
Have you ever felt like your self-coaching sessions aren’t a productive use of your time? Or that you don’t know what to submit for coaching on inside PGSD – even though you know there’s plenty of work to do on your perfectionism handbrake? This episode will help!
In this episode, I’m sharing what a quarterly self-coaching curriculum is, why you need one and the 5 steps to creating one.
In This Episode You’ll Learn:
- What self-coaching is and how it will help you release your perfectionism handbrake
- How I realised I needed to create a self-coaching curriculum
- The benefits of creating a self-coaching curriculum using your quarterly review
- How your Growth Goal and Power Planning relates to your self-coaching curriculum
PGSD is opening to new students on 27 July 2022:
The PGSD Process will get you out of your own way in your business and have you making more money more easily. The doors to Perfectionists Getting Shit Done will be opening at 6am New York time on 27 July and closing at 11:59pm New York time on 2 August 2022. To find out more about the program and be the first to know when the doors open, join the waitlist here: samlaurabrown.com/pgsd.
Featured In The Episode:
- Join the waitlist for Perfectionists Getting Shit Done (PGSD) – samlaurabrown.com/pgsd
- Sign up for daily Perfectionist Power-Ups – samlaurabrown.com/power
- Follow me on Instagram @perfectionismproject
- Brooke Castillo – The Life Coach School
Listen To The Episode
Listen to the episode on the player above, click here to download the episode and take it with you or listen anywhere you normally listen to podcasts – just find Episode 334 of The Perfectionism Project Podcast!
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FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Hi, and welcome to another episode of The Perfectionism Project. A podcast full of perfectionism advice for entrepreneurs. My name is Sam Laura Brown, I help entrepreneurs release their perfectionism handbrake, so they can get out of their own way and build a fulfilling and profitable business. I’m the founder of the perfectionist getting shit done group coaching program, which is otherwise known as PGSD. And for even more perfectionism advice to help you with your business, you can follow me on Instagram @perfectionismproject.
In this episode, I am sharing how to create your quarterly self coaching curriculum. So I’m going to be sharing what that is, why you need one, and the five steps to creating one. But first, let’s talk about what self coaching is, and how that ties in with releasing your perfectionism handbrake.
So I am a big fan of Brooke Castillo and her self coaching model. So this is your thoughts, create your feelings, your feelings create your actions, and your actions create your results. She teaches all about that on her podcast, The Life Coach School podcast. And when it comes to self coaching, and releasing your perfectionism handbrake, this is looking at the thoughts that are having you feel the way you’re feeling, act the way you’re acting and getting the results that you’re getting. So that might be how much money you’re making, how many customers or clients you have, all of those kinds of things.
And when we are self coaching, we are changing our beliefs, our feelings, our actions and our results. We’re doing that by creating awareness around what is creating our current results that we have. And then we are identifying what we need to be believing or feeling or how we need to be acting or what result we need to be focused on in order to achieve our goals. And then doing the mindset work needed in order to actually be able to think the way that we need to think, to feel the way we need to feel, to act the way we need to act, to get the result that we want to get.
So that is a little very brief overview from my perception of what self coaching is, it is really coaching ourselves, holding space for ourselves, to just have that self awareness, examine what’s going on, have self compassion when we’re doing that, if you are being judgmental in yourself coaching, it is not self coaching. It is self coaching, when you are really allowing yourself to share what you actually are thinking, and to be honest about how you’re actually feeling and you’re actually acting.
A lot of times, especially when you’ve been in the personal development world for a while, we don’t actually allow ourselves to even see our real thoughts or feelings or actions because we know better. And so anytime we start self coaching, we just kind of override that with oh, well, I know I should be thinking this way or I know I should be feeling this way instead. We want to actually want myself coaching, allow ourselves to really see what is going on. And do that without judgment so that we can then see what needs to be changed.
And to change that and to also recognize the most effective way to do that, which often involves identifying beliefs that you already have that feel better than the ones that you’re currently thinking or actions that would be easy, and that kind of thing. And I love to think of self coaching as being a practice. And especially if you’re just beginning self coaching that you might sit down and think well, I don’t really know what I’m doing and is this working?
But to know that every time you sit down to have a look at what’s going on in your brain to have a look at the way you’ve been showing up or the way that you’ve been feeling and to really recognize and hypothesize as to how you could change that. And then implementing that self coaching is very important that you’re building that muscle and you will get better and more efficient at self coaching. And you will be able to more quickly and easily release your perfectionism handbrake.
