A Journey of Self-Coaching

Creative Mindset

Feb 7

Her Messy Bun Podcast Episode Become Your Own Coach - What is Self Coaching — *Disclosure: I only recommend products I would use myself and all opinions expressed here are our own. This post may contain affiliate links that at no additional cost to you, I may earn a small commission.

Want to Find Yourself This Year?

This year we are going to see a lot of people coming into themselves, reaching new goals, and figuring out exactly what they want in life and how to get it. The way they’re going to do this is through something called Self-Coaching.

If you’re part of my membership or free community, you’ve probably heard me talking about becoming the coolest person I know. But what does that really mean? That means I’m going to be coaching myself in all different areas of my life, I’m going to become aware of what makes me happy vs what brings me the ick. I’m going to analyze why and what I like about things other people are doing, and I’m going to help myself feel better about myself. This isn’t about putting myself on a pedestal, it’s about prioritizing my personal and professional goals, it’s about reconnecting with myself and blowing up my business and my life and watching it rise from the ashes of past beliefs. And I plan on helping as many female entrepreneurs do the same thing.

We’re going to do this through self-coaching so let’s talk about it!

What Is Self Coaching?

Self coaching is the art of taking charge of your own personal and professional development by setting goals and taking action to reach them. It involves understanding yourself, your strengths and weaknesses, and taking proactive steps to reach your desired outcome. It is a powerful tool for personal growth and development, as it encourages reflection and helps you to identify and address areas of improvement. It’s an empowering process that can help you gain clarity, set achievable goals, and take action to become the best version of yourself.

Self coaching requires you to be honest and to challenge yourself. It is important to look for opportunities to learn & grow, and to take responsibility for your actions. Self coaching also involves assessing your current situation and making changes to move forward. By doing this, you can create a plan to reach your goals and move closer to achieving your dreams.

At this point in my life, I’ve come to realize a few major things:

Too often people idolize others to the point of losing themselves.
Sharing your ideas prematurely is a recipe for disaster.
Boundaries protect our energy, and they only work when you are aware of them and respect them yourself.
We are constantly receiving information, but if you’re not actively doing anything with it, you’re layering yourself with information vs absorbing and learning from it. And this layering process is what leads you to feeling overwhelmed and like you’re not good enough, whereas when you’re absorbing and learning from it you’re teaching yourself new skills, how to take charge, and what you do and don’t like. This is self coaching.

The differences between hiring a coach & self coaching:

Self coaching and hiring a coach both involve setting goals and taking action to reach them, but there are some key differences between the two. Self coaching involves taking charge of your own personal and professional development and requires you to be honest and challenge yourself. Hiring a coach, on the other hand, involves having an experienced & trusted mentor who can offer guidance & advice to help you reach your goals. A coach can provide an outside perspective, offer feedback, and provide support to help you stay on track.

Coaches can help you identify areas of improvement and develop creative strategies to make progress. Both self coaching and hiring a coach can be powerful tools for personal growth & development, but it is important to consider the differences between the two before making a decision.

I think it’s important to remember that you can & should be self coaching while you are still working with someone. Taking action & responsibility for your life is how you make real change. So if you’re reading this and you have a coach you’re working with right now, my goal isn’t to make you feel doubt about hiring or working with someone, it’s to remind you that even if you do, you are still the one that’s responsible for your life.

As a creative entrepreneur, self coaching can be a powerful tool to help you reach your goals and dreams. Taking charge of your own personal and professional development is essential in order to achieve success. This involves understanding yourself, your strengths & weaknesses, and taking proactive steps to reach your desired outcome. It is an empowering process that can help you gain clarity and set achievable goals, while also providing you with the motivation to take action.

For creative entrepreneurs, self coaching can help you find your unique voice and make it heard. You can use self coaching to identify areas of improvement and develop creative strategies to make progress. It is also a great way to create a plan for success and stay focused on reaching your goals. Self coaching can help you stay motivated & energized, and can provide you with the confidence & courage to take risks and make bold moves.

It’s a valuable tool to help you stay on track and make the most out of your career. It can also help you build relationships, develop leadership skills, and stay focused on achieving your goals. So if you’re trying to become the best version of yourself, or the coolest person you know, you need to be actively aware of what you are doing, how you are doing it, and make intentional decisions.

5 Step Process of Self Coaching:

But of course, me being me, I’m not going to just brag about self coaching let’s get into the HOW to actually do it. This is my process of self coaching I’ve been actively following in order continue to grow and reach goals, instead of being stuck still trying to reach past goals. I call it the Circle of Self Coaching, because each step leads to the next step and the last step circles back to the first.

