I signed a big, new client
I signed a big, new client the other day. It's a company I've long dreamed of working with. I was elated 😃.
And then, as soon as my initial joy and excitement had passed, my brain went: "but what if you screw this up?". 🥴
I caught myself immediately, partly because of my training, and partly because I had literally coached a client on this earlier that day.
And then something cool happened: I watched myself counter. Effortlessly, and automatically. It went like this:
🙋🏼♀️ (me): This will be amazing.
🧠: Yeah, unless you fail, in which case it will be a disaster.
🙋🏼♀️: Why would I fail?
🧠: You've never coached in this specific scenario before. What if you don't know how to do it?
🙋🏼♀️: No, but I have coached in a bunch of other scenarios, and all of them were new when I first started, so there is a pretty good chance, this will also work out well.
And then I mentally ran through a few success stories and some of the positive feedback I've had recently, and then my brain went quiet.
I didn't spiral, I didn't believe my own thoughts, and I didn't give it more attention than a fly 🪰 that's gotten into my house and needs to be guided out through an open window. Which I can assure you is NOT what would have happened pre-coaching - in fact, if there was an award for overthinking, I'm pretty sure it would have my name on it 🏆.
This kind of negative self-talk is a habit, it's part neurobiology, and part conditioning. And it may never fully go away because, well, we're human, and our brains are designed to worry about stuff going wrong.
But we can train ourselves to notice and redirect when it happens, so that we can keep taking positive action in the direction of what we want, as opposed to giving in to our worst fears.
Coaching taught me how.
Would you like to learn how to manage the worry and negative self-talk too, so you can spend your time pursuing your dreams instead of your fears? Book a consultation and we’ll talk you through how coaching can help, and what our programmes look like. Email our wonderful Practice Manager, Athena, at athena@cn8.co.uk today, we can't wait to meet you.