The Magic of Self-Coaching
How to Take Back Control and Solve Your Own Problems

The 5 AM Miracle Podcast, hosted by Jeff Sanders

Episode #521: The Magic of Self-Coaching: How to Take Back Control and Solve Your Own Problems

Jeff Sanders
Real fast, what is your biggest problem right now?

And if you had to solve it right now, what would you do?

Second question, if you had to explain to someone else what your problem is and how you would solve it, what would you say?

I have just outlined the beginning of a process that can transform how you approach coaching, problem solving, and goal achievement, all wrapped up in a methodology that can absolutely work for you right now with whatever you're trying to accomplish.

This is the 5am Miracle, episode number 522, The Magic of Self-Coaching, How to Take Back Control and Solve Your Own Problems.

Good morning and welcome to the 5am Miracle.

I am Jeff Sanders and this is the podcast dedicated to dominating your day before breakfast.

My goal is to help you bounce out of bed with enthusiasm, create powerful, lifelong habits, and tackle your grandest goals with extraordinary energy.

In the episode this week, I'll break down what self-coaching is and how it differs from traditional coaching, why it's highly likely you already have the knowledge and experience you need to start your next ambitious pursuit, and why you should start a podcast.

Or phrased another way, leverage your access to a public platform to force you into the clarity you need.

Let's dig in.

[Music] You should start a podcast.

Maybe.

Let me explain.

What I've been doing on this podcast for over 10 years now is, yes, producing a show for you to hear.

But there's a lot more going on under the surface.

What I would like for you to try is to do something similar.

To launch a podcast or leverage your access to a public platform like social media to force you into clarity you need around your problems you're trying to solve and goals you're trying to achieve.

Because there is so much power in taking a message public.

There is clarifying beauty in getting something out of your head and onto paper or a recording or a Facebook post.

There is magic in the process of outlining your thoughts, no matter how crazy they may seem in your head to you right now.

What I've been doing on this show for over 10 years is self-coaching.

Yes, I coach other people, but I coach myself.

In fact, nearly 100% of the coaching I do is directed back towards me and my goals and problems to solve.

Self-coaching is, for me, one of the most beneficial things I do literally every single day.

Now, to call it self-coaching is a choice.

We all solve our own problems all the time.

But I think the intentionality of calling it self-coaching and then going through a process to clarify your problems in a very specific way can actually provide clarity that you otherwise may not get.

And it might force you to do the things you probably are going to do anyway, but now you're going to do them on a schedule.

Now you might do them publicly.

And now you might get the clarity you need faster and more effectively than ever before.

So let's discuss exactly what I mean by all of this through the lens of this show.

This podcast has become my best self-coaching methodology and mechanism for a long time now.

And what I actually do is I'll take an episode of this show, any episode you can choose, and I'll ask and answer my toughest questions for me through the show.

If you know content creators, people who write books, give speeches, launch podcasts, have YouTube channels, provide advice, self-help especially, oftentimes the people who are giving the advice are ones who themselves are struggling actively with those exact same issues or they have struggled in the past and are now turning that back around to then help others.

In other words, content creators discuss their current problems and then their solutions that they find for themselves.

Now you might think, "Well, Jeff, I'm not a content creator.

I'm not a podcaster or a YouTuber or a blogger or author.

How does this apply to me?"

Well, my response to that is you could become a content creator for the sole purpose of solving your own problems and achieving your goals or at least from that perspective of gaining clarity in the journey, in the process of the content generation to then get the clarity you're seeking.

As an example, I may take an episode of this podcast about productivity through the lens of a problem I've recently had.

And I may think to myself, "Well, wait a minute.

I have this current struggle.

How could I solve this problem?"

Well, let's do an episode of the podcast about it because here's how this works.

Here's the magical part.

In the process of the generation of a show, I script every single episode.

The scripting is the solution.

Yes, to then record it and publicly clarify it and publish it for you is a helpful component.

But for me, the scripting is the magic because in the scripting, what I'm doing is I'm asking myself, "If I was going to share this publicly, what would I say?

If I was going to help somebody else solve this exact same problem, what advice would I give them?"

That third-party perspective is so powerful because it's a heck of a lot more objective than how you might be in your own life.

We get stuck in our own heads.

We get stuck in our own problems.

We get really small when it comes to our own worlds.

And when you can break open that shell, share your stuff publicly, and figure out a way to then help someone else through that exact same problem that you yourself are struggling with, oh my gosh, you've now found a way to at least start the process to help yourself move forward.

And that's the goal.