So inside PGSD, you can really start to understand what self coaching might look like just by listening to other PGSDers getting coached or getting coached yourself and we are self coaching. It is really doing that but for ourselves. And it’s so powerful to do that and also to self coach and then take your self coaching to a coaching call and get another perspective on it or that next layer of coaching on whatever it is that you need help with.
So I wanted to do this episode, because I realized a few months ago that I needed to have a bit more structure for how I was doing my self coaching. So I’m in Stacey Boehman 200k mastermind. And as part of that she tasked us with self coaching every day. And when I started doing that, I realized that the way I was self coaching wasn’t actually as effective as it could be, in having me reach my goals. And of course, do that in a way that’s in alignment with my values, it feels good, that’s in alignment with the lifestyle that I want, and all of that.
And so what I was doing is I would just sit down, and maybe put a timer on for about five minutes, and then do a brain dump or a thought download, and just see what was going on in my brain that day. And then if there was anything that I noticed within that, I would coach myself on that. And I would use Brooke Castillo’s self coaching model to do that. And there are many different ways you can self coach, I just love the Life Coach School and the way that they teach that.
But I would do that, and it would just kind of be whatever happened to be top of mind. And that there were kind of these things that I could be self coaching on that I hadn’t really been turning my attention to, because I wasn’t thinking about them on a daily basis. And so when it came to self coaching and recognizing this, what I decided to do was to create for myself, a self coaching curriculum, so that I always knew exactly what to coach myself on when I was having a self coaching session.
And just as a side note, I tend to do these at the beginning of each work day, and I work three days a week. So I’m not self coaching every day, but I do self coach at the beginning of every work day. And it is a needle mover. So I wanted to know what I needed to get self coached on. And also on the coaching calls in the program. I wanted to always be able to know when I was getting peer coach or when I was on a call that if I was called upon, or if I was getting coached that I would always know exactly what topic to ask about or what question to ask about that I never have to be thinking, hey, what am I struggling with right now? Is there anything I’m not really sure? Oh, well, I already know what I should be doing and isn’t doing like all of that kind of thing.
I wanted to know exactly what I needed to get coached on. And again, that’s being coached myself or getting coached by someone else. So that I was never missing an opportunity for self coaching or misusing, not misusing, but not making the most of an opportunity for self coaching. Especially if I was going to be self coaching three days per week, I wanted to really make sure that that time was being well spent.
Inside PGSD, you have the opportunity to submit for coaching. And I know that we have PGSDers who want to get coached and who are just struggling to identify what to get coaching on. And this is the answer to that. So let’s go through exactly why you need a self coaching curriculum. I’ve kind of already shared it. But it’s so that you can make the most of any time that you have for journaling, for mindset work.
It also helps you to be really constrained when you are working on your mindset. Because if you’re anything like me, you love working on your mindset, you love personal development. And there are so many different ways that you can do that and different lenses that you can do that through and you can listen to a podcast and hear someone talking about a specific area of mindset work they’re doing, and think, Okay, well, I need to do that too.
And we can just end up with this overwhelming list of things that we quote unquote need to improve in order to achieve our goals. And it can be so exhausting that we just don’t even look at it at all, or we just stop ourselves from actually noticing how far we’ve come because our list of what we’re trying to improve is so much longer than what we have the capacity to work on. So you always feel behind when it comes to our self coaching, getting out of our own way and all of that kind of thing.
So this really helps you to be constrained, to be focused so that you can really get bang for your buck when it comes to the time that you’re spending coaching yourself or getting coached. And then in your next quarterly self coaching curriculum that you can create. You can always put anything on there that came up during the quarter that you like I really need to work on this.
We often love to bounce from one thing to the next the same way that tends to happen when our perfectionism handbrake is on when it comes to business tasks that we like to jump from thing to thing to thing, especially when it all feels new and shiny. Instead of just going into the deep work that we need to do, and sticking with something, so this is going to help you to stick with the areas that you could elevate.
And then you can always come back to other things later in the future. But to just be able to say, this is what I’m focused on right now. And I’m going to stick to that until I feel like I have a certain amount of change growth mastery in that area. And then next quarter, I’m going to create a new curriculum for myself, a new plan for myself, and I can focus on that then.
So kind of stops the shiny object syndrome, when it comes to mindset work. So I’m gonna go through the five steps to creating your self coaching curriculum. The first step is to set your growth goal, or to do your quarterly review for your growth goals. So let me go into this a little bit. So inside PGSD, we have growth goals. So these are 12 month revenue goals, that are set just a bit above what you believe is possible for yourself, so that you need to grow in order to achieve that goal.
