Today’s Inner Warmup episode is part three of three of our November mini-series on self-coaching. Check out our Show Notes if you’d like to listen to the previous two episodes first.
TLDR; we've covered the mindset and the skillset of self-coaching, today is all about the self-coaching toolset.
Mentioned In The Episode
Tune in to the first two episodes of this mini-series : The Self-Coaching Mindset and The Self-Coaching Skillset.
Welcome to Inner Warmup, where your inner work begins. I'm Taylor Elyse Morrison, creator of Inner Workout and you as always are our expert guests. Thanks for being here today. This month's episodes are brought to you by Inner Workout's, sister company, Gateway Coaching. Gateway Coaching makes coaching more accessible by connecting you to coaches who are on their certification and credentialing journey. So you're getting quality coaching at a fraction of the cost. If you want to learn about working with a coach on Gateway Coaching, you can go to Gateway.coach or click the link in the show notes.
So this month, along the theme of coaching is self-coaching school. We've covered the mindset and the skillset of self-coaching, today is all about the toolset. One thing that I've loved in building Gateway Coaching, is seeing the variety of approaches to coaching. I can bring one topic to five different coaches. And they probably approach it in just as many ways. And it's really cool to see the different perspectives I get based on the different questions that they ask and exercises that they use. For you as a self-coach, I want to share a framework that you can use to start. It's a really simple framework. It's called the GROW Model, that you can apply the coaching mindset and skillset that you've been developing to. It was originally created by a consultant named Sir John Whitmore, who's the co founder of Performance Consultants. And I was actually first introduced to it through my work with Google, this is one of the frameworks that they teach their sales coaches. So it's called the GROW Model. And GROW is an acronym. So the G in GROW is for goal. What are you trying to accomplish? What do you want to get out of your self-coaching session? The R is reality. What is the reality of your current situation? O, options. What could you try? Or like I said previously, one of my favorite questions, what's possible? And then the W is will. What are you committed to doing? After you've gone through all this exploration and seeing all these options, what is the thing that you're actually committed to doing? And as you hear these laid out, I hope there are alarm bells or light bulbs clicking off for you. This is why we needed to work on your self-coaching mindset and skillset first. It's going to be difficult for you to work through the GROW Model, if you don't already believe that you are creative, resourceful, and whole. If you don't already believe that there are the answers within you for what options are possible, or for really sitting and clearly seeing the reality of your situation. And underneath each letter, there are likely several open ended and open minded questions that you will have to pose in order to get clarity at each step. Sometimes, it can take a while just to get to the goal, and getting clear on what you are actually trying to accomplish, what you want. And separating that out from what they want or what you feel like you should want. That requires open endedness and open mindedness and you're questioning.
Let's work through a real life example here. I don't love the way our bedroom looks like right now. And I'd like to do some self-coaching around it. So starting with G, the goal, the conversation could really go in a lot of directions. A question that I could start with to ask myself is, why don't I love the way that our bedroom looks? And my answer is that honestly, it's plain. We have probably done the least to that room out of all of the rooms in the house. And it doesn't feel like everything has a place. It always feels like something is just kind of there.
