The Principal's Handbook

PH- Unlock Your Potential: Exploring the Impact of Life Coaching
[00:00:00] And today's episode, I'm going to talk about ways to unlock your potential, exploring the impact of life coaching. That's all coming up next, right here on the principals handbook. Stay tuned.
Welcome to the Principal's Handbook, your go to resource for principals looking to revamp their leadership approach and prioritize self care. I'm Barb Flowers, a certified life coach with eight years of experience as an elementary principal. Tune in each week as we delve into strategies for boosting mental resilience, managing time effectively, and nurturing overall wellness.
From tackling daily challenges to maintaining a healthy work life balance, I'm Barb Flowers. We'll navigate the complexities of school leadership together. Join me in fostering your sense of purpose as a principal and reigniting your passion for the job. Welcome to a podcast where your wellbeing is the top priority. Welcome back to the podcast .
Today. I'm going to talk about life coaching and how it helps you unlock your true potential. So, first of all, it's really [00:01:00] hard on your own to unlock your true potential, because it's hard for you to see what your potential is.
We get stuck in our own thoughts and what our self-concept is, and self-concept is really what shaped us over time. It dictates how you perceive yourself and how others perceive you. And so our self-concept, if you don't have someone help you change that. It's really hard because you've always seen yourself in a certain way and perceived a certain way that people see you.
And so what a coach actually does is they fight for your new self concept that you're hoping to build. So unlocking your potential it's it can be incredibly difficult when you're stuck in your self limiting beliefs and you have a fixed self concept of this is the way I've always been. You know, you think your personality is unable to be changed.
I've heard that a lot from people, you know, I'm just shy or I'm an introvert, or I'm not a very productive person. And they give themselves these labels that they've come up with about their own self [00:02:00] concept and they make that their identity. And it's hard to get out of that thinking. And that's how life coaching is so powerful.
And so that's what I'm going to talk about today. How life coaching is so impactful. And how it can help you reach your full potential. So first it helps you figure out. Who you are and who you want to be. So one activity I do with my clients that I love to help people figure out who they are and who they want to be is called your 1.0 self versus your 2.0 self.
And I have this in my membership as well. I have a little video about how to do this, but this is one of the first things I start coaching with, because what I love about this as your 1.0 self is how you see yourself right now. And your 2.0 self is who you want to be. It's the person that you want to be in.
Sometimes it's really hard when you're in these self limiting beliefs to come up with your 2.0 self, because you don't even know that you can be that much of a different person than you currently are. So that's one thing I love to do in coaching is help [00:03:00] you figure out who your 2.0 self is. But when we coach we figure out the gap between the two, so where you are and where you want to be. So I'm just going to share a couple of my 1.0 selves and 2.0 self.
My 1.0 self, I judged myself all the time for every little thing. I do my 2.0 self. I have compassion and I get myself grace. My 1.0 self I overeat and snack, which ruins progress. And my 2.0 self, I eat healthy and I stay on track with eating. My 1.0 self I journal sporadically and my 2.0 self journals consistently.
And so knowing these differences and who I was and who I am. I look at my 2.0 self often and like to see am I living out who I really want to be? And that helps me see if I'm meeting the goals. That I have for myself and really becoming a different person. So a coach helps you figure out what are your future goals?
I know I've talked to some people and I'm very goal oriented, but there are people who don't even [00:04:00] know what they want in life. And so that's what a coach does. They can help you figure that out and they can show you what's possible. That's what my coach did for me is she just showed me ideas that I thought were never possible for me.
And she showed me it's possible. Because what happens? Is we grow up and we learn from our parents and we learn what their beliefs are and they learned from their parents. And so we grow up with this very limited belief, like when I was growing up. I knew, and I wanted to be a teacher, but I knew I was going to go to college and be a teacher.
I never even thought about jobs outside of teaching or education or being a nurse. And I didn't like blood. So that was out. You know, so it just, I had a very limited belief about what I could even do in my career after high school. And I know things are so different now with the internet and even this idea of coaching that I do now. Wasn't something I even knew about then, but my point is. I had these very traditional views because [00:05:00] that's how I grew up, that I had to work an eight to four job
That's just what I encourage you is with coaching.
You can find out what is truly possible for you based on your goals and what you want to achieve. Coaching has also helped me gain confidence. Once you figure out who you want to be, and you start working towards becoming that person. You start to gain confidence. Because you realize that you can be anybody who you want to be, you get to decide, which is such a crazy concept.
When you think about it. I always see people on social media and I think, there a certain way, you know, they're so lucky. Well, I've learned over time that they're a certain way because they decided to be that way. And so confidence comes from believing in yourself and believing that you can do what you say you'll do when you can do anything you want.
And so I really encourage you to, with coaching that coaching builds confidence. When you create a goal and you work towards that goal and you hold yourself accountable and you reach that goal, you're going to find that your confidence really builds. [00:06:00] Also coaching helps you learn to prioritize yourself. You learn that you have to put on your oxygen mask first.
I know we've all heard that plane analogy before an education is a profession where we do everything else for everyone else. And when you focus on putting yourself first. You can serve others better. It's so easy to get caught up in our jobs as educators and spend all of our time at school. And then if we have families on top of that, spending time, doing things for our family and not focusing on ourselves and prioritizing our own wellbeing. And that's what coaching does it helps you learn to prioritize yourself?
It helps you learn to set boundaries. Get off the busy bus and stop doing things that you don't want to do. You prioritize things that are important for you.
