How to Coach Yourself

Learning how to coach yourself is such a life-changing skill, but it takes practice, kindness, and curiosity. You can discover how your thinking is creating results in your life. Self-coaching is not about making yourself feel “better” immediately or treating symptoms; it is about finding the root cause for some results in your life, understanding it, and then giving yourself space and time to make a change. There are some amazing tools that I recommend to get started with self-coaching.

Become the watcher of your thoughts and do regular “thought downloads”: 

When you become the “watcher” of your thoughts, the power comes from first recognizing your unconscious thoughts and then understanding how you are creating your own experience with your thinking. 

A great way to become more conscious is by doing regular thought downloads. Just simply grab a piece of paper and write for five minutes. You might try to stop or edit negative thoughts as they come up, but this is a mistake. The purpose of a thought download isn’t to edit or change your negative thoughts, but to get all of your thoughts out on paper. With over 60,000 thoughts per day (most of them unconscious), you will uncover negative thoughts. This doesn’t mean that you are doing a bad job; you are a human with a brain. Awareness of thoughts is a very powerful tool.

The Model:

In a past blog, I wrote about a tool created by Brook Castillo called “The Model” (or “The Self Coaching Model”). With that model, you can learn how your thoughts create your feelings, your feelings drive your actions, and your actions create your results. 

Circumstances: Agreed upon facts.  No opinions.

Thoughts: Sentences in your brain about circumstances.  This can include opinion.

Feelings: One world description describing an emotion or vibration in your body.

Actions: Driven by your feelings.  You act, react, or not act based on your feelings.

Results: Determined by your actions. What you do creates your results and results provide evidence that that your original thought is correct. 

Many people do not realize that many of their thoughts are not serving them well. They think that it’s the circumstances of their lives that are creating their experience in the world, but really it’s their thoughts about their lives that is creating their results in the world.  You want to start focusing more on what you are thinking and why, and ask—are you thinking that deliberately? Are you really making the choice of what you want to think in your lives? 

Any problem you have can be categorized using the model.  Once you place something into your model, you can see what thoughts are causing your feelings and actions and ultimately leading to your results.  Your brain is always trying to prove something is right.  And your results always provide evidence that your thoughts are correct.

The first step when putting your story into a model is to separate your facts from your thoughts.

Facts do not hurt.  The circumstances in your life has no effect on you until you think about them.  It is important to separate facts from your thoughts.  If you understand that your thoughts cause your feelings, it becomes possible to gain more control over your emotional lives. 

It can feel like you do not have control over your thoughts.  This is not true.  You need to be aware of your thoughts and why you are thinking them. So many of thoughts are automatic and unintentional, but thoughts are optional.  Once you are aware of your thoughts, the feelings that they cause, and the ultimate results you get from them, you can work towards shifting your thoughts to get new results.

Once you become aware of all your negative thinking and feelings and how you’re reacting to them, the next step becomes catching yourself before you react and begin to think “intentionally.” If you don’t tell your brain what to focus on or what to think about, it will go to the old automatic patterns. The brain likes to do what it’s really good at and what it has done a lot. Unfortunately, for some of us, that can be negative, anxiety producing producing thinking. 

Goals and Questions:

Managing your mind and deciding what you want to think about are secrets to a happy life. Two of the most important tools for a focused mind are asking questions and having goals. 

If you direct your mind in a way that’s thinking about creation, that’s thinking about a goal or a future you want to have, you are putting your brain to work; your brain is an amazing tool. Choose a really exciting goal that you will think about every day. Think about all of the obstacles and use these to help you reach your goal.  And keep taking massive action to reach your goal. 

Another powerful tool to get your brain to do amazing work is to ask yourself great questions. “How can I feel amazing today? How can I make a difference today? What am I grateful for? How can I honor my body today” When you ask your brain questions, it looks for answers. Our brain loves to answer questions, so keep asking empowering questions. 

You can determine your results when you start to become aware of how your thoughts are what ultimately give you your results. If you start off with thought downloads, becoming the watcher and using the model this can be incredibly powerful!  Ask your brain empowering questions daily and set goals that can give your brain something to work on. In the coming months I will discuss obstacles, goal setting, and empowering questions in further detail.

DISCLAIMER: Sarah Smith MD is a medical doctor, but she is not your doctor, and she is not offering medical advice on this website. If you are in need of professional advice or medical care, you must seek out the services of your own doctor or health care professional.