We're trying to find a way for you to approach a problem in a new way.

A way to say, "Well, this has been an issue for a while, and I've never really taken the time to outline exactly what I would do."

And having something like a weekly podcast, for example, well, it forces me to generate new content every week.

And one question I get all the time on this show is, "Jeff, how do you create new content for 10 years now and going?

How is that even possible?

How is a topic like a 5am miracle able to be discussed for so long?"

And the answer is so simple.

I've got problems.

I want to solve them.

And I always have new problems to solve and new ways to approach old problems.

Like, my life is a mess.

It's a hot mess.

And in order for me to be able to provide amazing content for you, which of course is my goal, well, then I need to source those solutions from somewhere.

And the best place for me is me.

The best place for me to generate personal enthusiasm and energy and really customized solutions is to pull it from my own life.

And so for me, this podcast is a platform for group therapy.

It's a platform for me to work through my stuff.

And my argument for you here on this episode is you should do the same thing.

You don't have to do this, but imagine if you did.

Imagine if you had a way for you to work through the issues you have in a way that forced you into the action you may not be doing.

And this is really the point.

You may have a problem that you're actively solving, a goal you're actively working towards, and there's not really a problem there.

You're in a good flow and you're seeing results.

That's great.

Those you can keep as is.

The real challenge are the problems you're not seeing progress in, the problems that really aren't seeing solutions, the goals that are just stuck.

Those are the ones we're looking for here.

Those are the opportunities to move them forward by forcing you to do something that otherwise may not be happening.

And I say force because most of the time, the problems that we have that are stuck, the issues that have been ongoing and chronic for so many years, typically, it's because we're not doing the work.

It's because the problem itself is actually not that hard to solve.

We've just never taken the time to think it through.

Not really.

Not with real intentionality.

Not with the clarity we need and we can get from this process.

So if you have a problem right now that you could see benefits from by thinking it through and sharing that publicly or with someone else, you could use and leverage the power of what I'm doing here with this podcast, but with your own life and your own medium, right?

You could choose a different platform, choose blogging, choose YouTubing, choose social media posts.

It doesn't matter what the platform is.

But the fact that it's going to go public means you have to do it well, right?

If you care about your public image, let's assume that's true.

You want to do it well.

You want to be helpful and provide advice to others.

And in doing so, you're going to solve your own problem.

You're going to give yourself the clarity you need to take the next action to move and go forward.

And that's the whole point, right?

There's one way to look at this and say, "Well, I'm not going to outline the entire solution."

In fact, in many ways, the way that I approach this is, "How can I just get the ball rolling?"

How can I begin that brainstorming process to ask myself, "If I were to solve this problem, where would I start?"

If I were to provide myself with an outlet to move forward, what's the first thing I would do?

I mean, the question at the top of the show is the one where I asked right now, real fast, "What's your biggest problem?

If you had to solve it right now, what would you do?"

That level of urgency provides more clarity than most things.

There's a story that I don't think I've told in this podcast before, but one that is extremely helpful, which is back in my mid-20s, I had some of my high school friends come to my apartment, and we hung out for the weekend.

And one of my friends asked this question, and we're all sitting around together, and said, "Hey, one by one, go through and tell us right now, if you could do anything with your career, what would you do?"

And when the question got to me, I blurted out, "Public speaking!"

Like, it just came out of me.

And no one had ever asked that question in that way before.

And I thought to myself, "Wait a minute, why did I just blurt that answer out?"

Because I had never actually said it out loud before.

No one had ever really posed the question, and I had never really answered it, but as soon as that happened, as soon as someone said, "Hey, right now, answer this question," and then it just came out of me, well, that's clarifying.

It says a lot about who I am and what I want to do with my career.

Now, that was 15 years ago, and ever since then, I have been living that dream, that life, that vision that I had in a variety of ways, through podcasting, actual public speaking, and other ventures I've been on.

It, in many ways, stems from the answer to that very simple question.

So, I pose that to you.

If you have a problem to solve, if you have a goal to achieve, what would you do in this moment?

And one way to kind of get you into that flow to directly answer that question is to schedule for yourself a public post.

Schedule for yourself a public podcast episode, YouTube video, social media post, blog post.

Decide for yourself, "Now, I'm going to publish an article on my blog in one week."

"I've got one week to script together something that is a solution to the problem that I have."

"And then I'm going to share that solution with the public."

If you had to do that right now, what would you do?

That's the question.

So, what I've done through this podcast for about 10 years now is to ask and answer my own toughest questions.

To clarify the processes, to journal out loud.