I grew up where my mom would volunteer me for everything. If somebody needed something, she'd be like, oh, Barb, we'll do that for you. And then I had to do it.
And I always was voluntold different things that I had to do. And even into adulthood, she still did that. And I [00:07:00] find myself now still having trouble setting boundaries because my whole life I've been voluntold to do things. And so I've had to learn through coaching. Just how to prioritize myself and prioritize the things that I think are important and worth my time. Because I'm a busy person as. In most people are.
And so I find that if I don't have time for it and it's, doesn't align with my goals and what I'm trying to do as either. I myself and my business with my family, my own personal goals. I don't need to do it. So really think about prioritizing things that are important to you and learn to prioritize yourself. Coaches also teach you to help manage your thoughts. I never knew the importance of my thoughts until I started coaching.
So coaching taught me that my thoughts create my emotions, which create my actions. So this is what I coach on the T cycle. It's called thoughts, emotions, and actions. If you don't have powerful, positive thoughts. You're going to [00:08:00] have negative emotions. So those powerful, positive thoughts create powerful emotions that are positive. And it creates positive action. If it's negative, you have negative thoughts, negative emotions, negative actions. So you have to be aware of the thoughts that you're telling yourself, the conversations that you're having. And the stories that you tell yourself about things that happen. A lot of us make up stories about, you know, what we think's going to happen before it even happens.
And it's usually in a negative way. So really thinking about the thoughts that we have and making them powerful and positive thoughts. Also, you may have thoughts that you don't even realize that are blind spots for you. I say things that I've always said that I've realized are really holding me back.
Even just making comments like, well, I'm an introvert. And I say those things, but then that holds me back in social situations. If I think about it, I am an introvert, but that's not a bad thing. It just means that I need more. Recharging by myself, but I still can be an outgoing person and I still can talk to people.
So I used to use [00:09:00] that as like, oh, I don't like people. I can't be around people. And I've realized that was just a story I was telling myself. That's not true. And so really getting clear about what thoughts are holding you back is really what a coach can do to help. I've also learned how to feel my feelings.
And this is something I teach as a coach. Many times what we do is we create numbing behaviors like shopping. Drinking. Eating. Binge watching TV so that we can avoid feelings and emotions. I have done all of these for numbing behaviors. I love to shop online when I was single. I used to shop all the time.
I spent so much money on clothes. , drinking all the time, going out, eating. Binge watching TV. These were all things I did because I wanted to distract myself from feeling emotions. I always wanted to feel good. Right. It felt great to watch a show. It felt relaxing to drink. It's exciting to buy new clothes. All these things.
Bring on these great, exciting feelings. But what I've learned is we have to feel the [00:10:00] feelings and not numb them out because you can't experience the good without experiencing the bad. So it's okay . To sit somewhere and be bored. I used to hate that. And now I've learned it's okay.
I can have this negative experience. I can have this. Negative feeling or be sad or be angry or whatever it is. But I just need to sit with it instead of numbing it out. And then the last thing is a coach fights for your dreams. So a coach will fight for your dreams even when you don't want them to. So what happens when you sign up with a coach is you come up with your 2.0 self and who you want to be and what you want to accomplish. And it's really easy for people when it gets hard to say F it, I don't care.
I don't really want that Cole. But then what happens is you get mad when you don't reach that goal and you get stuck. I think of this with healthy eating right. It's easy to say. I'm going to eat really healthy and focus on eating healthy and do really well all week.
And then your friends [00:11:00] say, let's go out for happy hour on Friday. And you get there and you say F it, I don't care about my health goals and you eat the unhealthy appetizer and you drink the drinks. And then you wake up in the morning and you're mad at yourself and you feel guilty and you've gained weight and it's just a cycle that happens right. But what happens when you have a coach? Is there going to fight for the dream that you have, or the goal that you have, and they are going to not let you say F it, I don't care.
They are going to hold you accountable and help hold your hand through whatever situation it is. And help you accomplish what you want to accomplish. So having a coach. It can be life-changing and I always say life coaches are life-changing. I met my coach through her podcast and she literally has changed my life.
I now have more confidence. I have more powerful thoughts. I'm now pursuing my dream. I resigned from my position as a principal. And I'm now being a full-time coach. This is what I want to do is I want to help people change their life. This is my dream job. [00:12:00] And so this is so exciting for me that I never thought this would be possible.
And of course, everybody around me is. Freaking out that I left my secure job and, you know, with good benefits and good insurance and good retirement and all that stuff. But this is what life coaching has taught me that I can do. Anything I want to do. And it's all because my coach showed me what's possible.
And so that's what you can have too. And I'm not saying that you have to quit your job or anything like that. Drastic. I'm just saying whatever you want in life, you can achieve and and having a life coach will help make that possible for you. So if you're interested in trying life coaching,
you can click the Calendly link. In my show notes, I always offer a free consult so I can see how I can help you. And if we're a good fit, because. Maybe we're not even a good fit. So, sign up for a free consult. I'd love the opportunity to just have a conversation with you and see what your goals are and how I could help. I also have a group coaching option called the resilient educator membership, where you [00:13:00] have access to my courses and group coaching calls, whatever your goals are.
I would love the opportunity to help. Like I said, life coaching has changed my life and I would love the opportunity to help you and do the same for you.
Thanks so much for joining us today for another episode of the principles handbook, make sure to follow me on Instagram at bark flowers. I was coaching.com. And if you like the show, share this episode with a friend, keep in mind, you have the power to shape your life. According to the mindset you choose. I hope you have a great week and I will see you back here next.
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