Blog Post: Fear Not

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In your coaching life, what are you most afraid of? What worries you the most? What fears hold you back? I suppose for many coaches – especially those who are new to the craft – the answers to these questions would include:

– Fear of failing
– Fear of being seen as incompetent
– Fear of not “getting it”
– Fear of harming your client
– Fear of not making the transition from your previous mindsets

For the more experienced coach, the fears might include:

– Fear of not achieving “success” as a coach
– Fear of slipping back into old habits
– Fear of losing your identity or sense of worth
– Fear of failing making any real difference

May I ask you to trust me for a moment? I’m going to give you the secret to giving up your fears. I’m going to give you the secret sauce for overcoming the fear that might be hindering your best work as a coach. Are you ready…..?

Borrowing from that well-revered and oft-quoted psychologist from television, Dr. Bob Newhart…. STOP IT! Just…STOP IT!

Now, don’t you feel better? Well, probably not yet, but if you’ll stick with me here I hope you will. I’m going to give you some things to stop being afraid of in exercising your coaching skills and mindset, and a few other things to focus on that will help you bring great value to your clients and to your beliefs about yourself.

First, stop being afraid of failing….that you aren’t ever going to “get it”. Look, for most of us, formal coaching is a complete 180 from the way we showed up for years and years. Please don’t expect that you’ll just decide one day to be a coach and all your old instincts will go away. Give yourself a break when you fall back into problem-solving. Relax if your mind goes to some experience you once had. Stop beating yourself up when you ask a leading question, or find yourself getting sucked in to the other person’s story. There’s a reason we all do that from time to time and it has to do with old habits and behaviors. Let me assure you that the more your practice the new behaviors and see results from taking this new approach, the easier it will become. Stay with it and you WILL “get it”. The light bulb really will go off for you and your brain will begin to re-wire itself to thinking and communicating from a new perspective…this new mindset.

Next, please stop being afraid of how others will see you as you lean in to this new way of helping people. Don’t worry that as you make the shift to this new mindset and skillset, that others will see you as not having any good ideas, or that they will think you don’t know as much – don’t have the expertise you once were known for… Again I’m going to ask you to trust me that as you adopt the coaching mindset and start helping others discover for themselves the shifts and solutions that can help them to soar, the thrill you will feel will far outshine anything you felt when you presented a great idea or solution. When you see the results of someone truly discovering something new and then figuring out ways to act on that new awareness that will help them move forward, you’ll feel a MUCH greater sense of satisfaction than you did when you came up with all those great ideas that no one ever did anything with. And…others will recognize it too…your clients will feel this great sense of accomplishment and they’ll understand the role you played in their success – far more than when you told them what to do and they didn’t do it.

Last, stop being afraid that your coaching is going to be responsible for some harm or bad outcome for your client. We get this feedback often from new coaches…they fear that if they stick with a coach mindset, that their clients might do something they shouldn’t do, or that they’ll fail. Let me say this…its true. Sometimes your clients WILL do things that will set them back…or that might bring some pain….or might not yield the best results. But let me tell you something else that’s true….they would have done so whether you stayed in your coach role or not. Sometimes we can get tempted to believe that if we tell people what to do, they won’t have any pain….they won’t make any mistakes….they’ll always get the results they want. But we all know that isn’t true….and your lack of intervention when a client may be considering what seems to us a less-than-wise decision is NOT going to be the cause of their decision or result. My colleague Chad Hall says it very well….”People don’t’ do what they’re told, they do what they tell themselves. So let’s stop telling them what to do and start helping them tell themselves what to do in a better way”

Maintaining a coach mindset is not going to cause people to do something they wouldn’t have done, any more than shifting to a “telling” mindset is going to prevent them from doing what they shouldn’t do. Please don’t let that fear hold you back any longer.

Well, if those are some things you should stop worrying about, what are some thoughts you can focus on to replace these fears?

First, coaching works. It works. If you can stick with the mindsets and the skillsets and trust the process, I can promise you a great reward. If you will trust that those skills will come…that the mindset shifts will occur…that the temptation to “fix” will subside….that your tendency to “tell” will be replaced by a genuine curiosity and desire to draw out the best from others…then maybe you can cut yourself some slack when you mess up. Stop fearing failure and start believing that the shifts in your mindset will come.

Next, understand that your client is the hero of the story…and when she wins, you win. When he has some amazing discovery or “aha” moment, you get to celebrate that the hero of the story just grew and stretched and moved forward…and YOU played a part in it. Stop worrying whether you have lost some influence or impact by holding back your wisdom and experience, but rather rejoice in knowing that you have helped the hero of the story get a win! I promise your influence and impact will grow tenfold when you do that.

Finally, understand that even now – perhaps in your early days of coaching – you are making a huge difference in your clients’ lives. Just by bringing your full self to the coaching relationship, you are making a difference. Even before your skills are finely honed, your non-judgmental listening, your encouraging, your belief in that other person…they are all making a big difference for that other person. Please stop fearing that you may bring some harm to others because of any lack of experience or slip-up on your part. You are ALREADY making a difference, and your impact will only continue to increase as you hone your skills, gain experience, and trust the process of coaching for helping others move forward in their lives.

Leave those fears behind and lean boldly into your next coaching relationship!

1 thought on “Fear Not”

  1. Hello Bill Copper, I truly believe this word was SO FOR ME. Thank you for the Encouragement and for the wonderful Reminder as I step into this ministry of Coaching here in the Northwest. I am very grateful for your ministry and coaching experience Bill.

    Thanks CAM!

    Grace & Peace

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