00:00

Hey there, welcome to Intentional Living with Tanya Hale. This is episode number 246, "Self-Coaching Strategies." Welcome to your place for finding greater happiness through intentional growth, because we don't just fall into the life of our dreams...we choose to create it. This is Tanya Hale and I'm your host for Intentional Living.

00:20

Alright. Hello there, my friends. Welcome to the podcast today. First of all, if you have recently left me a review on iTunes or Spotify, thank you so much for that. It makes a difference in helping other people to find this content. As they're looking for it, it kind of pushes it up on, the more reviews I get, the farther it pushes it up on people's suggested podcasts. So thanks for that and thanks for helping other people in such a simple and an easy way. Alright. We are going to be talking today about self-coaching strategies. So I know that a lot of y'all will listen to this podcast and love it and want some coaching. But for whatever reason, you will not reach out for coaching or you may reach out and you may decide that it's just not a good time or whatever's going on for you. But I still want to give you tools to help you start growing more into the kind of person that you want to be and creating what you want. So we are going to talk about some self-coaching strategies today that you can implement on your own to help you create more of the kind of life that you want.

01:31

So self-coaching is a really valuable tool because it has the ability to increase the awareness of our thoughts and our feelings and increase the feelings that we have of empowerment. And when we start to incorporate self-coaching into our lives, we will begin to see more conscious engagement in our relationships with others and with ourselves and we will feel more fulfilled in our lives. We will feel more confident and more self-respect, more confidence, compassion and grace for ourselves and for others. So let's start off by defining "self-coaching." I would define it as increasing your awareness of your thoughts, your feelings, and your behaviors and learning how to make the necessary adjustments to bring the life you are living into alignment with the kind of person you really want to be. Self-coaching is choosing to create a life and experiences that you want to have rather than just accepting what falls into your lap or what doesn't fall into your lap, right? Because a lot of things don't. Self-coaching can be really structured.

02:41

For example, doing a thought model where you write down all of the thoughts coming into your head for 10 to 15 minutes, no, sorry, for five to 10 minutes, probably more. There we go, that sounds better. And then going back and identifying the different parts of the thought model, the circumstance, the thought, the feeling, the action, the result. So I know a lot of people who do this every day. They pick a circumstance they want to be more clear on for the day and they just write without monitoring what's coming out. You write down every thought, you don't filter it with whether you think it's a good or a bad thought, or an amazing or a horrible thought, and you just get it all out of your head. And this is a really great way to see what's happening in that brain of yours. So especially if you're new to Thought Work, this is a such a fabulous tool to Incorporate every day. It really helps you start to develop your awareness around your thoughts and feelings and actions and to see the connections between them. I know that I currently don't usually do thought models every single day, but there was a time when I did them most days, especially when I was new to this work. Okay, so when I work with my clients very often we work through thought models, doing just this except that they're not writing it down. They're just telling me all the things and then I help them to identify their thoughts, their feelings, and actions so that we can look at them more clearly. The thing that can be so productive working with a coach is that I will see things as thoughts that you will have seen as facts. This happens to me all the time when I get coached as well. Also when you start doing the thought downloads and models, be patient with yourself because it can be tricky at first to identify all the parts. When I got certified at the Life Coach School, I met with a facilitator and other coaches every week for six months to practice this skill. And I had to do other coaching, free coaching, all the time in order to get this skill down and it absolutely takes some practice. So dig in and be consistent. Keep practicing and you will develop your skill for identifying the different parts, and the more you can identify your thoughts as being separate from your feelings, and your actions, and the circumstances, the more you'll be able to slow the process down in your head and watch your brain rather than just be the recipient of an unmanaged mind.

05:08

Okay. So that's the structured part, but self-coaching can also be more unstructured through practice as you come to be more aware of your thoughts, your feelings, and your actions, and your circumstances, you can do some self-assessing throughout the day without writing everything down. You may notice that you're really struggling to feel calm in a certain circumstance. And then you would want to slow down a little bit and ask yourself, "okay, so what thought am I having that is creating this feeling of anxiety or frustration or nervousness or whatever it is that you're feeling?" One of the biggest things we are learning to do is create more awareness around what's happening for us. We want to start learning to pay closer attention to our feelings and actions. And then identify the thoughts that are creating them. And this requires that we practice slowing down the reaction time, not letting our primitive brain just jump, jump, jump into whatever is going on, but that we learn to slow down and give our prefrontal cortex a chance at responding rather than just going with the first primitive brain response.

