The fear of people hating your coaching style, or thinking you suck as a coach, is something that plagues many INFJs and INFPs who are thinking of launching a coaching business. In fact, this fear still has the power to haunt us even after we start working with our first few clients. I had this fear in the beginning too. What if I got on the phone with someone, gave it my all, and then at the end they told me they didn’t have a good experience? Or what if they didn’t say anything, but they never contacted me again? I didn’t want to end up ghosted, or feeling rejected. I just wanted to help people, and also work for myself. Did a possible solution to this fear even exist?
In the beginning, I made the same mistake many new coaches make. I assumed that I needed to become more confident and then this fear would go away. But it wasn’t until I had been coaching for a few years that I found the real solution. It wasn’t about me pushing myself to embody a false confidence that I didn’t really feel. Instead, to get past this fear, I needed to change my thinking about getting clients, and keeping clients.
Most new coaches come to the business with little experience and low self-esteem around their coaching abilities. Our of this lack of experience and low self-esteem a certain mindset is born when it comes to getting clients, and that mindset says that you have to take anyone who comes your way. It also says that you need to sculpt your marketing to appeal to the widest audience possible so that you get the greatest number of inquiries from potential customers. I did this in the beginning too, so I get it. It can feel nerve-wracking to be out there on your own, working hard at this coaching thing, with not one client to show for it. However, trying to sell yourself to the greatest number of people possible is not the answer.
Instead of trying to sell ourselves, and trying to impress potential clients, and trying to appeal to the widest audience, my approach with intuitive coaching is to do the exact opposite. Instead of trying to widen your scope, I urge new coaches to focus on narrowing their filter. This means that YOU are in charge of the selection process, not the other way around. You decide who you work with, and you bring an energy of discernment and thoughtful choosing to who you take on as a client.
I talk about this process in-depth (and how it can be compared to online dating) in the second video of my mini-series on intuitive coaching, “I Want to Start Coaching, but I’m Scared People Will Think I Suck…”
If the videos in this series are speaking to you, it would be helpful to search your heart and mind and ask yourself if now is the time that you finally get started on your coaching dream. It CAN happen. It is a realistic and actually do-able career shift that you can make happen for yourself. You just need to know the basic fundamentals before you get started.
And if you’re interested in the details on my Intuitive Coaching video course, which I’m releasing later this week, be sure to sign up for my newsletter here to get all the updates. If you have any questions at all about it, you can contact me here, or email me at writecitysf@gmail.com.
I’ll be sending out the last video in this series in just another day or two. And I really do hope you decide to pick up the course package. So many INFJs and INFPs are born to be coaches, the only thing that holds us back is fear. Once we get past that, we can do anything.
Lauren Sapala is the author of The INFJ Writer and The INFJ Revolution. She is also currently offering a free copy of her book on creative marketing for INFJ and INFP writers to anyone who signs up for her newsletter. SIGN UP HERE to get your free copy of Firefly Magic: Heart Powered Marketing for Highly Sensitive Writers.
