Impact Starts Within, Integrity With Coaching, & The Structure of the Problem

I am coming off of a 3-week training and I feel like I can finally exhale! I went into this year with the goal of launching my first and own coaching certification program and I’ve gone through really intensive training to get myself up to the caliber of someone who’s not only a trainer but a speaker. I didn’t have to go through this trainer’s training but I’m really glad I did because I learned so much about myself, how I perform, how I show up in front of an audience and the shadows that come with that--there’s a lot of limiting beliefs I had to work through as well as the strategy piece of how to actually teach people.

Today, I wanted to talk to you all about how your impact starts within and what that means. Another way that I bring this up is that you cannot take people to the depth that you have not gone to yourself. If you haven’t coached yourself or haven’t been coached, how effective do you think you’re going to be?

Here’s the thing, I’m an incredibly experienced coach but I’ve never gone through sexual abuse/trauma. That doesn’t mean I can’t hold space and coach someone through that because I can evaluate and know what the structure of the problem is. There’s a structure to a problem, there’s a structure to success and there’s a structure to coaching--it’s something I teach in my coaching certification program. The content is all your own experiences. No, I haven’t been sexually abused but I know how to hold space and have empathy for someone who is experiencing being triggered by that and working through their own shadow; I can coach and guide them through that. The structure is your pattern. If I can figure out the structure of someone’s problem and see what their patterns are, their conditionings and paradigms then I can help them.

How do you have integrity with coaching? A lot of women in my Mastermind feel like they have imposter syndrome--they just got certified, don’t feel like they’ve been at this long enough, don’t know if they have the experience. If you have healed yourself on some level and reverse engineer what you did to heal and you can hold space for someone and have gone through the certification processes to do something of that caliber, then I think you have integrity. Anybody who is questioning if they are experienced enough, usually isn’t--It’s usually the people who aren’t questioning themselves. The fact that you’re questioning yourself speaks volumes of your character--it means you have an incredible amount of awareness and you care, you have empathy and compassion, and you don’t want to screw people over. Nor do you want to perhaps over promise that you don’t know you can’t deliver. The fact that you are questioning yourself, indeed makes you a coach. That’s how you have integrity with coaching.

Yes it is true that you can only take clients to the depth that you’ve gone and that’s because you’re going to notice that your clients will only change to the extent that you have changed. They will only heal to the extent you have healed. I often see my clients struggling with the same stuff that I’m struggling with because the world is our mirror. I am projecting and also seeing. The other flipside is that once you heal stuff, you’ll then notice the shift in your clients--it’s amazing! I’ve seen my clients level up, I’ve seen them take ownership, and really dive deep into their inner child traumas and really take time to slow down and to honor themselves and to meet themselves where they’re at because that’s what I’ve done. It’s a method of modeling, they are also going to follow in your energy; it’s like an amazing ripple effect. This is the content, let’s talk about the structure.

There is something called the structure of the problem and it’s something that I teach in my coaching certification. What I mean by this is that in NLP, we’re looking at how something is said, not what is actually said. The structure of the problem can be negative emotions, internal parts conflict, limiting decisions/beliefs, unresourceful strategies and values. The reason why this is important is because if I can figure out the structure of someone’s problem, I can effectively coach them without really having to dive into the content. The content is the context--it could be sexual trauma or not feeling seen, loved or heard. The content doesn’t matter, I’m looking for what the structure is. Are there negative emotions we need to release? Is there a limiting belief that needs to be released? Are there any internal conflicts that we need to resolve? Are there any unresourceful strategies that this person is using? Do we need to change their strategies? Is this a conflict of values? -- This is how you can coach people in subjects that you don’t have quite the same experience in but that’s okay because it’s not about the content, it’s about the structure.

All this to say, have integrity. If you don’t feel like you are going to be able to deliver on the experience that your client needs, you can always refer out and we all start somewhere. When I think about my first fitness client, I am so sorry LOL! Even when I think about my first life coaching client, I am so sorry! I was doing a lot of advice giving, I wasn’t asking the right questions, I wasn’t effectively holding space--I hope I was present. But I see a much different skill set for me now where I am incredibly present through 6-8 hour breakthrough days and be so present and focused and honed in on the client. I’m so much better at asking the right questions and the most powerful question to help the client uncover the answers within herself and when it comes to fitness coaching, I am so much better! 2013 compared to 2017, I know so much more. If you are not getting started, this is your sign! The years are going to go by no matter what and even if you don’t think you’re a great coach now, I promise you that there is one person out there you can help and you CAN coach them with integrity and that starts with committing and doing your own inner work.