Become Your Own Best Coach

Ultimately, Success Circles peer coaching is a process of becoming your own best coach. Coaching and being coached month over month fundamentally shifts your approach to life. The two elements of becoming your own best coach are

  • Taking perspective 

  • Asking better questions

Let’s unpack these. 

Taking Perspective 

Do you give the brilliant advice you need? Think of the last time you said what you needed to hear to a friend. If only in that moment you could have had a friend like... you.

3 things I've learned from training Success Circle coaches:

  1. Giving others the support we struggle to give ourselves is ubiquitous.

  2. This is not hypocrisy. 

  3. This is a question of perspective.

In the thick of challenge, wanting so much for things to not be as they are, we put on blinders. In the coach role, we take a high-level view. We see our coachees strengths, vision, and challenges in the way. Cut to coachees POV—not able to see past their big old barrier. As you practice coaching, you practice perspective.

Pursuing our big dreams, we get lost. When a trusted voice provides a 10K-ft view, we think they’re a genius for seeing what we ourselves envisioned. You are the dreamer of the dream! By becoming your own best coach, you become the creator.

Recently a coaching client asked me, “Am I qualified to fulfill my potential?” I looked at him blankly. “Who else could be qualified to fulfill your potential?”

Asking Better Questions

The quality of our thinking is the quality of our questions. We can’t answer a question we haven’t asked. And as long as we are thinking, we are asking ourselves questions.

To discover your questions, listen to your answers. If in the face of challenge you hear, “I can’t handle this,” “This is hopeless,” “This is my fault for…”, you’re asking disempowering questions. If in the face of challenge you hear, “I’ve got this,” “This excites me,” “This is a great opportunity for me because…,” you’re asking generative questions. 

Disempowering questions reveal a fixed mindset - seeing ourselves as a rigid compilation of strengths and weaknesses. Generative questions reveal a growth mindset- knowing ourselves to be ever developing by taking on challenge. If your current MO is a fixed mindset, simply by believing you can develop a growth mindset you've made the shift. Check, done.

For short, we'll call generative questions, better questions. Because they are.

If thinking you’ve hit a dead end, a better question can offer a new pathway. If your thoughts are self-defeating, a better question can reveal your potential. If in doubt, a better question can get to the core of what you really, really want. 

The Success Circles process is a series of five better questions, smartly choreographed to take you from stuck to next right action in a 25-minute coaching round. Prior to every session, you self-reflect by completing the five questions in worksheet form. Through the process of 

  • Pre-session reflection

  • Coaching with your Circle

  • Post session action

  • Taking on next month’s challenge

you internalize the five questions as a new way of thinking. By replacing disempowering questions with the five generative Success Circles questions, your answers improve. Your actions improve. Your life dramatically improves.

With each of the 5Qs, you develop an aspect of your own best coach:

  1. Confidence

  2. Ambition 

  3. Insight 

  4. Vision

  5. Resourcefulness 

And, with the closing commitment, accountability.

Let’s break these down: 

1: CONFIDENCE

By answering Q1, you claim an accomplishment and strength, building confidence as defined as “fid”- trust- in self. As you apply the strength identified here to the change you seek, you take on your challenge with belief. 

2: AMBITION

By answering Q2, you name the change you seek, then the challenge in the way. You’re focusing on what you want, versus what you don’t, and affirming your willingness to pursue it through the tough.

3: INSIGHT

By answering Q3, you reflect on how the challenge is affecting you. In this you’re developing the ability to take on challenges as the growth opportunities they are. 

4: VISION

By answering Q4, you see, hear, and feel your future success. In this you’re calling upon your intelligent imagination- gaining clarity, inspiration, and insight on how to get there.

5. RESOURCEFULNESS

By answering Q5, you’re affirming that you have the resources needed to take the next best step. As you directly ask for support here, you call on your greatest resource in real time, your Circle. By asking for the specific support you need, you’re building a more robust, reciprocal web.

Closing Commitment: ACCOUNTABILITY 

By making a closing commitment to your next right action, month over month, you’re building self-efficacy. You find yourself no longer doubting your word. As you start this process up with Q1 the following month, your confidence steadily builds. 

Journal exercise: 

Imagine you just hired the best coach you could possibly hire to reach your career goals. What would they do? How would they do it? How would you feel after meeting with them? 

Complete the stem sentence: My best coach would…

Read this back. Now complete the prompt: To be my own best coach will… 

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Ready to become your own best coach and/or create a culture of coach-leaders in your organization? Let’s connect.

Lucia brizzi