It’s not a realistic goal, in the sense that your present day self can’t achieve that goal. That’s what makes a goal feel realistic that we don’t have to grow in order to achieve it. So it feels like a done deal. So instead of that we are setting our goal higher than our belief, and we are bringing our belief up to meet our goal instead of bringing our goal down to meet our beliefs that we have about ourselves, our offer, our customers and clients, our followers, subscribers, Instagram account, email list, ourselves, the business owner, ourselves as whatever it is that we are doing.
So for example, myself as a coach, that we are setting that bar higher, so that instead of just being able to easily achieve that goal, which isn’t very fulfilling or satisfying, it doesn’t really help us long term either. We want to have it be a stretch, have it be something that we need to grow, in order to achieve. So inside PGSD, your first step in planning properly is setting your growth goal.
And so when it comes to this quarterly self coaching curriculum, you will if it’s your first quarter inside PGSD, you will need to make sure you have your growth goal, you have your quarterly milestones, and that you can go in the PGSD forum and your persistence log and have your goal reviewed so that you know that it set at the optimal level. So you need to have a growth goal in order to do this. And that’s so important, I think when we are not having clear goals and trying to do our work on our personal growth, that this is when we ended up being very scattered and doing a little bit of this and a little bit of that and spending a lot of time reading books and listening to podcasts and doing affirmations and all of that without it really adding up.
It’s because we don’t have that North Star. And we don’t have that North Star that really allows us, begs us, encourages us to grow and evolve. And having that goal will bring to the surface, the work that needs to be done. So if you are feeling like you have no idea what to work on, and everything’s going super well like it’s great to feel like everything’s working. And at the same time, we want to have a goal that is going to help you see where you need to get out of your own way.
So that’s what we have the growth call inside PGSD. As I said, that’s why it’s the first step in planning properly as perfectionist, that is the North Star. So you need to have your growth goal. Or if you already have your growth goal, you need to have done your quarterly review for your most recent milestone. On the topic of quarterly review. So in PGSD, if you just go to the search bar, you can type in quarterly review, the workbook will come up. It’s also I believe in the PGSD process in the relevant module.
So if you are doing your quarterly review, it is normal to feel resistance to your quarterly review. Even if you love personal development, even if you love working on your business and you’re so committed to getting out of your own way. It is normal to feel that resistance to doing that. So I just want you to know that so that if you feel the resistance, you can just let it be okay. You don’t have to coach yourself out of the resistance. You can just feel resistant and do it anyway.
So you need to have done your quarterly review for your growth goal or have your growth goal having just said it. So that’s the first step. The second step is to identify the thoughts that are creating your results right now, when it comes to your business. So this will be a mix of helpful and unhelpful thoughts. And you will be aware of the results that you have right now, if you’ve just set your growth goal. Or if you have done that quarterly review, you will be aware of how much money you’re making in your business, which is a very important metric in your business.
And you will be aware of how much you’re showing up when it comes to marketing. That that is one area where we really tend to get in our own way, it really brings up that perfectionism work to do it really has us turning on that perfectionism handbrake and in PGSD, you learn as a perfectionist entrepreneur, how to release that handbrake. So you can show up and put yourself out there and create what you know you need to create.
So when it comes to this second step, you are identifying the thoughts that are creating your results that you currently have. So if we go back to the self coaching model, your thoughts create your feelings, your feelings create your actions, and your actions create your results, your results that you have. So let’s say for example, we’ll talk about it in terms of revenue, say your goal for your first quarterly milestone was $10,000. And you made $2,000. So that is a result that you have.
So we want to be looking at the thoughts that created that, and this is going to be quite a long list, we’re just gonna do a break brain dump. And just know that we’re not going to be working on every single one of these, and also that a lot of them aren’t a problem. So a lot of these sorts will be having you making money, and helping people and showing up. And they’re just some thoughts in that that aren’t helping.
So here are some prompts to identify how you’re currently thinking about you, your business, and everything else. And what is creating your results. And we love to think that it’s the Instagram strategy that’s creating, how much money we’re making, or the marketing materials or the sales page or the website. And it’s so empowering to know that it’s the way that we’re thinking. And that influences how we’re feeling and then what we’re creating and the result that creates.
