#47: A Self-Coaching MindsetWelcome to the Mind Set For Life podcast. This is Bethanie your coach from DrBCoach.com. Coaching with power, purpose, and practical tools to help you show up with confidence.

Welcome to the podcast. Thank you for joining me today. I'm very excited to talk to you about a self coaching mindset.

Last week, we talked about a coaching mindset. Some of the key points I brought up centered around this whole idea of curiosity—genuinely being curious about other people. In order to coach anyone we must actually care about what they think, how they filter things, what their experience is like. It’s so critical that we have an openness and curiosity. Ultimately, that is going to serve those people that we’re coaching the best.

It could be that we're coaching formally. Maybe we're professional coaches. It might be that we're coaching as managers and supervisors and leaders. Or, it could be that we are coaching children or our family members. Whatever the source of the coaching, true curiosity and an attitude of learning, where we don't come assuming that we know all the answers, is going to help us the most.

So, when we think about self coaching, what does that bring? Why would anyone coach themselves?

It's interesting. When you go to Coach School, you learn a lot about how you need to keep growing as an individual. You need to seek out others to coach you. You need to constantly be engaged in self-growth, self-development, and self-learning. It's critical to actually practice what we’re preaching.

So, if you're actually thinking that coaching is a useful thing for your clients, it's definitely useful for you as well.

As you continue to learn as a coach, then you have thoughts about where to go. You’re always learning something, and you always have a mindset of curiosity.

So, coaching yourself. Let's think about this idea. Can you really coach yourself? If you're truly curious about things, it's definitely possible to coach yourself, right?

You can ask yourself all kinds of questions. You could do this and write through journaling and reflection.

You could do this out loud, you could talk to yourself. Some people really do this and have quite lengthy conversations out loud. Some people speak to themselves as they're driving in the car. Some people talk to themselves when they're just walking around the house. I myself am not person who talks to myself out loud, I think to myself and I write to myself. But I don't actually talk to myself out loud. However, there are lots of people who do it, and it's a very normal thing to do.

One of the things I advocate in professional Coaching is to create what I call your “personal evaluation plan.”

I have noticed lately in my coaching of other people, I'm hearing a lot of people who really want more feedback.

Several of my coach clients have complained that their managers do not give them enough feedback. I've also spoken with people who need more feedback about personal issues, but they don't really think it's appropriate to ask their family members for feedback. And they're not really sure how to go about it.

If you're looking for more feedback and are not sure where to go.... First of all, of course, I always recommend a coach.

Coaches are generally not biased about your life. They don't come at you with a lot of judgement or criticism. They tend to have openness and a lot of curiosity and a total desire to help you go where you want to go.

What if you're not able to find a coach, or if you just don't want to work with a coach?

Self coaching is a great opportunity to work with your issues or your concerns or your gifts and talents, whatever you'd like to do and to continue moving forward.