Take time to reflect on your current situation and identify areas of improvement.
Ask yourself questions such as “What am I currently doing that doesn’t feel right with what I want to be doing” and “What can I do differently?”
I like to reflect during Morning Pages and I help my members reflect with specific prompts that make you more aware of what you’re actually doing, and allow you process your thoughts about different aspects of your life and business. Morning Pages has drastically silenced my inner critique, and built up my confidence in myself as well as my members.
If you’ve never done morning pages before or you’ve heard of it but are curious how I’ve adjusted them to fit in with self coaching check out episode 042: What are morning pages.
Set long term goals, and short term objectives.
A few years ago I heard about the mindset of failure when you only look at achieving goals, and understanding the difference between a goal and an objective. Setting objectives for yourself will prevent the feeling of failure when something isn’t done on time or within a certain time frame. Which made me, of course, dive into this even further and test it out myself.
To do this yourself, you first need to understand the goal is the outcome you want to achieve whereas the objective is the specific and measurable actions related to your goals. So over the last few years rather than setting broad statements of what I want to achieve, I’ve been actively practicing setting daily, weekly & quarterly objectives, or rather creating the step-by-step processes that helped me achieve my long term goals.
When you’re setting goals for yourself it’s important to listen to your intuition, your gut and make sure they align. For instance, I know in my gut that I’m going to be a multimillionaire by the time I’m 35. That’s been a long term goal for myself for years. And while I’m delusional enough to say that I will be a multimillionaire by the end of this month, it doesn’t align with my gut feeling. When your gut and your brain aren’t whispering sweet nothings to each other, it’s important to listen to what they are saying and set your goals around that.
Now if your inner critique is always on full blast, it’s important to work on silencing your inner critique.
Take action and be proactive in achieving your goals.
Now it’s time to start doing those step by step processes that you’ve created, start doing your objectives, your non-negotiables in order to start reaching goals. Taking action is also the step where you identify resources that work/help you. Resources like podcasts, project management tools, and honestly google to help you answer any questions that come up.
Taking action also looks like using apps or tools that help you automate your work and develop creative strategies to help you reach your desired outcome. Here are 3 examples of what automating tasks look like:
1. Setting up follow up or reminder emails that automatically send when a client books a 1:1
2. Using FloDesk to create & send out a triggered email series that not only welcomes my new subscribers but takes them on a journey of learning about me, what to expect from me, and sharing an exclusive welcome discount — if you don’t have FloDesk yet & want to try it use coupon code HERMESSYBUN for 50% off your first year
3. Using a tool to automatically repurpose your content you create on one platform onto multiple platforms without effort. Go to hermessybun.com/repurpose to try my favorite repurposing tool for free.
Stay Focused for a Specific Amount Of Time
Staying focused and motivated is not the easiest of things especially when you have ADHD like me, which is why I like to utilize body doubling with friends or using co-working live on social media, but specifically my Coffee Sessions I have with my members 3x a week really gives us the structure and accountability you need when it comes to staying focus on work without feeling overwhelmed. It’s like meeting up with your friends at the coffee shop to get work done, but instead we are all thousands of miles away from each other, we’re all on mute and we are in the comfort of our own home.
Something I find interesting is the more structure you have the more freedom you have. When you’re strict with your time, whether that’s with accountability groups or if you’re able to do it on your own, you end up creating more time for yourself throughout the day. For example, when you’re strict about getting a 15 minute task done, it only takes 15 minutes. When you’re not strict about it, and interruptions happen or you let your brain wonder, a simple 15 minute task can take all day. Again that takes me back to ADHD, when you have a body double, or accountability group, you have this gentle pressure of getting something done because you now have someone sitting with you to get keep you on track and motivated.
Take risks and make bold moves.
One of my favorite things about self coaching is that it can help you gain confidence and courage to take risks and make progress. Allow yourself to take those bold steps towards your future. Allow yourself to stand out and be different. And most importantly, learn from yourself.

This process is more than a rinse and repeat situation, when you’re self coaching you need to keep checking in on yourself, you need to keep putting your goals and objectives in your face so you can keep them in the forefront of your mind, you need to keep taking action, keep finding your focus, your flow and motivation, and most importantly you need to be willing to take risks, because risks are change and change is how we grow.

If you need gentle accountability with your self coaching process, check out Consciously Creative, my membership that teaches you to trust your intuition and believe in yourself. Head to hermessybun.com/membership for more information.

More Resources

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Reclaim your days with my Work Intuitively Masterclass
Never stare at a blank page again Join Consciously Creative