So for example, with the website, I guess maybe as part of having a business, you have a website, but how you felt and how you were thinking about yourself, about your customers, about what it is you’re selling, when you were creating that website or when you were delegating to someone to have that website created or how you chose who to delegate it to. That is all influenced by the way that you are thinking.
So here are some prompts to help you identify what you are currently thinking that is creating the results that you currently have in your business. And we want to do this with self compassion, and not as I said, like having this judgment on top of, “oh yeah, I know this isn’t a helpful belief, so I’m not going to write it down”. We want to be really having a good honest look at how I think and I’m going to share a real example from my journal in a second.
And these prompts will help you to get a similar list. So the truth about my business is dot dot dot. And you might think, well, I know this isn’t actually true, but we want to get at what you currently believe is true. Even if you intellectually know it isn’t true. The truth about my product slash service slash offer, whatever it is you’re selling is dot dot dot. The truth about my customers is, the truth about my followers, slash subscribers, slash email list, slash Instagram account, whatever feels relevant to you. The truth about me as a business owner is and the truth about me as whatever it is you do.
So for example, if it was me doing this, the truth about me as a coach is… So this will really help you to see how you’re currently thinking is, as I said, it’ll be a mix of helpful and unhelpful thoughts, thoughts that are going to serve you and continue to serve you. There are probably going to be some thoughts in there that are serving you right now that aren’t going to serve you as you scale your business. And there are some thoughts in there that are making you get in your own way.
This is all normal. This is to be expected. And that’s what we really want to have a good honest look at the bill leaves that we have. And if you are struggling to figure out what to write down, you can have a think about the result and that’s why it’s so helpful to do it not just vaguely in terms of your business, but to do it in terms of, if you have done your quarterly review that you can think about in the last quarter, what were the results you had.
So say for example, one result you might have from the quarter is that you posted six times on Instagram, when you’d plan to post say, five times a week, every week. So what must you have been thinking in order to only post six times when your plan was to post more often than that. So that’s another way that you can have a look at what you must be thinking. Or maybe you posted exactly when you planned to post what were you thinking that had you posting, when you’d plan to.
So just have a think about or not even a think but a journal handwriting, or at least doing it on your computer or on your iPhone notes, but ideally pen and paper, just doing a big brain dump of what you’re currently thinking about yourself about your customers, your offer, and all of that. So these were the thoughts that created the results that I had during the PGSD launch in January. So if you haven’t listened to it yet, I did do two episodes that share our behind the scenes look at myself coaching during that launch, and what the exact numbers were, and all of that kind of thing.
So that’s Episode 316, and 317. And these were, what came out of my debrief the thoughts that created the results that I had. So some of these I just brainstormed result like thoughts that I knew I was thinking, and I was doing a lot of self coaching reflections. So I was very aware of what I was thinking. And then for other ones of these in this list, I was thinking about what the result was or how I showed up like what my actions were, or how I was feeling. And then I identified the thought from there.
So here are some of the ones that I had, there’s a long list, so I’ll just read out a bunch of them. So there are so many things I want to say in my emails. So that was a thought actually, that felt really good for me, I had so many ideas. This is about my best client, I’m going to speak to my best clients so intensely indirectly that everyone else is repelled.
My podcast sells out my program. I’m committed to 100 signups, but we might not make it, of what it is this, I can’t remember it now. But we might not make it if half haven’t signed up before the last 24 hours. So that little in bit like my conscious thought was I’m committed to 100. But I can tell by the way that I showed off in the last 24 hours that I was committed if it looked on track.
So people lurk and then just sign up. I don’t want to share that on Instagram. It was a thought that I had quite a bit. People won’t buy if I don’t show up consistently on Instagram during the launch. That’s what’s going to tip them over the edge. There are hundreds of best clients in my audience already who want to join. I don’t have any really good testimonials to share. So I’ll focus on the new people and why they signed up.
Instagram is more important than getting my emails done ahead of time. So you can see a few things coming out. People need to see my face and have their questions answered by me on Instagram. I know what to say in these emails, my planning series is insanely valuable. I have to be the one to answer DMS. I have to be the one to post from Instagram, to planoly and everything must be reviewed. I didn’t know what to put in Instagram reel, that is a thought I still have.
Just using the worker that currently, I don’t want to drop off the face of the earth after this launch. Ironically, I did. Every person I helped to get out of their own way has a ripple effect on the world. There’s not enough time to get everything done, I’ll do my power planning. It’s okay, if I don’t hit all of my deadlines, they can be adjusted. Power planning works to my best clients, people don’t want to hear testimonials. We don’t need to get all the way to 100 anyway. I have a million dollar business I already have everything I need. This is for them.
