The Art of Self-Coaching: Applying Coaching Skills to Enhance Your Personal Life

June 1, 2023

Lumia

If you’re interested in becoming a coach, you’re probably interested in helping others change, make progress and ultimately transform their lives.

If you’re looking for a client to test out coaching techniques on, you may already have the ultimate client right at hand – you! Yes, it is possible to coach yourself and in fact many of the skills you’ll learn in coach training are applicable for personal growth and can lead to some pretty amazing breakthroughs.

What is self coaching? Why is it relevant for personal growth?

If coaching in the traditional sense is a partnership and a developmental process that helps a client achieve their goals, then self coaching is all about using these proven coaching techniques for your own personal development.

Yes, you can coach yourself. In fact, you’re probably doing it without even realizing it. Acting as your own coach, you can help yourself set measurable goals, challenge any limiting beliefs you might hold, and create a more proactive mindset.

Build Your Self-Awareness

Self-awareness is the first step – this is where it all begins and is the core element of personal development. Self awareness is all about building insight and knowledge of our own character, emotions, desires and motivations.

Gaining self awareness can be very scary for some people, but it really is the starting line for any kind of meaningful life, or meaningful growth. By taking a good look at where we’re at, we’re completing the first step of the basic coaching conversation.

There are many tools you can use to get more insight into your own mind, but here’s a few to use in the self coaching process:

Journaling – Writing down your thoughts and experiences can help you process how you think and feel about what’s happening in your life.
SWOT Analysis – Identify your own strengths, weaknesses (areas that are ripe for improvement), opportunities (for growth) and threats (challenges or issues).
Values Assessment – Take some time to figure out which values are most important to you and think about how your life does or does not align with them.
Ideal Self Practice – Spend some time thinking about, and writing down, your ideal life, future, career, relationships and so on. This will provide a clear “north star” for you to move towards.

To dive deeper into the significance of self-awareness, tune in to our podcast – Self Awareness Is A Coaching Super-Skill.

Set Meaningful Goals

As with any coaching relationship, setting goals is essential for forward momentum. Your own goals are your own personal roadmap for a successful journey of personal growth. There are many ways to set good goals – taking a look at some of the work you did in the self awareness exercises is a good starting point.
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Many people like using the SMART goals framework (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound) in order to set realistic goals.

Check out our blog, Using Goal Setting Theory to Create Resolutions that Last to explore this concept further.

Ask Thought-Provoking Questions

One of the most powerful tools a coach has is the question. Questions create spaces in the mind and allow us to consider new and different ways of approaching issues. Sometimes a truly great personal breakthrough is right on the other side of a strong question.

A few questions to ask yourself during a self-coaching session could be:

What thoughts or beliefs frequently hold me back?
When do I feel most authentic and true to myself?
What activities make me lose track of time and why?
How have my failures and mistakes contributed to my growth?
If I could achieve anything in the next five years, what would it be?
What skills or abilities do I need to develop for my future aspirations?

You can learn more about this technique in our blogs, How Does Asking Better Questions Lead to a Better Life? and How To Get Started With Creative Journaling.

Dismantle Limiting Beliefs

Limiting beliefs are so insidious because we all have them, and most of the time we’re not even aware of them! Limiting beliefs are the untrue things we think that keep us from reaching our full potential. Often they keep us stuck in one place and “limited” to what we already think, know and feel.

What’s a limiting belief look like? Well, we hear them a lot when it comes to people who are considering becoming a life coach:

“I’m not good enough.”
“I’m too old.”
"I don't have the resources.”
“I don't have enough time.”
“I don’t think I can learn new things.”

Those are all UNTRUE, and great examples of limiting beliefs that keep many people stuck.

So what are examples of empowering beliefs? These are beliefs that are the opposite of limiting – they are exciting, energizing, powerful and true:

“I am enough.”
“I can learn new things if I set my mind to it.”
“I can make time for what’s really important to me.”
“It’s never too late to start something new.”
“I can reach my goals with the resources I have, if not – I can figure out a way to do it.”

Make an Action Plan

If you have a goal, but no real plan for achieving it, then it’s just a daydream. To achieve your goal, you need to break down the larger goal into smaller steps that are do-able for you. If you’re moving forward and making progress, even if it’s a little bit at a time, you’re still building towards achieving your goal.

Create Your Own Accountability

Accountability is often the area where people struggle most. There’s no silver bullet for staying on track with your goals, but there are a few techniques that can help you keep yourself accountable.

Build consistency – Doing something regularly and often will build a habit.
Keep track – Write down your progress and keep track of where you’re at, so you can see both how far you’ve come and where you need to go next.
Use tools – Calendars, reminders, alerts, make it easier on yourself and use all the digital and real world tools you need to help keep you on track.
Celebrate the small things – Progress is progress, no matter how small it may seem.
Be kind to yourself – You’re doing something new and that takes time to get better at it, so just be prepared that you’re going to make mistakes along the way.

Pace Yourself

Self-coaching is unlike coaching another person and will require you to dig deep into your own curiosity, openness and self compassion. Your relationship with yourself is really different from any other relationship you’ll have in this life. You’re in it for the long haul with yourself – so be kind, and pace yourself. Big changes take time and the journey of a thousand miles begins with a few small steps.

Ready to Start Coaching Yourself And Others?

Coaching is a celebration. It’s all about knowledge and growth while making informed decisions, and living life intentionally. Lumia Life Coach Training is designed to give you the skills and abilities to help others (and yourself) transform and grow. Our ICF accredited program is rooted in scientific principles, delivered by high-level instructors, and comes with comprehensive business training to launch your coaching career. Grow, change and become more yourself with Lumia.