stop.

Plan to spend a certain amount of time doing research. Plan to spend a certain amount of time asking for opinions if you need to do that too.

Plan where and when you might do a trial of some sort.

You will have your next steps mapped out clearly and will know exactly what to do and when. You can even ask for help to get those things done, once you have the steps written out and scheduled.

Summary

Today, I talked about how easy it is to feel overwhelmed and to become stuck with decisions or take action. I have discussed four ways to bust common decision blockers, according to Lisa Sasevich and myself.

Do just enough research
Stop seeking opinions
Trust yourself
Make a plan

For this to work, you’ll need to take action.

You might like to write out these four steps, as a reminder of what to do and how to do it. You might like to put in place a timeslot every week to make a plan for things that you need to make decisions on that week.

Also, you might like to create some sort of a decision matrix to help you make decisions and take action at the moment.

Ready to get clarity on your pathway to success?

Learn more here:

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Posted on May 3, 2021October 23, 2023 by Melanie White

E#138 Three Ways to Feel Confident In, and Connected With, Your Business

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Three Ways to Feel Confident In, and Connected With, Your Business

A lot of startup business owners lack clarity in the beginning, feel uncertain about their performance at times and start to question themselves. And the same can be true for seasoned business owners!

I want to share three ways to feel confident in, and connected with your business.

In this episode, I’ll talk about

* Spinning Your Wheels? – Get the traction that you need to head in the right direction

* Ground truth your thoughts – Observe and check for accuracy

* Be of service – Flip the switch towards your success

Spinning Your Wheels?

Have you ever felt like you’re spinning your wheels in your business and not really getting traction, not really going where you want to go, and not sure if you’re heading in the right direction?

I felt like this at times for sure, as have many of my clients.

You can tell you’re in this state because you’re asking yourself things like,

“Am I doing things the right way?”

“How can I get more customers?”

“Am I doing a good job at giving people what they want?”

“Why is (other person) doing so well, when I’m still struggling?”

I’m sure you can hear the lack of clarity and confidence in these types of questions.

Having coached many clients around this, I know that when you feel like this it might mean you’ve been distracted from your goals, have become disconnected from your vision, or have lost confidence in yourself and you are questioning your focus.

Now think a little deeper. What do these sorts of thinking patterns tell you?

Simply, you’re spending too much time in your head, and not enough time in real life collecting evidence and celebrating successes.

Does that resonate?

That’s why this discussion is so important. If you’re too much in your head, then you need to do something to ground yourself and get back on track.

And the best way to ground yourself is with a bunch of FACTS.

If you start to pursue facts instead of fears and thoughts of “what if”, then you are more likely to regain clarity and reconnect with your sense of purpose, simply because you’ve stopped second-guessing yourself and have sought concrete evidence that’s staring you in the face!

The three things I will share now will help you to get out of your head and re-focus on what’s important in your business, so you can feel confident in and connected with your business.

(1.) Ground truth your thoughts

Ground-truthing means making observations to check for accuracy. This is something I did in my career as a scientist.

We would create a hypothesis, then go and get actual data to see whether we could prove or disprove the hypothesis.

The great thing about ground-truthing is that it is 100% free, and it is a really easy way to bring yourself back down to earth.

There are two simple ways you can ground-truth your thoughts.

Firstly, find a networking group or a social media platform where your niche client hangs out, and check in there regularly (at least once per month) to observe two things:

What their problem is
What do they want to achieve and why

Just talk to people, or read a selection of comments!

Doing this as a regular activity helps you to reaffirm that you are targeting the right niche, that your marketing messaging is on track, and that you are focused on the right thing.

Secondly, you can pull back and reflect on what is going on for you!

Is your work still aligned with your niche and ideal client – and your own values? I suggest at least once per month, reflecting on:

The why behind your business
The type of person you are attracting
What your shared values are.

When you do this, you remember why you started your business in the first place. You check that it’s still valid and relevant.

You make sure that you are attracting an audience that is aligned with your values. If you’re attracting the wrong type of customer, then you can go back to your marketing and look at the messaging, the offer and other aspects to correct things.

Every business owner should know that this research and reflection is an essential, ongoing activity that helps you to stay abreast of customer opinions and market trends so that what you’re doing stays relevant and meaningful.

Also, if you want to be a lighthouse for people in your niche, you need to stand firm in your own beliefs. So your job as an industry leader is to check in with yourself and remember why you’re doing this!

If you do these two things, you will be constantly ground truthing your thoughts, feelings and reality and making sure that you are on the right path.

(2.) Review client results

Years ago, I went through a period of helping a lot of my friends write their resumes and cover letters as they applied for jobs. Many of them lacked confidence, but by the end of the session, after reflecting on all their achievements, they realised all they were capable of and felt way more hopeful about getting the job they were applying for!

Business owners can lose confidence in their business because they have forgotten about all the value they have created for their clients.

The lesson is this: reflecting on past success reminds you of your value and what you offer to the world.

You can reconnect with your value right now by reflecting on what your clients have achieved as a result of working with you.

But there is another important reason to reflect on success – that is so that you can make sure that your marketing messages are still relevant.

Remember that, no matter what you’re selling, people buy results, so your promotional messages need to speak directly to the results that people want to achieve. People want to know that what you sell really works and is worth spending money on.

One of my students in my Passion to Profit course was recently telling me about some market research she did.