So you can see it’s a bit of a mix of different thoughts that I had. And you can guess from me sharing this, that it meant that a few of the key results I had was that, for example, one of them was that we had and this is just such a good example of how brains filthy lies that we had at least 30 testimonials that had been gathered and collected and like we’re all prepped and ready to go. And then I only used one of them.
And so that was coming from these thoughts I was having that felt true, even though they weren’t true about testimonials and I’ve done a lot of work on that. I’ll share that in the later parts of my self coaching curriculum. You can tell from this as well, that I was also showing up like doing a lot of checking of Instagram DMS during the launch and showing up on stories and doing that kind of thing. And I was prioritizing that over writing emails. I was also having thoughts about my podcast, that sound really great, but also it’s having me then think it’s the podcast that is selling out PGSD in the spots that we want to sell. Rather than it being the way that we communicate. You know, what perfectionism is, the process for overcoming that, what the result of that looks like all of that kind of thing.
And what else Oh, my email. So I have those nearby my emails. And I felt very confident about what to say in my emails and how many emails to send. I decided, like I intentionally was decided about that. So those are some of the thoughts that I have, just to give you an example. But within this, when you’re doing this, you’re going to be thinking about, as I said, your business, your product service, or offer your customers, your followers, listeners, subscribers, whatever, yourself as a business owner, and then yourself in terms of what you actually do like what you’re offering.
So that you can get like this quite a good mix of different thoughts that are having you create the results that you currently have. So then the next step, so again, we have set your growth goal or do your quarterly review for your growth goal. Step two is identify the thoughts that are creating your results right now, step three, is how I foresee I might stop myself from achieving my quarterly milestone.
So as I said, we have our growth goal, that 12 month growth goal, then we have quarterly milestones. So it’s broken down. The full process for this is in module one of the PGSD process. So you will have your revenue goal broken down into quarterly milestones that incrementally increases each quarter. So you don’t need to go with a big leap in terms of your belief. For example, a lot of people will take a 12 month goal and then split it into four evenly to create quarterly milestones if they’re taking that approach. But instead of doing that, we want to have it incrementally increase.
So you’ll have your quarterly milestones. And again, this was very important that you have a growth goal when you were doing this, because that is a Northstar. So we are now in step three, looking at our upcoming quarterly milestone. And what we want to do is create a list of what needs to change in order to achieve that quarterly milestone, and specifically how we forsee we might strap ourselves from achieving our quarterly milestone and it’s worded that way, so that we remember that it’s not based on external things that are happening, it really comes back to our thoughts that we have about ourselves, about what we’re selling, about who we’re selling to, about our abilities, when it comes to business, like all of that is what is going to have us either achieve our quarterly milestone or not achieve the quarterly milestone.
So what we want to do is create a list of what needs to change. And this is done not with judgment, and getting ourselves into a place of overwhelm of oh my goodness, there are so many things that I’m never gonna get there. It’s really just looking at those beliefs that you had written down. When you did step two, and identifying which ones need to be focused on like which ones are going to be the most beneficial to work on changing.
And it could be that there’s a belief that is kind of halfway to where it needs to be. And you think, actually, I’m just going to focus on that. And it could be one that might need more work to be done to it. And you just know that it’s an area that might take more than one quarter to really do a bit of work on. But over time it is going to compound like all of this work is always compounding. So we’re not doing this to get overwhelmed. And we’re not doing this, to blame ourselves to judge ourselves to know that no matter what stage of our personal development journey we are in, there is always going to be ways that we might stop ourselves from achieving our goals and are always going to be areas that we can improve upon.
It’s so important when we’re doing personal development. It’s not about when people talk about being the best version of you. I really think personal development is about loving who you are and changing just because you want to not because some version is going to be better. IE, more loved is kind of what people are saying like what we’re saying to ourselves that when I will be better, I will be more loved by others and I will be more loved by ourselves.
So we are really focusing on this as not like changing what’s broken or fixing what’s broken. It’s about loving ourselves as we are now and changing just because we want to just for the fun of it just because we love to blow our own minds and to evolve. So I will share what I had a few of the items I had, when it comes to this step of how I forsee I might stop myself from achieving my quarterly milestone. For me, I was thinking about the next launch, but I’m doing one launch per quarter. So kind of the same thing.
