A Practical Guide to Self-Coaching

Self-coaching allows leaders to sustain the benefits of coaching, long after their one-to-one coaching sessions have finished. It’s also an important tool that encourages them to take responsibility for their ongoing growth and development outside of formal training programs. But how does it work?

What is self-coaching?

Self-coaching is a process of guiding your own personal and professional growth by drawing on the tools and skills of coaching others and applying them to yourself. Self-coaching is a practice of thinking in a structured way which prompts you to set your own goals, raise your self-awareness and take accountability for identifying and taking actions that will move you forward.

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What are the benefits of self-coaching?

Leaders who self-coach:

• Take greater accountability for continuing their development as a leader
• Increase their self-awareness and critical thinking
• Have higher levels of self-regulation and self-motivation
• Extend their problem-solving skills from work activities to their own personal growth
• Are better able find a way through when they are struggling
• Recognise the importance of meeting their own needs as well as those of others
• Continually improve their coaching skills for others

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How does it work?

Self-coaching uses a combination of self-reflection and inner dialogue, constructive thinking, coaching models, powerful coaching questions, exercises and strategies to bring about changes to your attitude, behaviour or performance.

One approach to self-coaching involves taking similar steps to those that a coach would use when working with someone else, for example using the GROW coaching model.

The diagram below shows how this can be applied to self-coaching.

Questions you can ask to use the GROW model

Goal:

• What do I want to achieve – what is my end goal?
• What problem do I want to solve?
• What is important to me right now?
• What do I want to do, be or have?

Reality:

• Where am I right now?
• How do I feel about where I am?
• What’s working well/less well for me?
• What feedback are others giving me (either intentionally or through the way they react to me)?
• If I had to rate myself in this area from 1 to 10, where would I be?

Options:

• What options are open to me to be / do / have differently?
• Now I’ve thought of the obvious options, can I push myself to think of more? What different options might a friend / expert suggest I try?
• Which options resonate most right now?

Way forward:

• Which option/s do I want to pursue?
• What’s my action plan: the specific actions I will take and the timescales I’ll set myself?
• What support from others might I need to achieve my plan?
• How will I measure the progress I’m making?

Alternatively, you could use one of the problem-solving models specifically aimed at self-coaching, such as Brooke Castillo’s self-coaching model, as shown below.

How to use the model:

1. Pick one of the stages that you want to work on – it might be a thought, feeling or action which is holding you back from where you want to be.
2. Then use the framework to fill in what is happening in the rest of the stages – be as specific as you can be about the chain reaction.
3. Once you’ve identified the chain reaction, you’re aware of how you’re responsible for the results – this means you can change your thoughts to achieve different results.
4. Decide what new thought you want – believe it – and start to practice.
5. As you shift your thoughts, over time your results will change.

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How can you encourage your leaders to self-coach?

The level of self-awareness and honesty with oneself required for self-coaching can be uncomfortable at first, but the results are well worth it.

To help leaders to begin self-coaching, and incorporate it into their work consider the following:

1. If you are training your leaders to coach others, ensure there is a module on self-coaching, so they understand how to use these tools.
2. Encourage them to see coaching skills as being as much about how they develop themselves as how they develop others – coaching is a way of being!
3. Encourage them to practice self-coaching as part of their personal development planning process and/or 360-degree reviews to help identify areas where they may need extra support.

Self-coaching isn’t a replacement for using a qualified coach, rather it’s a way to complement and extend on the self-development work that the leader is already doing.

If you’d like to explore how TNM can train your leaders to become coaches for themselves and others, simply book an obligation free discovery call with our team.