Career and life coaches help people solve problems and serve as a wonderful means to help unlock potential and overcome personal & professional challenges. As great as they may be, they are not always financially accessible and in that case, applying self-coaching principles is the most viable solution.
Here are 12 self-coaching tips to help keep yourself on the path to success:
1. Set Goals
Within a company, and for your own career, your focus should be on achieving defined goals, not necessarily on working hard or being busy. By maintaining a goal-oriented mindset you will achieve greater success for both yourself and those around you. Set both short-term and long-term goals and break them down into milestones.
2. Do a Brain Dump
Sometimes we have many ideas, thoughts and concerns floating around in our head and it helps to get them all out on paper. Make a mind map or try journaling. This can help you determine what you want to achieve and identify areas of your life that warrant improvement.
3. Assess Your Own Performance
Continually evaluating your own performance is a great way to stay on track. Rather than waiting for feedback from others, do it with yourself from time to time. One way to do this is to select quantifiable goals and track your own progress towards them over time. Ask yourself what’s working and what’s not. Look into different approaches.
4. Show, Don’t Tell
Actions speak louder than words. Prepare an action plan and ensure that each goal is motivating and challenging you. Set realistic deadlines and plan out how you will meet them.
5. Master Time Management
Everyone still has the same 24 hours in a day, it’s how you use it that matters. Time is a very limited resource and managing it well is essential to productivity and your overall well-being. A great way to manage your time well is to get an early start.
6. Stay One Step Ahead
As the old saying goes, ‘Fail to plan, plan to fail.’ When you anticipate the demands of your career and personal life you can be prepared and plan your time and resources accordingly. Planning ahead can make you more productive and efficient while minimising stress.
7. Adopt a Growth Mindset
Who you are today is not who you have to be tomorrow. Those with a fixed mindset believe that their intelligence and talents are fixed traits. Successful people typically have a growth mindset, the belief that we can continuously improve, take on new challenges and learn new things. Invest time into developing a growth mindset and seek knowledge, learn new skills and challenge your own perceptions. Silence negative oughts and frame everything in a positive light.
8. Forget Perfectionism
Fear of failure, or even success, can prevent us from putting our plans into action and sharing them with the world. Despite our best efforts, nothing will ever be perfect. Do not be afraid to put your ideas out there and try, even if it means failing sometimes. There is no success without failure.
9. Practice Mindfulness
Many major companies, like Google, have tapped into Mindfulness as a tool for bolstering work performance. This is because mindfulness improves our ability to focus, think creatively and develop greater emotional intelligence. It also helps minimise stress and to calm the mind.
10. Take Initiative
Nowadays most careers require more than simply doing the task at hand. Employers are looking for people with fresh ideas who are willing to take initiative, spearhead new projects and come up with new solutions. As an entrepreneur, taking initiative is even more important.
11. Take Care of Yourself
A healthy diet, exercise and adequate sleep are just as important for your career as your mental health, due to the close connection between the mind and body. Staying healthy means less sick days, sick leave and greater productivity and performance at work. Physical exercise has even been shown to boost creativity.
12. Reward Yourself
Establish a reward list for each step towards your goals. This will keep you motivated and on track. This is especially important for maintaining motivation towards the achievement of long-term goals.
Remember, at the end of the day, the only person standing in the way of you achieving your dreams is you. Self-coaching helps you to learn how to get out of your own way and become your own go-to person. Cultivate your inner coach by building self-awareness and self-reflection, empowering your confidence, increasing accountability, enhancing creativity and boosting your problem-solving skills