And this is really looking at like the way I’ve written it down isn’t exactly reflective of that, because I was just doing a brain dump. And this is from my journal. But I hope it is helpful for you to hear. And I want you to be as well when you’re doing this to notice if there’s a theme, because you will have quite a few items on this list to see if there’s a theme. And then you can choose what element of the PGSD process to focus on for that quarter.
So say for example, when you’re doing this, you notice a lot of this comes back to self trust, which is one of the modules in PGSD, or procrastination, or burnout or overwhelm or self image, like there’s going to be different themes or undercurrents when you were doing this, and it really helps to just be paying attention. So that you can just pick one, like, they’ll probably be a bit of all of them within them. But you can pick one. So say for example, procrastination. And you can have that as your focus for the quarter, instead of trying to work on so many different things at once, which is when we just get overwhelmed, and we don’t change anything at all.
So as I said, here is what I had written down based on those thoughts and beliefs that I had shared earlier. So the first one is, I wasn’t 100% committed to my goal of 100 PGSDers because I knew that I could achieve the annual goal without 100 in this launch, due to lack of commitment, I didn’t coach myself to say my highest value areas of contribution to the goal, and allow myself to stay busy in less important matters. So that is one way that I first saw that if how I had been showing up continue that it would stop me from achieving the next goal that we had.
The next one, I am believing that if I prepare too far ahead of time, then we won’t hit our goal. And by the time this goes out, actually no, maybe you guys won’t have heard yet. So the next two episodes, after this one, I am sharing behind the scenes of the launch that we did for PGSD in April. And me doing all the work for that ahead of time, and coaching myself through all of that. And I will just tell you now, it was, like so transformative. And that was all coming from this, this dot point here created that whole personal development self coaching experience for myself.
So I’m believing that if I prepare too far ahead of time, then we won’t hit our goal. It feels uncomfortable to have everything done easily and early. So I filled my calendar. I feel too disconnected from the result if it’s all done early question mark. So here, I’m just chatting to myself, as all journaling is. I’m worried I might miss a main objection question mark. I can’t show myself what’s possible if I don’t get it done early.
So again, this is just me babbling on in my journal. But what I could see was stopping me from achieving the next quarterly milestone was doing my work ahead of time that if I didn’t get that done, we wouldn’t achieve the milestone and it wasn’t because you have to do the work early to achieve the goal. And that’s part of the reason it felt so comfortable to do things that last minute because we can achieve a lot doing that. But I knew that for me, my growth was getting the work done early and easily.
Because I really, in the way that I showed up during the January launch, I was making things harder for myself. I was making things take longer than they needed to. And I just had uneasiness around getting the work done early and easily because it didn’t feel like I deserved it. Because I don’t know. That’s what I discovered when I was doing the April launch. So you can hear that in the next few episodes what really came up for me, but that was another point that came out of looking at those thoughts and beliefs and identifying what needed to change because there was a lot of thoughts and beliefs I had about, well, this thing’s more important than that thing and I can push that thing off and all of that.
The third one was that I have testimonials and case studies that I could have used, but I chose not to. I’m telling myself a story that If the testimonials aren’t perfect, they’re going to detract from the launch, and make PGSD less appealing because of this belief, what have I got, I’m not figuring out how I can better be my own testimonial, and how we can use testimonials all year round. So this is a really great example of when I didn’t have a self coaching curriculum for myself that these thoughts, particularly this last one, about testimonials and case studies and using that, that I had a lot of thoughts and beliefs about that, that I wasn’t thinking about on a daily basis.
And partly because I wasn’t thinking at all about how to use testimonials or any of that, that it wasn’t top of mind to me. And so I wasn’t coaching myself at all on that. And it was only when I was going through this process that I’m sharing in this episode, and really looking at things that I could see. Okay, one of the results we had, and I like wasn’t even a thought I was so much intentionally thinking doing it. But I could see a result we had was all these testimonials prepped, and I used one of them. That’s interesting. Why is that? What’s going on there, and is really looking into that.
So again, all these three things are things that weren’t coming up in self coaching, if I just did a thought download or a brain dump, and then did a few models or whatever, after that, that these are the things that I could instead now in myself coaching sessions, or when I’m getting coached by someone else, I could get coached on exactly these three things. And there are a few more in my list. But these three things, and I had so many breakthroughs from this having this list to turn to instead of being like, I don’t want to coach myself, like a big objection that I had to my own self coaching was I didn’t really know what to get coach, and I’m feeling pretty good today.
