3 Steps That Turn Health Coaches into Action-Takers (and How You Can Too)

Michelle Leotta:

Welcome to the Health Coach Power Community Podcast. I'm Michelle Liotta, ex corporate girl turned certified health coach with over 15 years of experience growing a successful online practice. I started out with no idea what I was getting into and learned a lot of lessons along the way that have given me the freedom to do the work I love and raised two boys as a single mom.

I created a health coach power community over a decade ago to make it easier for health coaches to build a career they love and make the world a better place.

Sometimes I introduce a ticking time bomb into my business, and I do it on purpose. It's actually one of my main strategies for getting anything done. If you've ever wondered why some health coaches seem to move faster and follow through more consistently and build momentum with paying clients, keep listening for the three steps that'll turn just about anyone into an action taker.

I mean, sometimes it's hard to get things done when you're your own boss. I've been doing this for 17 years sometimes. Weeks can go by and you don't make any progress at all because you've been procrastinating doing the things that, well, they're probably the things that don't come easily, or because there's laundry to do, or a sick kid or a yoga class to go to.

I mean, self-care is part of the job, right? But what happens when you get stuck in that procrastination and the thing still just isn't getting done? I found myself in that position a couple of weeks ago. See, I had this training in mind that I wanted to create for you. I'd been mulling it over for a while, but it just kept getting pushed to the back burner.

You know how it goes. Well, I needed to make it a priority because it just wasn't happening on its own for whatever reason. So I don't know if you listened to the last episode that I released, it was all about chat GT Health. You should totally listen. If you missed it, go to health coach power.com/podcast.

You can find it there or we'll link to it in the show notes. But anyway, that episode got recorded about a week before it was supposed to be published. And so I did something very purposeful and kind of scary while recording. I shared about that new free training and I even gave a URL for all of you to go to.

I said, here, go get it@healthcoachpower.com slash grow. And guess what? I promise you as those words were coming out of my mouth and being recorded by the camera, I knew damn well that nothing existed@healthcoachpower.com slash grow. I mean, it was a blank page, which meant that I had about a week tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick.

Now I had to get it done right. I knew that I could reasonably get it done in a week, so this wasn't totally reckless. I just needed a little pressure. Right? A little external. Accountability. There's a word that encapsulates this idea perfectly. Do you know this word? It's eustress, not UREs. Eustress, all one word.

E-U-S-T-R-E-S-S. There's actually a bell curve with stress and performance. Have you ever seen that? Totally. Same concept where it shows you that. Too much stress, like obviously that's unhealthy, that's not helpful, but too little stress not good either, because that's where you can start lacking purpose and drive.

So the sweet spot is really in the middle, and that's eustress. It's a healthy kind of stress, not panic, more like motivation. It's the kind of stress that gets you up off the proverbial couch, and I needed that. Now it's funny because a lot of us got into coaching because we wanted to leave a stressful job.

Does that sound familiar? I mean, that was totally my story, but then. We're all like, oh, and like doing our yoga and like drinking our green smoothies or whatever, you know, mindfulness practices, and we enter our coaching business and we don't have any stress and we don't have a boss and we don't have any deadlines that are being handed to us.

It's amazing, and in many cases. On top of that, many cases, not all health coaches very often have bills and living expenses covered maybe by your partner, maybe by another job or something else. So in many cases, there's very little pressure to earn. And I know that sounds like really nice, especially when you're coming outta a high pressure job.

You're like, Ugh, what a relief. But it is, I promise you, it is exactly why you might have a hard time making anything happen in your business, huh? Right. You gotta think about that. I had to admit this for myself at a certain point. It's a structural problem. That's what it is. You actually need some real stress.

Like you need a fire under your butt to get things done. So it's kind of ironic 'cause I know we were trying to get away from the stress, but don't forget there is that healthy stress in the middle of the bell curve and that might be what your practice has been missing now, pressure. Became important for me to get this project done, and I know that can help anyone get something done, but it's also not enough because you'll crack under the pressure.

