Do you want to learn how to coach yourself in any situation?
Well, stay tuned because today I am sharing my five-step self-coaching strategy with you.
Stay tuned.
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I wholly advocate people getting the support they need from others, coaches, mentors, therapists,
counselors.
I even encourage you to recruit your own personal board of directors.
But there are some times in our lives where we just need to know how to coach ourselves,
and that's what I'm going to be sharing with you today.
I have a five-step strategy for self-coaching, and the acronym is TRACE, and it's thought,
reflection, alignments, choice, and evolution, and that's what the whole TRACE methodology
is about.
I'm going to walk you through it right now.
TRACE is all about empowering yourself to make decisions that are in alignment with
your core values and the truth of who you are.
Let's get started.
The first step is T: thought.
In this first step, you're going to recognize that you have a thought.
It's going to come up.
And this thought might be rooted in reality or it might be rooted in story, a story that
maybe somebody told you about yourself.
We can put thoughts into a concrete example so that you can look at it and see how this
will work.
Maybe you are looking for a new job, and you see a job opportunity come up and you will
have a thought.
A thought gets triggered, and the thought might be, "Oh, I'm not qualified for that.
Why would I even apply?"
Or the thought might be, "I'm so going to get that job.
Why haven't I applied already?"
Two different thoughts that might be possible for you, and each one has the potential to
be rooted in reality or rooted in a story, and the TRACE methodology is going to enable
you to excavate this thought that you have so that you can tune in and determine your
next steps.
After you have the thought, you're going to have a moment of reflection.
During this moment of reflection, you get to begin that excavation process that I just
spoke about.
You're going to begin to unravel whether this thought is rooted in that reality or in that
story.
And I'll share an example from my life.
I really wanted to work for a nonprofit and a position came open for a research analyst.
Now, growing up, and I've shared this before, growing up, I was told that I was no good
at math, that I stank at math, and that if I gave math as much attention as I gave the
other things in my life, maybe I would be successful at it.
So I had a preconceived notion that I was terrible at math, that I could never be successful
in a career field if it had to do with numbers.
But I saw this research analyst position came up at this nonprofit that I really wanted
to work for with a team of women that I really wanted to work with.
And that old story started operating, why would you apply for this?
You're not going to make it.
You're no good at math.
Why would you even bother?
And what I began to notice is that that thought about me being bad at math was based on a
story somebody told me, that maybe it wasn't actually my truth, that I actually really
love research.
I love data and numbers, and maybe this could be an opportunity that I could take on, and
a job that would light me up, that would give me an opportunity to do work in a field with
an organization and with people that I was really interested in.
And so that next step of reflection is about taking that time to say, "Is this true for
me, or did somebody feed me this story yesterday, or a few months ago, or a long time ago when
I was a kid?"
The next step in the TRACE process is about alignment.
During this step, you're going to take that thought that you had, now you know whether
it's based in reality or truth.
And then you get to assess in terms of moving forward if it's in alignment with your core
values, if it's in alignment with what is true for you and how you want to be living
your life.
So in this step of alignment, we want to look at our core values and say, "Is that belief?
Is that thought that I'm about to make a decision on, is that aligned with who I really am?
Is that aligned with what lights me up?
Is it aligned with what brings me joy?
Is it aligned with what makes me feel empowered and courageous and confident?"
In this step we are beginning the process of aligning our truth with how we're thinking
and feeling about the things we want to make happen in our lives.
The next phase of the method is choice.
You get to make a choice.
In this step, you get to choose.
You get to choose how you move forward.
You can move forward in alignment with your core values.
You can move forward in the alignment of what's true for you.
Or you can choose a different path, and there is always a choice.
I want to be clear about this, because it's a choice between doing nothing, doing the
same thing or doing something different.
You have control here.
You get to make the decision and nobody else can make this decision for you.
So the choice is ultimately yours.
Last but not least, the final step in this process is around evolution.
No matter what choice you end up making, whether you choose to do nothing, keep doing the same
thing, or change it up and maybe do something different, you have evolved.
By going through this process, you've become in touch with whether you're operating from
a place of truth or story, whether you're in alignment with your core values.
And because of this evolution, there's actually no way that you can go backwards.
I will often have clients say to me, "Heather, I feel like I'm moving backwards, or I feel
like I'm repeating the same things."
And when you're using this methodology and when you're doing the deep work to ask yourself
these questions, when you're excavating what's actually going on, you are in a constant process
of evolution.
You can't move backwards.
And so I encourage you to embrace this evolution.
I encourage you to give this self-coaching strategy a try the next time you're considering
something you want to make happen in your life.
Oh, for the record I did apply for that job and I did become a research analyst and I
loved it, and I love the data and numbers and to this day I obsessed over data and numbers.
It's something that brings me joy, and so I made that decision to no longer live by
a story but to live by what was true for me and brought me joy.
If you are interested in this self-coaching methodology and you want to start putting
it into practice, enrollment is open for the Inner Fire membership program.
We're going to be taking a theme each month and applying this methodology to that theme.
The enrollment is open now and we are kicking off in January of 2020, but there are plenty
of materials that you could get started with right now.
Be sure to check that out.
If you have any questions, I'm going to include my contact information below and I would love
to hear from you.
I hope you enjoyed this video.
I hope you find the TRACE methodology helpful.
If you liked this video, be sure to give it a thumbs up, subscribe to my channel and click
on that bell to get notified when I release new videos every Monday and Thursday.
Stay ignited out there.
Keep evolving out there and I will see you soon.
Bye.