For years, I didn't know what to do with myself or my life. I was desperate to find my purpose.
During that time, I went to countless seminars and workshops. Surely someone could tell me what made me special and what I had to offer.
The pile of notebooks on my shelf kept growing.
I wrote down my thoughts, answered every question. I never skipped an exercise.
Much later, I flipped through the old notebooks. It was unbelievable.
I had written almost the same things, over and over again.
Looking back, it was crystal clear.
The answer to my question had been there all along.
I just hadn't believed it.
The short version
Success gives us a sense of security.
That works well for a long time. So we have no reason to question it.
But the more complex our business and our lives become, the more stability we need. Success often stops being enough.
There's a better foundation.
Confidence in decisions can only come from within. By no longer tying our worth to our results. We stop looking for the perfect decision.
Contents:
We don’t examine what we think
Most of the time, we're not very critical of what we believe about ourselves and our world.
We assume things are the way we perceive them. And mostly, we get confirmation.
A demanding client keeps coming back with new requests.
The weather was better on our last birthday.
That friend could reach out again for once.
We think thousands of thoughts every day. Most move so fast, we don't even notice them. But together, they shape how we see the world.
And depending on our disposition, we end up thinking someone's got our back, or is out to get us.
We usually don't examine what we think.
And as solopreneurs, we have no team and often no partner to challenge our worldview.
Once we feel unsure, we look for solutions right away. We ask others for advice, or book consultants, courses, or another free offer.
We want to know how others handle it. Even if they're likely dealing with a completely different situation.
No wonder the solutions don't fit our problem.
Self-leadership starts one step earlier
The problem was never the different situation.
What actually matters is how we judge our situation, and what we tell ourselves about it.
We need the ability to recognize our thinking and question it critically, so we can see and understand where we stand right now. This kind of self-leadership keeps us from diving in blind, and lets us act with intention instead.
Self-leadership isn't a form of discipline or willpower, where we just force ourselves through it. It starts earlier than that.
You see what is, and what you think.
In a model I like to use, everything we experience fits into one of five categories.
- C: Circumstances. Facts most people would agree on.
- T: Thoughts. We interpret and judge those facts. These are our thoughts about them.
- F: Feelings. Not the facts themselves, but how we think about them creates certain feelings in us.
- A: Action. These feelings drive everything we do, or don't do.
- R: Result. And as a result, something in our life changes, whether it's a goal we wanted or an outcome we didn't.
Most people who offer us solutions are working from their own judgment of the situation. They want to help by telling us what to do, or not do.
But as long as we don't change what actually drives us, our thoughts and feelings, we're working against ourselves.
Self-leadership means we examine the chain above before we decide or act. That's what self-coaching does.
So good that this is something anyone can learn and put to use.
Self-coaching is a skill that helps us every day.
It's not a question of experience.
Like the blind spot in our eye, we don't notice what we think on our own. We even fill the gap with more of the same kind of thoughts.
Neither our knowledge nor all our experience helps here. The blind spot is there, and it stays.
In this moment, simple solutions and standard advice seem all the more tempting. They promise quick relief.
They just don't fit more complex situations.
It makes much more sense to take a step back and get a clearer view. That takes neither long rumination nor busy action.
Through self-coaching, we can look at the whole situation freshly and examine our own thinking. That lets us use our own experience in a way no general advice ever could.
We either lead ourselves, or we drift
Something clicked for me when I flipped through my old notes back then.
For far too long, I let myself drift, following my routine of doubt and uncertainty. That was my typical view of myself.
I wish I'd led myself consciously back then and steered my own thinking. I could have trusted myself sooner and noticed my strengths. I could have decided from a different place.
We have routines and fixed patterns for good reason. This kind of autopilot helps us with the many small things every day. They don't need to be questioned and examined every single time.
With recurring problems or fundamental questions, it's different. Here, we don't want to drift. We lead ourselves, and get where we want to be.
Self-leadership matters for every solopreneur who has goals and wants to reach them. For that, we need to know how we see our world, so we don't work against ourselves.
Self-coaching is about bringing our thinking, feeling, and acting into alignment, and steering ourselves consciously that way.
Self-coaching can be learned
No one should get stuck for as long as I did back then. No one has to, because anyone can learn self-coaching.
Over the past few years, more than 800 people have used this method with me. I still use it myself almost every day.
Whenever I need clarity, I pick up pen and paper and coach myself.
Learn self-coaching
I'm currently thinking about a new group program.
Learn self-coaching could become a 5-week online program where I teach this method.
Here's the idea:
Participants learn the basics of the self-coaching model, get answers to their questions, and see in live coaching how the method works in practice.
Before I set up the program, I want to know if there's genuine interest.
â–º Send me a message and let me know.