She was asking people if they would buy a coaching program like the one she was developing. And the person said, “Sure I would buy it if I could be guaranteed that I would get results.”

Now while you can’t necessarily guarantee people’s results, you can guarantee that if they do everything possible to achieve that result, that they are likely to do so.

In any case, we can see how important the achievement of results is to the customer who is buying.

They’re not going to buy something from you for the fun of it, out of the hope that it could make a difference, or for general interest. You’re not in the business of educating people – you’re in the business of transforming lifestyle habits, thoughts and actions.

If you need help with this, I will be covering a simple method to get your wording right, called the endpoint method. It helps you to work out if you’re describing your services in a compelling and attractive way. Stay tuned for that.

(3.) Be of Service

There is one last thing that will truly help you to feel confident and be more connected with your business.

Flip the switch – instead of focusing on your own fears or discomfort, simply focus on being of service to others.

If you master this, you will be successful. There are two ways to look at this.

Firstly, to be truly successful you need to become very good at what you do.

If you put your heart and soul into practising your craft with people and focusing on doing the best job that you possibly can, and improving through interactive feedback with your customers, then you will become known as somebody who cares, and somebody who can help people get the results that they want.

Secondly, the better you can build rapport and genuine relationships with people, the more successful your marketing will be, and the quicker your business will build.

It’s no secret that every business is only as good as the relationships it’s built on.

So if you focus on exceptional customer service, being caring and empathetic, and connecting with people where they are as part of your marketing, then you will feel confident and connected with your clients and your business.

The great thing about these two skills is they take your focus off you, yourself, your perceived shortcomings and your fears.

By being extremely curious about your customers, and what they need and want, and how you can help them, you will quickly forget about your own fears and start to really build strong relationships with the people that matter most in your business – potential customers.

I will go into depth on these in another episode as they’re pretty important!

Summary

If you’re struggling with imposter syndrome, have lost confidence or are feeling disconnected from your business, then please know that there are three solid ways you can regain that confidence and connection in your business.

Today I discussed three things you can do to get there:

Regularly ground-truth your thoughts by investigating what you and your audience want, and whether you are aligned,
Review client results to remind yourself of what you have facilitated, and as an added bonus, to get your marketing messaging right, and
Be of service – hone your skills in servicing and connecting with clients, so that you can become highly skilled, admired and sought after.

If you need help, get in touch!

Ready to get clarity on your pathway to success?

Learn more here:

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Posted on July 7, 2020July 9, 2020 by Melanie White — Leave a comment

Episode 95: Validation and Profit

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This episode shows you why and how validation using rigorous, high quality data is your secret weapon for helping your clients to get better results and make long lasting change, and to create more value, more sales, higher prices and better profit.

Today’s episode is called validation, and I’m talking in relation to results that your clients get in your coaching business.

In my last episode I talked about how to sell more coaching programs with the inclusion of monitoring data, and that’s the backstory for today’s episode.

I’ve chosen the title ‘validation’ because I want to show you why and how rigorous, high quality data is your secret weapon for helping your clients to get better results and make long lasting change, and to create more value, sales and higher prices.

What is validation?

Let’s start with a simple definition.

The action of checking or proving the accuracy of something.
The recognition or affirmation that something is valid or worthwhile.

Change is hard for our brains, and data gives our brains the validation they need to decide a habit is worth continuing.

Why Validation Matters

Let’s start by talking about why validation is important.

Let’s say that your client is living a stressful life, and she quite likes the idea of regular meditation and wants to start up a regular habit to help her relieve stress.

To create a consistent habit, you know she’ll need to convince her brain that it’s worth it.

That’s because the human brain prefers to run efficiently, on autopilot, doing the things it already knows how to do well, so it can focus on threat, survival and fun stuff.

Therefore, according to your client’s brain, having to bring focus on developing a new habit is a chore and possibly a risk.

Change is hard for our brains, and data gives our brains the validation they need to decide a habit is worth continuing.

Aside from learning how to do the habit, her brain requires a process of ‘learning’ a whole bunch of micro habits and rewiring entrenched behaviours that happen before and after the meditation, before it can get the habit to happen automatically.

For example, she’ll have to learn to stop what she’s doing, say no to people, set aside time, stop saying she’s too busy, and then do the darn 10 minutes of meditation.

As she juggles her competing priorities and her already entrained habits that create stress, her brain will start to realise that starting a simple habit like 10 minutes of meditation is actually hard to fit in, commit to, and do consistently.

That will probably feel uncomfortable. She’ll have the urge to continue with her ‘more important’ stuff.

And a day after she meditates, she may feel totally stressed again, so her brain will question how effective it really is, because the results may not be huge or immediate.

Her belief system could jump on the bandwagon. She might start telling herself that this is too hard. She might tell herself that I might as well give up, because I am probably going to fail anyway.

This is why validation with evidence-based data is so important.

It does more than just prove to your client’s brain that a habit is safe and worth the effort.

It also provides tangible evidence that your client is capable of change and that the results are worth pursuing.

This is especially important for habits that have little to no visible, immediate impact.

For example, there are habits like physical exercise where you feel the endorphin rush and sweat afterwards. There’s a tangible impact.

Compare that with deep breathing exercises to lower your blood pressure and stress hormones. Those are two pretty invisible measures that your habits had a gradual, positive impact. No immediate reward there.

That begs the question – how do we help our clients monitor and measure progress? What kind of data are going to be meaningful?

Let’s look at two types of data – qualitative, and quantitative.