MODULE 1: Start Here
Hello and welcome my friend!
I am SOOOOO glad you’re here. Congratulations on taking the first step towards making profound and long-lasting changes in your life. As high-achieving women, we are conditioned to burnout. It is critical to learn effective ways to improve and protect your mental, emotional, and physical health. In this program, that is what I am going to help you do.
Learning to manage your mind is the secret to change . It is also a necessary step if you want to overcome burnout for good and feel a sense of joy and empowerment. Becoming aware of your thoughts and thinking on purpose gives you the power to take back your life.
As you get started on your journey, please remember that I am here to guide you through the entire process. I’ve got you, and I’m always on your side. As you know, I am available for support and any questions you may have.
Coaching 101
What is coaching and why is it amazing? I could talk about this FOREVER. But before we dive into how coaching can help you, lets cover some basics.
What is a Coach?
In the simplest of terms, a life coach is someone who can help you get perspective on your life and mind. As your coach, my job is to guide you from where you are now to where you want to be. It is helpful to think of coaching as “mind training.” Much like a trainer at the gym will work with you to achieve certain fitness or strengthening goals, and provide feedback as well as motivation, a life coach works with clients to strengthen their cognitive, emotional, and behavioral lives.
The challenge many of us encounter is that when we try to make changes in our lives, we cannot see where we are getting in our own way. A life coach holds an objective vantage point, and because of this, can help you reach your desired results quicker than if you try to do it alone.
Causal Coaching
The kind of coaching we will do together is called causal coaching. A lot of times we try to make changes in our lives by simply switching up our actions. For example, we start exercising, spend less money, or attempt to improve our relationships, without first understanding what leads us to behave how we do, make the decisions we make, or take action – or stay in inaction – in the first place.
The root cause of problem – or any result -can always be traced back to our thoughts, feelings and how we choose to interpret things that happen in our lives. Coaching helps us become aware and then get some leverage over these areas, so we can think DELIBERATELY.
Your current thinking is what creates your current life. Thoughts create EVERYTHING. So that is where we will start.
My Role as your Coach
As your coach, my role is to reveal things to you that you may be unaware of. I am here to show you your mind and the results of your thinking, and most importantly, how to manage your mind, which is a skill that takes practice, like any other.
During our time together, you will learn tools to harness your strengths, uncover your motivations, generate your own clear vision and goals, and create the changes you want most. You will learn how to heal and prevent burnout from the root, and to live a life that feels aligned for you. You'll also master the skill of coaching yourself, and will have a process to help you through any future challenge or experience.
Our coaching sessions are a place where you can let things out, feel free of judgement, and in return receive an honest perspective. We will hold a space together where your thoughts and emotions can all be examined, unraveled, and understood.
An Introduction to Thought Work
If you want to create change in any area of your life, you must learn to become aware of your thoughts and beliefs and to question whether or not they serve you anymore. You must develop the ability to challenge your own mind and to think differently on purpose.
We can change our thinking patterns, and even the neuropathways in our brain to feel better. To be transparent, this is not always easy. But it is always worth it. You will step into your power by learning to manage your mind.
Thoughts are Optional.
We will have 60,000 uncensored thoughts per day. And most of us do not pay any attention to the sentences running through our minds. We think that we are just making observations:
My workload is unreasonable.
My husband doesn’t pay attention to me.
My colleagues are toxic.
I have too much on my plate.
We think we are observing facts but really what we are doing is having optional thoughts. If you’re like me, you have probably always believed that thoughts are automatic. But thoughts are a choice. The good news is that we can retrain our minds to think in ways that bring the results we most desire to life.
Our Thoughts Create our Lives.
Our thoughts create the narrative of our life. Every single result in our life, every single feeling comes from our thoughts. We often live our days thinking that we are at the affect of the things that happen to us. We may even think that what happens in our lives create our feelings.
But we have it entirely backwards.
Our thoughts create all of our results and our entire life experience. Some thoughts we have been thinking for decades or more, and so we believe them to be true. Some thoughts keep us safe, but also keep us stuck.
As humans we have the ability to question our thoughts. This is called metacognition, which is "Thinking about our thinking". We are able to do the work to learn about our thoughts, create our feelings on purpose, and use this as fuel to create what we want most in life. That is what we do together in coaching.
Your Current Thinking is Creating Your Current Results.
Your current life is the result of your thoughts. Yes, of course there are things that happen outside of you that you cannot always control or influence. A colleague or loved one may say or do something to you. Someone may leave you. You might get sick. We might experience world events we can't control like pandemics or disasters.
But what always remains true is your ability to control your own thinking and feelings about the situation. Your ultimate power always lies in your ability to decide what to think, how to feel, and what action to take in any situation.
Why I Love Thought Work
The most amazing thing about thought work is that it places the power back into your hands. You cannot always control everything that happens to you, but you can always decide how to think about your current circumstances, your life, and your future.
This is a beautiful thing! Thought work does not solve every single problem on its own. But I do believe that there is no problem that thought work doesn’t help. We have thoughts about every single problem in our lives. Our cognition is always observing and narrating it.
Bringing awareness and intention to how you are thinking about a problem in your life, a thought pattern in your mind, an experience in your body – this is thought work. And thought work is a tool you always need.