How to Coach Yourself: Building Self Awareness With Self Coaching Techniques

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How to Life Coach Yourself: Creating Awareness

The process known as self-coaching is rooted in the International Coach Federation's (ICF) Core Competencies, which focuses on the skill of creating awareness. Only in this case, instead of working with a client, you’ll be working as your own coach, using many diverse information sources to build a foundation for actionable personal insights.

Change and growth, more often than not, springs from new levels of awareness. We can’t make better choices unless we’re aware of what we don’t want, and are clear about what we want to leave behind as we consider where we want to be in the future.

What to Look for as Your Own Coach

As your own coach, you’ll go deeper beneath the surface in order to connect the dots between your thoughts, patterns and emotions. This heightened sense of awareness is key to identifying and addressing underlying issues that influence who you are and how you live your life.

For example – Imagine you’re at work and you vocally express support for a colleague's plan, but your voice cracks as you do. There’s a sense underneath that you may be experiencing something more than what’s happening on the surface with your coworker. 

What might that mean? As your own coach, your task is to observe and analyze these emotional responses in order to illuminate your path forward. 

In this case, let’s say you realize that the context is that you’re feeling fear over handing over a project you passionately worked on. As you work through those emotions, you realize it’s natural to feel uncomfortable letting go, but that it’s time to move on to other projects.

Tools for Reflection

To step back and become an observer of your own reality, you need space and tools for reflection. 

These could include:

• A journal for jotting down thoughts
• A trusted confidante for discussions
• Solo podcasts or voice notes for auditory reflection
• A blank document for free-form writing of feelings

More Resources:
Build Self-Awareness: Ten Self-Reflection Exercises and Self-Assessment Tools
Coaching Framework for Self Acceptance

Moving Beyond Surface Solutions

The goal is not just to observe behaviors in isolation but to see yourself as the main character of your life's story. This involves understanding your history, feelings, motivations, and pains, and taking all of that into account as you foster empathy for your own life experiences.

Once you're aware of your situation and its history, it's time to look forward. This involves discovering new thoughts, beliefs, and emotions that reinforce your capacity for action and achieving your goals. 

One critical aspect of self-coaching is recognizing how you perceive yourself and differentiate it from the actual facts. Ask yourself, "What would it look like to apply this to myself?"

Growth is stunted when we cling to the need to “be right”. To grow and change, you must be open to learning from every experience, including acknowledging the difference between facts and your own interpretations/experiences of a situation.

The question "What else is there?" can create an opportunity to explore new possibilities.

Coaching Exercise: Reflection on the Past

Think about a time in the past where you made a BIG change. How did it unfold? With the tools of reflection and an expansive vision, in what ways could that experience have been different?

We can draw an example from the world of coaching and working with clients. One such technique is to establish two buckets: 

1. what you know 
2. what you don't yet know but need to 

What we already know is often not working for us anymore. Thus, it's time to explore the unknown. This exploration can be exhilarating but also uncomfortable, so give yourself both validation and encouragement as you go.

Shifting Your Perspective: Who Will I Become?

Considering “Who will I be when I achieve my goal?” is a great alternative to asking what you will do. 

Rather than focusing solely on actions, consider who you will become as a result of achieving your goals. This perspective shift can make room for, and highlight the need for, both internal and external changes.

Self-coaching is a dynamic and introspective process that requires honesty, openness to change, and a willingness to explore the depths of your own experiences and goals. 

The relationship we have with ourselves is the longest one we’ll have with anyone, and well worth investing in the skills to guide us towards greater awareness and a better future.

More Resources:
Self Awareness Is A Coaching Super-Skill
The Art of Self-Coaching: Applying Coaching Skills to Enhance Your Personal Life

Ready to Become A Coach?

One of our values at Lumia is that we dare to be different. Our life coaches ignore the expectations society tries to impose on them, and seek to live from their own truth instead. If you are ready to step into your power and you’d like a partner in the process, come check out Lumia Life Coach Training. Grounded in science, our ICF accredited program features authentic instructors, a robust curriculum, and business instruction to prepare you for liftoff.

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