Monthly Archives: January 2015


Hear The Voice and Do It Anyway!

In today’s guest post Laura Li shares some of her personal experience and what she’s learnt as she started using her coaching.

Hear The Voice and Do It Anyway!

By Laura Li

"Hear The Voice and Do It Anyway!" By Laura Li

There was a time when the voice in my head was so loudly and relentlessly telling me what a failure I was, that I concluded the only way to stop it would be to kill myself.

“You’re a loser and a failure. You’re worthless”.

These words coming from a good friend would have hurt me and caused me to think of all the reasons it wasn’t true. Coming from an enemy they would have made me angry and I would have fought back.

But it wasn’t a friend. Nor even an enemy. It was the voice inside my head. The voice was mine. And I believed it.

Today I’m no longer fighting for my life. Not literally. But I’m still engaged in a battle with that voice of fear and doubt that’s doing it’s best to rob me of my life in a different way.

We all have this voice. Some call it the gremlin, the chatterbox, or the inner critic. I call it The Voice of Fear and Doubt, or more simply, The Voice. For most of us it doesn’t get as severe as it did for me, but it’s always there discouraging us from moving out of our comfort zone into the arena of living fully.

Away from playing it safe to being daring.

From moving on to the next steps with our coaching. It tells us we’re not good enough, or that we’d be silly even to try, or that it’s impossible to have what we really want.

And, oh my goodness, it says to us, what will other people think?

A lot of new coaches go through this.

  • Reluctance to go out and talk to people about their coaching.
  • Fear of selling.
  • Fear of charging.

And for us newer coaches it’s easy to think that if we can just get over the first few hurdles in our business then we’ll be ok and the voice will die out. But from my conversations with more established coaches – even coaches earning those 6 figures – I know that the voice of doubt is always there.

  • Fear of raising your fees.
  • Fear of putting that new project out into the world.
  • Fear of contacting that one person you’d really like to work with

.

Where is The Voice coming from?

The Voice is coming from our emotions. From the fight or flight response. It’s primary function is to keep us safe and sound and away from the dangers of sabre-toothed tigers and woolly mammoths.

Only today the sabre-toothed tiger is really starting a coaching practice and the woolly mammoth is making a presentation to that corporate client you’re trying to win.

The rational, logical side of you, the part that does want you to run your coaching business is doing its best to fight your corner. But it’s no fair fight. It’s like sending in one of the seven dwarves to go ten rounds with Muhammed Ali.

In the argument between do or don’t do – don’t do wins out.

We can’t turn The Voice off completely, but we can learn to turn the volume down.

Five Tips For Turning The Volume Down and Drowning Out The Voice of Doubt:

1. When The Voice starts up don’t try to argue with it. Arguing with it can sometimes make it stronger.

Simply turn your thoughts to something else. The cute thing your cat did yesterday;  what you’ll have for dinner. The Voice may well return, but each time you think of something else it loses little bit more of it’s power over you.

2. Start an Achievement Journal – every day write down at least ten things you’ve achieved today. And don’t just focus on the big things like getting a new client. Focus on all the little things you do every day that make a difference.

Even getting the ironing done in a busy day is an achievement. Heck, even getting half of it done can be a miracle sometimes. We’re so used to filtering out the small stuff that sometimes we need to remind ourselves how well we’re really doing.

As well as writing in the journal every day make sure to read previous days’ achievements to fully absorb all your greatness.

If a daily journal seems too onerous or time consuming then you can do a smaller version: whenever you’re feeling uncertain about something sit down and list 100 things you’ve ever achieved.

You’ll see how capable you are, and more importantly The Voice will have to fade into the background under the weight of all your evidence

3. Don’t focus on how difficult it will be to achieve the complete goal. Keep making the goal smaller and smaller until you’ve got the biggest step that you can tackle. Then keep doing that until step-by-step you reach the bigger goal.

The Voice knows  its ridiculous to fill your coaching practice in 6 months.  But it can’t argue that it’s impossible to go out and get the next client.

4. Know that even with the first step The Voice will still be whispering to you. It won’t disappear completely, but you can learn to take action despite it.

5. Take Frank Sinatra’s advice and do it your way. Whatever it is you want  to do think of a way that will be fun and that suits your personality. Trying to follow someone else’s way of doing things when it doesn’t fit who you are is pure glee for The Voice.

Where Is Your Voice Holding You back?

QuestionWhatever it is for you – where is The Voice discouraging you from taking the next step in your coaching practice?

Question.
Where are you playing small?

QuestionWhether you’re a new coach starting out and trying to get your first client or an established coach looking to increase your impact in the world, what is The Voice telling you?

QuestionWhat is the next big step for you to take in your life or in your coaching business?

 

Hear The Voice and do it anyway.

And now I’m off to write up in my Achievements Journal: wrote my first guest post today, and sent it off to be published.  The Voice is telling me I don’t have anything to say that anybody would want to listen to. But I’m too busy thinking about having spaghetti Bolognese for dinner to hear it.

About Laura Li

Laura Li trained as a coach and then  let The Voice deter her from working with real paying clients for 10 years. She has recently become a  Life Coach who works with people to help them drown out The Voice of Fear and Doubt and bring their Impossible Dreams to life.

If you’d like to find out more about banishing the voice or to sign up to my monthly newsletter  then please email la******@bt********.com


The most popular quote from our twitter account from week 4 of 2015:

Most RT'd quotes last week on @thecoachingblog

Each Thursday I share the most RT’d quote(s) from the blogs twitter account over the previous week. Last week the most RT’d tweet was:

“A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in.”

(Greek proverb)

Tweeted on 22nd January

The quote with the next highest amount of RT’s was:

“We have to learn to be our own best friends because we fall too easily into the trap of being our own worst enemies.”

Roderick Thorp

Tweeted on 23rd January

thank you

Many thanks to everyone who shared the quotes above and the other quotes from last week. I know that there are various aspects that can influence if a quote attracts your attention – if you saw the tweet, personal style, if it speaks to something happening in your life at that moment etc.

Which quote do you prefer?

(For those of you as geeky as I am and wondering what tool I’m using to measure individual RT’s this week I’ve been playing with www.twitonomy.com)