So I guess it’s nothing really to coach on. But I could actually go no, I’m gonna intentionally turn my mind to one of these areas, and coach myself on that to write down the thoughts that I’m having, or to submit a request for coaching and get the coaching that I need, even though it doesn’t feel like a pressing matter in this moment. So then, once you have identified that, then what you need to do is figure out or not figure out, decide on the three things that you are going to focus on for the quarter. So those, that’s an example those three things could be the three things like they’re all meaty things. And then, so that’s the fourth step.
The fifth step is my self coaching curriculum for these three items that you have decided on. And there’s no perfect thing to focus on, you can literally just throw it out and pick any three. But my self coaching curriculum for these three items is as follows. So I will share with you what that means and what my self coaching curriculum was. Because we don’t want it to just be like, work on self doubt, that’s not specific enough, we really want to have it be like what you can really be focused on doing when it comes to getting your own self coaching, or like these, those areas are going to be topics that you can submit a request on for a coaching call inside PGSD, but when it’s your own self coaching, we don’t want to just have work on self doubt.
Because it’s going to be so vague that you’re like, I don’t know what that means I’m just gonna do the self coaching. So, the first one that I had for my self-coaching curriculum, was set a goal for the next launch, and all of the launches for the remainder of the year. And then sell myself on why these numbers in terms of the goals are the numbers like is exactly the perfect goal to be going for. And I’m not going for any less, and I’m not going for any more. And so that just to remind you came from me saying that I might stop myself from achieving my goal that I have, by not being 100% committed to the goal for the launch.
So then January launched, the goal was 100 PGSDers and I shared some of the beliefs I had around that have, I’m committed to 100. But we might not make it if we aren’t close to that by the end. And then we don’t need to get all the way to 100 anyway. That belief, we don’t need to get all the way to 100 anyway, might sound like it’s not that harmful. But that belief had me not being committed, and then not showing up in my fullest capacity and at the highest level that I could be.
So my self-coaching curriculum task was to figure out the exact numbers and then sell myself on why that number exactly, was perfect. And I was gonna be so committed to that and I coached myself on why it wasn’t going to be more than that. So the goal that we have just to share the numbers is sixty new PGSDer for the remaining launches that we’re doing which comes from my growth goal broken down, all of that kind of thing. I think I share that actually in my quarterly review for my first quarterly milestone, so that would have been episode 325. I go into that there if you want to hear more about that.
But my sel-coaching curriculum item was to set the goal for the next launch and coach myself on why those numbers are the numbers. So I have my calendar, like I got a cute calendar from Kmart, that I was going to put on the fridge and share dates and stuff with Steve so that he can keep track of everything that’s going on, I ended up getting a magnetic whiteboard calendar. So I just had this one lying around. And I decided exactly when all the launch dates are for the entirety of the year, which was so incredible for my brain, it just created so much clarity, and really allowed me to break down the year in my own mind in such a clear way. And then I broke down exactly how many PGSDers for each launch.
Instead of before I was really focused on like, well, this is the goal. So for example, the 100. 100 is a goal, but actually, if we have less than 100 sign up, then I can either make up for it later, or we didn’t really need 100 for this launch anyway. And so just that wishy-washiness, created a wishy-washy commitment. So that is something that I did from this item.
Then the next one I had is everything is prepared for the launch by the 31st of March, no matter what. Self-coach and what comes up as I prep it all ahead of time, let it feel uncomfortable, let my brain believe it’s not as effective and do it anyway, commit to deadlines 100%. So that was my next self-coaching item. So when I was on a couple of mastermind calls, I put my hand up for coaching. And I literally just went into I have it on a Trello board, actually, but I have my self-coaching curriculum there.
And I could just see, okay, these are things I need to get coaching on, pick a topic, raise my hand get coached, instead of before, it would have been like, oh, no, I’m feeling pretty good today, I don’t really know exactly what I need to get coach on, or I haven’t done my own self correction that like these are all the items I’m coaching myself on. And I could take myself coaching to the call and get really helpful coaching because I’d already had a look at it. And someone else could help me look at it as well. And fun. I did that I achieve that. And again, the next few episodes coming out, are going to be sharing exactly what went on in the self coaching that happened, all of that, because I really needed to get out of my own way and release my perfectionism handbrake in order to do that.
But that was coming from a self coaching curriculum item that I had, I knew it was my growth, to at this point in my business after launching PGSD in 2019. And doing many launches of that. And being in business technically, since 2013. Like at this stage, I know what I’m selling and I know what I am selling like I have done a lot of work on that and my beliefs in a lot of different ways. And now it’s really believing that I can do the work easily and early and have it create an even better result in terms of the results our PGSDers achieve.