Another question I could follow up with is what does my dream bedroom look like? I could also say what does my dream bedroom feel like? And in my head I'm envisioning something that's really stylized. It has like both my husband and my's aesthetics present in it. It's perfectly designed for rest. We actually took the larger of our two bedrooms and made it our office because we do a lot more like working and creative work. My husband has like a huge sewing machine in our office. So we wanted to dedicate more space to our creativity then to our bedroom because all we really do is like go in there, read books, sleep. We're not spending a lot of time in our room. And I want to approach it similar to how I approached designing the Inner Workout office. I came in there and I was like, what would it feel like to have a place that is optimized for the way that I like to work. And that meant that I have like a standing desk and I have, well, a convertible desk that can be standing or seated. I have like, a mat for when I'm standing up that has different things in it because I do get bored or I like to fidget. And so there's different things for my feet to touch. That probably sounds weird, but like I need ways to move and fidget that aren't super obvious, I have a floor chair for when I want to be at a different level. And it's just pretty, it's like a soft blue. That's got a little bit of energizing-ness to it. But it's not too overstimulating. And if I had to kind of back into based on how I approached my office, the goal that I really want for my bedroom is a space that's optimized for rest, a space that I can come in and immediately take an exhale and know that I don't have to do anything, I don't have to be anything, all I need to do is rest. That feels pretty good for the G. So now we can go to the R, the reality. And the question that I would start with here for myself is what's not working. And what's not working is the closet layout. It's just laid out the way it was when we moved in. And the way that that person arranges their clothes is not really the way that I arrange my clothes. But I haven't done much to make it different or better for myself. I don't like the room color. It's just really boring. And we need a better hamper situation. It feels like there's always clothes all over, clean clothes, dirty clothes, it just, there's not the order that I would like it to be. And there's a general lack of decor in there. I think maybe we have one small thing hanging on the wall. But the curtains are the same as when we came in. It's just very blah. Another question I can ask. And the reality is, what can I invest in making a change? And I almost, when I was framing this question, I almost asked about budget, specifically, like how much money can I put into this? But that would have been too narrow of a question, it wasn't quite open minded, because it's assuming that the only thing that I can invest is money, but there's also an investment in time and energy that I wouldn't be exploring if I posed the question that way. And when I think about it, I have probably up to five hours a week that I could dedicate to this project. And I need to run the numbers to see what a realistic budget is for a room upgrade. So that's the reality. Now, O is probably the most fun for me, the options. A question that I could ask "What might make the room more optimized for rest?" Probably a different paint color, less clutter. So that means doing some reorganizing. I've done some purging. And I've gotten rid of a lot of stuff, but it's finding a home for everything. Another question that could be important in options is "What support might I want?" I could work with an organizer. And that would really depend on the budget situation. My mom also loves organizing, she's a Virgo and loves going to Container Store and all of that stuff. So my mom could be a great support. And I probably want the support of my husband because I don't want to design our room just based on my needs. I want to make sure that it's works for him to and what he needs.
So I've got those options for things that I could change: the paint color, the reorganization, who might help me. Now it's time to get into what I'm willing to do, what I'm committed to doing. And for me, my self-coaching led me to three questions. First, what can I do today? After this, I can run some budget numbers and get clear on how much money I actually have to work with. What I could do this week is I love a Notion projects plan. So I could build out a project plan in Notion of okay, if I have five hours a week, what do I want to get done every week? And also what makes sense like, do I probably want to paint before I get any new furniture if I'm doing that, and I probably want to get a new rug before I get a new bed if that's happening so I can plan it out in a way that's logical And what can I do this month? I could paint the walls. So those and I'm thinking even as I say that I'm like, ooh, this in the next month, am I really committed to painting the walls, that might be pushing it too far, maybe there's something else that I want to commit to. But I'm for sure committed to running the budget numbers, and mapping out a project plan. That's what it can look like to use the GROW Model. And notice how I kept having to go back to this coaching mindset of like, okay, I have options, I was remembering what I've done before in terms of decorating a room, I also was leaning into the support that I could use and reminding myself that I don't have to do this all on my own. So I have the answers or I have access to the answers. I also had to use my coaching skillset. With each of these pieces of the GROW Model, I was coming up with questions that could help me hone in on what my goal is, what the reality was, what my options were, what I was willing to do. So you saw hopefully my coaching mindset and skillset at work. And now it's your turn to do that. So get into your coaching mindset. And remember that you are creative, resourceful, and whole as the client. Remember that as the self-coach, you're coming into this with no agenda, and dust off the question skills that you've built. Commit to being open ended and open minded and work your way through the GROW Model for whatever situation is coming to mind for you. It can be something small, it could be something larger that you you start or you press pause to work through. But let's try putting this all together. And then when we come back in a couple of minutes I'll recap this mini series for us because this is already part three of three of our self-coaching school. So I'll talk to you in two minutes after your reflection.
There will always be situations where self-coaching comes in handy. Whether coaching doesn't fit into your budget right now or you're working with a coach. We still need self-coaching. It's one of our most valuable skills. Now you have the mindset, the skillset and the toolset to create more possibility in your life. And if you're looking for a more accessible way to work with a coach, you can try Gateway Coaching. The link is in the show notes and you can go to Gateway.coach if you want to learn more. Thank you so much for your time and thank you as always for your expertise. Take care.