06:24

So once we're able to start pulling out our thoughts, I love to ask two questions. First, "is it a true thought?" So often we think things that aren't even true, but our brain hasn't questioned it yet. For example, a few weeks ago, I mentioned how I was having the thought that if I wasn't low maintenance enough, easy enough to be married, to that I wouldn't be lovable. My husband wouldn't be able to love me. Is that a true thought? No. But I believed it for the last 30 years. So it feels true to me, right? Just because we're having a thought doesn't mean that it's true. We think things all the time that are not true. And this process just has us questioning the thoughts that are most pertinent to our ability to show up how we want. Also, at first glance, you may think the thought is true, but we have to start questioning its veracity. You may be thinking, "my child should say thank you after I take them to dinner." And yet, though at first listen, it seems true, is it really true? You may think it's good manners. You may want them to express gratitude and be the kind of person that does, but is it true that they should? A sure sign that you are saying something that fits in this category of a thought that's not true, but that you would want it or expect it, is the word "should." "Should" is a tricky little bugger that wreaks a lot of havoc in our lives. Should they say thank you? If we have the expectation that they follow our rules, yes. But is it true that it's mandatory for them? No. So learning to separate our "should rules" from actual facts can be tricky, but also is a great way to manage our thoughts around things going on for us.

08:25

So the second question I love to ask is, "is it helpful?" Even if the first thought is true, that doesn't mean that it's helpful. In fact, it might actually be quite harmful. Here's a hyperbole circumstance just to make it obviously easy. Okay. I am 5'4" and I loved playing sports in high school and was always sad that I wasn't taller because I love the taller positions, like a hitter in volleyball and a basketball forward. So, 40 years later, I could keep dwelling on the thought, "if I had been taller in high school, I could have played different positions." Okay, is that a true thought? Most likely yes, because I was athletically inclined, but is it a helpful thought? No! What's the purpose of that thought now that I'm 55? Or even what would have been the purpose of it when I was 16? It would just keep me stuck in the things I can't do, rather than the things that I can. But we do this with things that are much more subtle. For example, we may think, "I'm always the one reaching out to my friends to get together." Is it true? Possibly. Maybe none of your friends like to initiate plans. But here's the clincher: is it a helpful thought? Not if it has you starting to create resentment toward them because your second underlying thought is that "they should be reaching out more. I shouldn't always be the one to reach out." So here's the thought I'll put together: "I'm always the one reaching out to friends to get together and they should initiate more," or "I'm always the one reaching out to friends to get together so it's obvious they don't care about the relationship as much as I do." So a lot of people just aren't planners and they don't initiate and some people are planners. Some people aren't afraid to lead out and make things happen and other people are just really happy to just follow and wait for others to make plans. Or here's the other thing. It could be a helpful thought if you think along the lines something like, "I love to plan and they don't. So it's a great combination." Because if we put this in like a secondary thought here we would say, "I'm always the one reaching out to friends to get together and it's okay because I enjoy making plans." So these two questions, "is it true?" and i"s it helpful?" are great at helping you stand outside of your circumstance and see it more clearly Then you can think about it more clearly.

11:03

So another strategy that I personally use often is the phrase "of course." I love this phrase because it normalizes experiences that we may be tempted to beat ourselves up over. "Of course I'm feeling frustrated right now. Things aren't going as planned." "Of course I'm sad that my adult children won't interact with me." "Of course I'm nervous. This is a big presentation." "Of course I'm feeling insecure. This is my first date since my divorce." Using the phrase "of course" always helps my brain to settle down and stop thinking that I "should" be feeling something different or that there's something wrong with how I'm feeling. It helps me to accept what is without resistance. I am feeling sometimes frustrated or angry or nervous or insecure. If I can just accept that, then I can move on. Because when I add resistance and push back against what I'm feeling, I will also have the tendency to start layering on other difficult emotions. For example, if I feel anger toward one of my adult children for something they did, I could have this dialogue in my head, "Oh, if I was more Christlike, I wouldn't ever feel anger. I'd be able to stay in a loving place all the time." Okay. That's just exhausting thinking that for me. But here's the deal. When we resist the anger and we berate ourselves for feeling it, then we start to move into feelings like shame about the anger. So now we are not only feeling anger, but now we're also feeling shame.

12:40

So some people refer to this as "clean" and "dirty" pain. Like the anger would be the clean pain. It's the initial emotion that we're feeling. And then the shame that we add on when we layer on these emotions or when we sometimes, I call it, doubling down. When we start layering on, then that is sometimes referred to as dirty pain. Okay? So now we not only feel the anger, but now we also have layered on shame. And then because we feel the shame, we might be inclined to start questioning our value or our worth as a human being. And then we start layering on the feeling of worthlessness. Right? So now we feel anger, then we feel shame, then we feel worthless. Okay. So for me, using "of course" helps me to realize and accept that it's okay to feel the way that I do. And it helps me to stay out of layering on other emotions that not only are not helpful, but really start to muddy the waters and make it difficult for me to clean up what's going on. So "of course: has become one of my favorite self-coaching phrases because it helps to keep me in the original emotion and then be in a space where I can think more clearly to look for solutions rather than moving into excuses or blaming of myself or others. Okay, so "of course" is a great one.

