As CEO’s, as entrepreneurs, and especially as coaches, we all tend to fall into the serial learner category.
That's OK…up to a point.
Building a business, especially a 6 figure business, requires that you grow because you must do the inner work to create the outer results that you desire.
You see, your business is a vehicle through which you not only serve clients and impact the world, but it’s also how you become who you really are.
The self-development part of the business-building journey isn’t for sissies. It’s also the most awesome gift that you'll ever receive.
Way too often, I hear coaches say, “I just need one more certification…one more degree…and THEN I’ll be ready.”
Click to Tweet:
What if you, just as you are right now, ARE enough?
Newsflash: This is your ego’s attempt to convince you that you aren’t ready yet. (And the ego will always seek out another certification or learning opportunity for you to focus on, regardless of how many letters you have after your name. Have you seen this pattern play out in your life?)
When a coach tells me that she’ll think about working with her first client after she goes through another certification or gets another degree, it’s often the ego that’s secretly at work trying to keep her from moving onward and upward (because change, even when it’s positive, can feel scary, right?)
If you recognize that you are stuck in the “I-need-to-wait” camp, here’s what you can do:
1. Look squarely in the face of what you're trying to avoid.
To see what I mean, ask yourself these questions:
What am I avoiding?
What is pursuing this certification, another degree, allowing me to postpone?
What scares me about saying, “I’m ready”?
During my next client retreat, we’re going to dig deep into each persons perceived obstacles. Because, when you take the time to look at that obstacle squarely in the face (and yes, it should feel a bit uncomfortable) and then ask a few questions about it, it’s likely that you’ll start to see your obstacle for the gift that it is. Your obstacle is your path.
It’s your fastest path forward.
It’s your path to growth.
It’s your path to getting past your excuses.
It’s your path to living the life you dream about.
2. What if you, just as you are right now, ARE enough?
What’s “enough,” really? Have you taken the time and focus to lay out exactly what “enough” looks like?
When I was in my corporate sales job, I often told my coach that I wasn’t quite ready to leave my job. I had lots of reasons to justify why I wasn’t ready to take the leap.
She coached me through my excuses so that I could see that as long as I allowed myself to avoid having a clearly identified goal of when I’d be “ready,” I wasn’t driving the bus. Fear, ego, and playing small were driving the bus. And they kept moving the target so that it was just out of reach.
So choose a date, a dollar amount, or a specific level of training. Choose something specific and commit that once you hit that marker, there’s no more room for excuses. Choose to be ready, to show up, and to serve.
3. What if you don’t have to be a perfect coach to be able to serve your clients?
What if you don’t have to be the guru or the well known expert to be able to help your clients?
All you need is to be a few steps ahead of your clients. (Plus, you’re much more likely to be able to help them right where they are if you’ve been in the same spot as them not too long ago.) Your client doesn’t need to know how to lose 100 pounds, or her 101st pound. She just needs to know how to get started and how to lose the first pound. Then you can move her along towards what's next.
At the end of the day, all of these come down to one core issue: YOU aren't driving the bus. Your fear, your ego, and anyone else who happens to walk by is in the drivers seat.
So, my challenge to you today is to stop making it about you and your fears and instead make it about your clients and the impact you are called to make. Choose to focus on who you can serve and how you can serve them, and the rest will fall in place.
Learn 3 easy steps to more clients,
more impact + more cash!
Krista- hope you’re well.
Loved the content of this post- you phrased it beautifully in saying that avoidance is the ego’s way of telling you that you aren’t good enough or worthy enough. It’s fear speaking when someone says ‘I’ll follow my dream as soon as I have that next credential, that next raise, my kids move out, etc.’; no doubt. So you bring up an excellent point, probably the one thing that keeps the majority of us from meeting our potential.
But I cringed when I saw the headline. I wish you hadn’t phrased it that way. I know it was meant to be provocative (and it worked). But coaching certifications do a lot more good than bad. A coaching certification sets a standard for quality, experience and ethics that is really important. It also gives clients a clue as to how committed a coach is to her craft.
You can definitely do excellent coaching without a certification and coaches without certifications provide huge value to a clients every day. Your point was well taken that we shouldn’t use training or other excuses to stop us from working on our path.
But your headline really didn’t address your point. It’s not that credentials are a waste of time; it’s that we shouldn’t allow our fears of unworthiness stop us from moving forward. Someone who is casually reading their email this morning likely took away the wrong message.
As someone with a handful of initials behind my name, I definitely have a bias here. I obtained my certification while I was serving clients in order to serve them better.
Krista, you are an influential voice in the coaching community. I’m certain you didn’t intend to cast doubt on the value of certifications or the coaches who have them- but your headline did. So, in the future, I’d ask you to consider the impact of your subject lines a little harder before you press send.
Thanks much.
-Andy
Andy, thank you so much for taking the time to respond! I appreciate your thoughts and completely agree that a certification can be the right next step for many coaches. “A” verses “next” certification is where I see people get stuck most often.
My personal story was me deciding that I wanted to get certified and then once I was certified, I kept seeing more and more opportunities and if I had pursued them, they would have allowed me to delay what I really want to do – which was to make an impact and serve people at a high level.
That’s the “who” I’m aiming to speak to in this post: the person who feels like they need to have permission to be good enough and ready right now to start taking action. The person who is waiting to step into their calling and to start serving clients.
So, are certifications good? My answer is a simple “Yes AND…” 🙂
Yes: if it supports your path and you have a clear definition of “enough” so that your ego doesn’t distract you AND tell you to keep getting more letters after your name.
Yes: if it isn’t deterring you from starting to serve clients and make an impact now.
AND several of my clients don’t have coaching certifications. It’s not my job to say what’s right vs wrong for them as much as it is to support them in building their dream business, in whatever form that may take. With their intentions always being about how to best serve their clients, I support them on that journey and love witnessing how they do make the world a little bit better with each person they help to see, to be, and to do more of what they love.
So, like you suggested, it comes down to the motivation behind the decision to get a certification. Who’s driving the bus? Is it fear and ego? Or is your true, most amazing self that sees this as a vehicle for being able to serve your clients at an even higher level? 🙂
Thank you again, Andy – this is a great conversation and I appreciate you opening it up with your comments.
When I saw the title I had a feeling that the content would address the issue of the roadblocks someone would put in front of them before actually “doing the work,” in other words – a self-imposed roadblock to success. So the title did work for me. And, I believe in certification as well.
Right on, Ed!