The results that we as a company achieve like it’s a win win win. And believing that I could all be even better with me doing the work easily and early, was just mind bendy. So I’m pleased to report that I have done the work on that and I have had so many fun breakthroughs. So again, next two episodes will share that. And the third item that I had, that I’m going to be sharing with you is to do so I’ve written intentional thought creation. But this is a tool that Stacey teaches. 10 times intentional thought creation on testimonies and case studies, actions slash implement outcomes of these intentional thought creations and self coach and what comes up as I do.
So I did that. I got peer coaching on using testimonials. I coached myself on that. I had a real look at the beliefs that I had around that. And from that I have a completely different relationship now with testimonials and you’ll probably be able to tell that from the last launch that we had in April compared with the one before and the kinds of things that I’m sharing in the podcast and all of that. But again, this came from doing this exercise.
So I hope it helps me share in a few examples from my own journal, and that you can see where this will fit in with your personal development journey and specifically with your growth goal and your power planning and all of that. So when it comes to your power planning, as I said, your self coaching is a needle mover. And so what I personally like to do is to put it at the beginning of my work day and I will come with and I say calm because I’m sitting at my desk where I am working from, but I will come to my desk, I will sit down usually with a cup of tea, and put my headphones in, I will get out my journal. And I will look at myself coaching curriculum, sometimes I do a little like, if I’ve got a lot going on in my brain, I’ll do a little thought download about whatever I’m thinking about in that moment.
But generally speaking now, I will go to my self coaching curriculum and pick a topic and coach myself on that, do a thought download on that. Use a different tools that I have and tools that we teach as well in PGSD. To really have a look at that consult with my future self, things like that, to really do the work that’s needed. And I am recording this episode, because I have not heard anyone talking about this. And I wish and I mean, that’s not to say no one else is, and maybe no one else has just said it in the way that resonates with me or that I’ve come across. But if someone had really laid out, here’s how to create a self coaching curriculum that is really benefiting your specific goals, you have a milestone that you’re working towards. I am not going to say that, you know, it should have been different.
But I really believe that I would have been able to get more from myself coaching because as I said, a lot of times if I sit down, and I’m feeling great, then I might okay, not much to self coach on, or I will just kind of coach myself on thoughts that come up over and over and over again, and I’ll get very monotonous and monotonous and repetitive. Rather than investigating areas that are kind of like lurking in the shadows that I’m not intentionally thinking about what needs to be worked on.
So just to recap, you’re going to set your growth goal or do your quarterly review for your growth goal, you’re going to identify the thoughts that are creating your results right now. This will be a mix of helpful and unhelpful thoughts. So the truth about owning businesses, the truth about my product slash service slash offer is, the truth about my customers is, the truth about my followers slash subscribers is. The truth about me as a business owner is, the truth about me as a whatever you do is so for example, for me, it will be a coach for you, it might be artists, a writer, an interior designer, whatever it is you do.
Step three, how I foresee I might stop myself from achieving my quarterly milestone, do a brain dump, see if there’s a theme. And then step four is the three things I will focus on this quarter. So that might, for example, be all within the theme of self trust, then my self coaching curriculum for these three items is as follows. And then you create, you write down exactly what you’re going to do to do your self coaching.
So it’s not just work on self doubt, as the example. And just don’t stress if you’re struggling with figuring out exactly what theme to work on. That’s okay, just pick the three things, they’re probably actually going to be related. And it might just become more obvious to you as you go about the quarter. Which of the topics in the PGSD process that they are related to. And they’re all kind of interweaving and all of that anyway, so it’s going to be beautiful, whatever you pick, I just recommend picking something.
So I hope that has helped you to create your own self coaching curriculum. If you are currently a PGSDer, or you are to be a future PGSDer, I really want to invite you to do the work to sit down and create yourself coaching curriculum, so you always know what to coach yourself on. And you always know what to get coached on or what to ask a question about inside PGSD. If you have found this episode helpful, take a screenshot and tag me on Instagram I’m @perfectionismproject.
Also, if you’re not yet in PGSD, you can sign up for the waitlist at samlaurabrown.com/pgsd. We will be opening the doors to PGSD again on the 27th of July 2022. So samlaurabrown.com/pgsd and if you are listening to this at some point after that, and then you can always go to that website and find out when the next time is that we will be opening. So I hope you’re having a beautiful day and I will talk to you in the next episode.
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