14:04

So another phrase that I love when self-coaching is "on brand." This is used in the context of knowing that someone is going to show up the way that they are showing up because they always have. And I often use this in conjunction with, "of course." So here's an example. "Of course, mom is meddling in this situation. It's totally on brand for her." So instead of getting all worked up about how mom shouldn't be meddling, we stand back and acknowledge that she has always wanted to meddle. She's been meddling since before we can remember, and there's no reason to be surprised by it. Okay? I think sometimes we want to get worked up about things because feeling a bit victim-ish-y can sometimes feel really good for a really short moment. And then it starts to feel horrible, right? But one time I was receiving some coaching about my previous spouse and I had worked myself up into a frenzy ranting and raving about how he shouldn't be doing what he was doing and all of the stuff that goes along with that, right? And my coach stopped me and asked if I was really surprised by the behavior. And when I got out of my head, got out of the middle of my drama, I realized that actually no, I wasn't surprised at all. And this coach introduced me to the phrase "on brand" by stating that he was acting on brand. Of course he responded the way that he did. It was totally on brand for him. And for me, this is such a brilliant phrase because it allows me to step outside of the drama filled story that I'm creating in my head about how I think people should be behaving.

15:48

I know for a lot of my clients, this phrase "on brand" has been a lifesaver as well. It really helps create space between the reality of what we can honestly expect and the drama-filled version of our unrealistic expectations. I use this phrase for me as well. I might say something like, "of course I'm disappointed. It's on brand for me to have unrealistic expectations of how my children should behave." My kids will all tell you that I have always had unrealistic expectations, a lot of them, right? But when I use it for me, it helps to put me in a bit of a third-person mentality. It helps me step outside of my situations to look more clearly at the story my brain is creating and thus be able to see it more for what it is. Okay, so "on brand," check that one out. I just had a friend a few weeks ago, I had presented that in one of my weekend win emails, and she, I was visiting back in Utah and she got together with her and she was like, Oh, by the way, that email a few weeks ago that talked about 'on brand,' changed my life." She said she and her husband use it all the time now and it really just helps them to settle down and and not get so worked up about things.

17:06

Okay so here's another phrase that I often use when self-coaching and it is the thought "they're doing the best they can."Now I have had long intense deep discussions with people about this phrase. Some people really cannot wrap their heads around this thought and they really don't believe that people are doing the best they can and obviously you get to decide if this is a thought for you, but let me tell you some of my thinking behind this belief for me and why I like it. Personally I don't know of any person who is intentionally trying to screw up their lives and the lives of people that they love. I love to go to a place where I acknowledge that people have a lot of pain. They have a lot of learned dysfunctional behaviors. They have a lot of really bad coping mechanisms and they have thoughts that may have served them very well in the past that no longer serve them well. And people act from these places unconsciously. All of us do. Every person on the planet does. But it doesn't mean we're intentionally trying to ruin our lives or other people's lives. We just don't currently have the tools to do something different. We don't have the capacity to see the situation different than it is. I know that for years in my previous marriage I had turned my emotions down to a trickle because I didn't want to be a mother for my children who was crying all the time. I was so distraught and having such a hard time with my marriage from even very early on that I caught myself moving into the space of a lot of crying. And I finally was just decided that I wanted to be able to engage with my children every day to do things for them, to help them. And I didn't feel I could do that well when I was drowning in tears and sorrow every day about how difficult my marriage was. So I learned to disengage my emotions and to play on. And this coping mechanism served me really well for a lot of years. But after my divorce I didn't need that protection anymore. In fact, it became a hindrance, not allowing me to connect emotionally with my children and other people in my life. And once I started dating, it really became apparent how dysfunctional it was. So now it not only didn't serve me, but it was holding me back. But I was still acting from this place and honestly doing the best I could with the tools I had. It's just that the tools didn't work so well in this new environment.

19:51

And so as I watch the world around me, I see people engaging in all sorts of hurtful and dysfunctional behavior. And I tell you what, though, when I learn more about their story, I can begin to understand what's going on and why they behave the way they do. So yes, I honestly believe that people are doing the best they can with the tools they have. It's just that sometimes the tools they have to work with are really horrible for creating healthy relationships and for moving into satisfying functional lives. But when I can offer people grace with this thought, I see that I show up a very different person as well. I am a much better person when I believe people are doing the best they can. I'm more compassionate. I'm more patient. I'm more understanding. I really love the person that I am when I have this thought, and it allows me to see people and the world differently. It allows me to offer grace for people's frailties and mistakes and failures. And it allows me to offer the same grace to myself when I recognize that I'm doing the best I know how, even when I show up far short of my ideal. For different reasons, some days I show up one way and other days I show up a different way and yet I'm always doing the best I can offer for that day.

