Build Courage Tactic #1: Do your research
Painting a clearer picture of your destination can make it easier to motivate yourself. If you’re lost in a desert, imagining your oasis can give you hope to continue onward. The clearer you imagine your oasis, the more energy you will draw from it.
For my journey, I’ve grown more excited by taking a Udemy Life Coaching Course and reading a Step-by-Step Guide to Becoming a Life Coach. Both resources have painted a clearer picture of what being a life coach is and is not. My next step is to interview and commit to working with a life coach.
Build Courage Tactic #2: Set reasonable and incremental goals
By setting reasonable and incremental goals, you are building a path to get to your oasis. You’re not expecting to leap there on day one. There are going to be setbacks along the way, but each step you build will increase your confidence to continue.
Here are my short term goals:
- One blog post (my also be a podcast or video) a day sharing my thoughts and learnings
- One Quora post a day
- Complete Udemy Writing Course
- Complete Udemy Life Coaching Course
- Finish reading Walks of Life: A Step-by-Step Guide to Becoming a Life Coach
- Interview and commit to working with a life coach (gotta eat my own dog food!)
- Formulate a clear value proposition for the life coaching niche (startups) I plan to serve
Build Courage Tactic #3: Tell your friends and family
I planted the seed for this journey to become a life coach three years ago. I mentioned to my wife, Vickie, that I would find helping others extremely rewarding. Each time I brought up the idea with friends and family, I was nurturing and watering the seed until it sprouted. Momentum grew from a “wouldn’t it be cool” mindset to “maybe this can actually happen” to “I’m going to do this”. Having a supportive social structure around you can make a big difference in pushing your momentum forward.
There’s one caveat. A brief search on sharing your goals shows some conflicting recommendations:
- Why Sharing Your Progress Makes You More Likely to Accomplish Your Goals
- If you want to succeed, don’t tell anyone
- Keep Your Goals to Yourself
This sounds like a great research topic to dive into for a new post!
Build Courage Tactic #4: Put some skin in the game
Whether it’s investing time, money, or something else you value, walking the walk instead of talking the talk can increase your commitment.
Here is what I’ve done to put skin in the game:
- Invested $37 to purchase a Step-by-Step Guide to Becoming a Life Coach eBook
- Invested $30 (on sale from $600!) for three Udemy courses on life coaching and writing
- Invested $100 for 1 year of basic web hosting on Bluehost (and some add-ons) to start this blog
While this may not seem like a lot of money, each of these investments requires time to realize value (reading, watching, and writing). It was challenging to make the initial purchase knowing that it was really about the time and not the money. Once I made the purchase, however, I felt committed to spending the time to realize the value of what I had invested. Otherwise, I’d just be flushing money down the toilet.
My next investment will require me to front a few thousand dollars. I’m not ready to do that yet, but I get closer to doing it with every day I put more skin in the game. I’ll make a post about it when I pull the trigger!