You also have to be willing to do something else. So I'm gonna tell you a little bit more about this free training that I created in a week. Again, I knew what it was gonna be, I just wasn't getting it done. I got a busy calendar full of clients. It's like, when was I gonna record this thing? So. We booked a time block on my calendar.

It was like the only time available, so that was it. I mean, there was zero flexibility in this plan. It had to happen during that time. Now normally, my curls look great on day three. Why am I talking about my hair? Well, if you are a curly girl, you're gonna understand this because on day one, which is the day that I wash my hair, the curls can be a little bit spazzy.

By day three, typically I've got loose waves. It's like my favorite day, and that was gonna be the plan. I'm recording day. I want day three waves. But the hair gods were not looking favorably upon me when the day came. Mm-hmm. My hair, I woke up that day. It had a mind of its own, and I wanted to cry. I wanted to bail on the entire thing, like how was I supposed to get this recording done?

Whole plan ruined right. What typically happens is that something like this will throw off the plan, whether it's our hair or someone needs us and our family, or there is a huge snowstorm or whatever. So then we reschedule and we wait for the moment to be right. But I'm telling you, I did not have that luxury and I knew I had waited long enough and I decided the show had to go on.

Now I'm still cringing about it a little. I'm actually still cringing about it quite a bit, which is why I keep talking about it. Here is the take home message, making progress. It's going to require your imperfect action, your imperfect hair, your imperfect makeup, your imperfect words, whatever. You're gonna have to just do it anyway, and it requires a tolerance for discomfort that's worth writing down.

Tolerating discomfort. Where are you with that? There are so many times that this comes up when we're building a coaching business, we get uncomfortable. I mean, asking for money, for example, or raising your rates uncomfortable, following up with clients or opportunities or risking hearing a no uncomfortable.

What about creating content, any kind of content, and putting it out there and knowing that maybe it's not perfect, and maybe some people might think that we're silly or we're too much, or this or that. Can you get more tolerant of your own imperfection, your own humanness? It is an absolute must when you're wanting to grow.

Now, most of all, this story that I've been telling you today about announcing something. Before it was ready, before it was even started. It really is all about accountability. And when you, you know this, when you speak something out loud, when you say it to the universe, even better if you say it to a person or a group of people, in my case, maybe I said it to hundreds or thousands of listeners, all of you.

Well, whatever it takes when someone is expecting something from us, suddenly just show up. In a way that you didn't think you could, again, we're coaches, so I know you know all about the power of accountability, but are you building it into your own business? How are you making it work for you? I've got so many examples from my own business through the years.

I mean, gosh, years and years ago I sold a program. I actually collected money. We're talking hundreds and hundreds of dollars, and none of the program existed. Absolutely none of it. I've done that. Oh gosh, I've done that a bunch of times, so forget just speaking it aloud. This is like the ultimate form of accountability to my clients.

And then it gets done. And that the one I was talking about, I turned that into my most successful program ever because by pre-selling, I validated the idea. I guaranteed clients before I spent any time building the thing. So I knew people wanted it. You can do this too. You can set yourself up. To take action like this, whether we're talking about a paid offer, a freebie, something that you wanna record, an event that you wanna get set up, anything, you just need a little bit of that good stress and a tolerance for imperfection and accountability to see it through to the end.

That's why my empowered members get so much done every single week. They've got the support, they've got the structure, and they have the accountability to make it happen. And if you wanna start applying these principles inside your own health coaching business, I'm happy to show you how. Go to health coach power.com/grow.

Get that free training. See the framework that helps health coaches create a bigger impact and waste less time. And I'll see you soon. Just promise me you're gonna overlook the hair. Okay.

Thank you so much for listening to the Health Coach Power Community podcast. Please take a moment, leave a written review on Apple Podcasts. It helps us reach more coaches and allows me to bring you this free content every week to join us live. Ask your questions and have a direct line to me. Join our free Facebook group at healthcoachpowercommunity.com.