21:15

I'm really not a fan of the phrase "do better today than yesterday." Because you know what? Some days I don't have the capacity to show up as good as I did yesterday. Maybe yesterday I felt good physically. I got enough sleep. I spent some time in the scriptures and in prayer and I felt centered and focused most of the day. Nobody pushed me to where I needed to manage my mind much and finished up the day feeling really great about how I showed up. But maybe today I got up after a minimal amount of sleep. I don't feel well. I have a bit of a headache because of it. I got behind on my schedule and didn't get my scriptures and prayer in and I'd been irritable and edgy all day and possibly might have snapped at somebody that I love and then I'll go to bed to bed tonight feeling defeated or frustrated with my day. But because of the circumstance it was still the best I could do for today. I didn't wake up this morning saying "I'm going to be really hungry today. I think I'm really just not going to put forth very much effort." And so I giving ourselves this grace being able to offer myself and others the grace of doing the best I can with the tools I have makes a huge difference in myself coaching and helping me to show up the way I really want to.

22:37

And the last thought I use that I'll share with you today is the thought that nothing has gone wrong. This may be another thought that can be difficult for some of y'all to swallow, but let me explain it a little bit more. I really believe that our purpose here on earth is to struggle, to make mistakes, sometimes huge ones, and to learn to work through it and hopefully to learn the lessons along the way. When we make a mistake, when we say something unkind, when we lose it and yell (and guess what we all do), what if nothing has gone wrong really? What if it's just an opportunity for us to become self-reflective, to see our thoughts, to understand our feelings, to evaluate our performance, and to circle back around? And what if circling back around actually makes us a better and a stronger person? What if circling back around strengthens the relationship? What if it actually moves us forward on our path? What then has gone wrong? If we've moved forward on our path, what has gone wrong? I would say nothing. We are behaving like a human, exactly the way we are expected to behave. We are creating opportunities to learn and grow. We are becoming more self-aware all things that God wants for us while here on earth. He does not expect perfection or even anything close to perfection. I believe that God expects failure, that He expects mistakes, that He expects difficult emotions and working through things. That's all part of the plan. That's why there's the Atonement, right? Because He knew it was going to happen. This is how we grow. This is how we progress. What if really nothing has gone wrong when we have these big mistakes and these circumstances in our life? What if it really is just an opportunity to grow and progress? What if it has nothing to do with anybody's worth or value? This thought that nothing has gone wrong, that this is all part of the plan to help us become a person more aligned with who we really want to be, with the possibility that we feel in our soul? This thought has the potential of helping us to relax into being a human, having a human experience, having the experience God designed for us. The thought that nothing has gone wrong allows us the ability to embrace not only our strengths and our successes, but to embrace as well our weaknesses and our failures. And when we can step into embracing both our good and our so-called "bad," we can find more confidence to take this tough experience and move toward finding solutions, to turning it into a success, into progressing along our path into greater alignment with who we really want to be.

25:41

Okay, so there you have it. Some of my favorite self-coaching tools. Give one or two or three of them a shot and then let me know how it's going for you. I would love to hear from you. You can just even go on my website tanyahale.com and there's a place to contact me and you can send me a little note. And if you scroll down a little bit beyond the contact me, there's a place where you can sign up for my "weekend win." It's a short little email that you get meant to be read in one or two minutes that just gives you some good tidbits, some good information to think about.

26:18

Okay, self-coaching, I promise you, is such a valuable tool. It's been amazing for me and it has helped me to move more into alignment with the person that I want to be. And I hope that these concepts and ideas help you to move into a stronger stance of self-coaching, a better way to coach yourself into being more the person you want to be. This, I believe, is the stuff that middle age is made of. And one of the reasons why midlife does not have to be a crisis, but instead can be an incredible time of discovery and growth. If we can increase our awareness, growing up is awesome. Okay. If you need help learning how to self coach, I can work with you on that. Okay. I can help you move into a space where you feel more comfortable with this and you're able to do this more on your own. You can contact me at tanyahale.com. There is a button at the top of my webpage that says "free consultation." You can click on that and you can get on my calendar and we can sit down and chat. Chat. Chat. We can chat about coaching and you can see if it's a good fit for you. Okay. That is going to do it. But my friends, happy self-coaching to you this week. Wish you all the best and I will talk to you next week. Bye.

27:38

Thank you so much for joining me today. If you would love to receive some weekend motivation, be sure to sign up for my free "weekend win" Friday email: a short and quick message to help you have a better weekend and position yourself for a more productive week. Go to tanyahale.com to sign up and learn more about life coaching and how it can help you get to your best self ever. See ya.