Sometimes I come across coaches who don’t feel like they’re good enough as a coach to start coaching, or they could be a more established coach who doesn’t feel good enough to start a group program or write a book or start something new in their business.
Now if they asked me what they should do, I let them know there’s good news and bad news.
The bad news is that maybe they will never feel good enough. However, the good news is also the same thing. It’s good news because it points to the fact that we don’t need to wait for a feeling of being good enough or established enough before we take action. In fact, it’s often through taking action that we build the skill set to be what we might call ‘good enough’.
I’m far better as a coach now than I was a year ago and I can say that about every year I’ve been coaching. A big part of that comes through coaching learning experiences, and dare I say making mistakes.
So my suggestion to any coach would be to get started and not wait to feel good enough but know that your best training is going to be on the job.
I’ve run nearly 20 Powerful Men’s Immersions over a decade or so. From the outside, it might seem like I’m very confident and sure of myself, and I can say that these days that is very true. However, during the first few years when I was running these immersions, I would feel worried, anxious and sometimes feel like a fraud when I started.
On one level, I knew this was simply my thinking. And on another level, it looked really true. The way that I handled it was I didn’t try and do anything about the feeling. I would simply begin from wherever I was when I was starting my group program and I would just allow the thoughts to settle. And they always did.
It can be useful to have some kind of structure to fall back on if you are feeling very nervous. For me, just asking people what they wanted to get out of the program and introducing themselves was enough time for me to settle down and deliver a great program.
If you are feeling nervous, know that it’s normal, you’re not alone, and there’s nothing to do about it.
Earlier this year I was an interview guest for the wonderful Amber Krzys for her series Behind The Scenes for Coaches, in which I shared more about the most useful insights I got while building my coaching business. Check it out below.
With love and appreciation,
Ankush Jain
Coach and Author of Sweet Sharing – Rediscovering the REAL You