Yes, to use group therapy, if you want to call it that.

But really, what I'm trying to do is to outline the necessary detail.

Sometimes I'll tell stories to exemplify what to do and not to do.

The stories that I tell are mostly for the sake of the show and for you as the listener.

But sometimes, those same stories can be very helpful for me as well.

It loops back into, "Well, here's a good example that I can draw from."

As I'm looking for motivation or discipline or inspiration to go make forward progress.

Stories are extremely powerful.

I also, in this process, can reinforce a lot of my own feelings.

Whether it's love for something, hate towards something, or just clarifying what I'm committed to or not committed to.

When you're forced to write something down, it makes it more tangible.

It makes it more real.

So, the reinforcing nature of this process will also be very beneficial because then you're able to say, definitively, "Here's what I think.

Here's what I believe.

Here is what's true about my life right now.

Here is what's true about what I want from my life right now and going forward."

It's hard to express just how powerful this is if you have not done it.

And so, what I'd like to encourage you to do is embrace the role of a content creator specifically for the sake of helping yourself out.

And if you want to, of course, share this and grow this as a public platform going forward, of course, that's awesome.

But if we take this whole story back of my own journey, everything that I have done started with a blog.

Right after college, I launched a blog for my wife and I getting engaged.

When Tessa and I got engaged, I made a blog on TessaAndJeff.com, which I don't have anymore.

It's now gone.

But at the time, I bought that domain and I had a blog there where I just talked about my life and talked about my upcoming marriage and our relationship, and I was very excited about that.

And then I discovered in that process that I actually really enjoyed sharing my personal stories.

And so I then launched a new blog called GraduatedAndClueless.com, which I had an entire book that I wrote that I never actually published, but I had this whole process where I wanted to share what I was experiencing.

I wanted to document how I felt.

And I did so publicly through blog posts and then later on this self-published book through my attempt to figure out my own struggles and the solutions to those problems.

And so I found a ton of therapeutic benefits from blogging and sharing my story.

And so that's my argument for you, that you can do the exact same thing.

Now for me, let's go back to the story again.

TessaAndJeff.com transformed to GraduatedAndClueless.com, which transformed to JeffSanders.tv, which then transformed to JeffSanders.com.

And JeffSanders.com is where my entire business and brand has been ever since.

But the process that started with blogging about my engagement, which led to me blogging about my career, which led to me blogging about productivity and personal growth, which then led to me podcasting about it, which led to coaching, led to speaking, led to books, led to online courses.

My career started in content creation for the sole purpose of helping myself.

It's a very self-centered endeavor.

But that's my whole point, is that self-coaching is one of the absolute best personal growth strategies you could implement.

That the power that is in this process is unlimited.

Because it's you and your story and the goals you're trying to accomplish.

And you can do so through this means of a public journal, if that's going to be beneficial.

So, now that I have kind of gone off on a few tangents here, I want to go back to my script that I wrote for the episode this week and discuss the differential between self-coaching and traditional coaching.

Because this is going to help clarify this to another degree.

So, traditional coaching, in that model, you're going to pay someone else.

Usually you're paying them.

And this is someone who likely does not know you, but they're going to give advice based on their experience and then clarify actions you should take to then solve your problem or achieve your goal.

Most of the time with traditional coaching, you'll get some face-to-face time or Zoom call time.

Usually you'll get advice that fits a lot of people.

Coaches don't tend to customize a lot, unless you have paid them a lot to do so.

So, oftentimes the advice is fairly generic, which for a lot of coaching is fine, because most people who have very common problems, common solutions are good and they will work.

But through this coaching model, you're also limited to how long you can afford to pay your coach or how long your coach is effectively helping you to solve your problems or achieve your goals.

From my experience, you have to hire different coaches for different problems and goals.

You find a new specialist in the area you're going to focus on next.

Also, this is kind of a biggie, you're usually not the coach's main priority.

Now, the subtext here is that the coach and their paycheck is their own main priority.

And that's kind of the subtext of the entire episode.

We as individuals care about ourselves.

Other people really don't.

They might give credence to the idea, but at the end of the day, you are your own victor, your own hero, your own problem solution.

You are the answer to the problem you're looking for.

An outside source is going to be helpful, but at the end of the day, it's you.

You're the one doing the work.

You're the one who's growing.

You're the one who owns the problem, who owns the solution, who owns the journey to get there.

So an outside source could be a book, a podcast like this one, a coach you actually pay for.

All of these sources are going to provide insight and knowledge and experience that you may not have yourself.

So there is immense value in traditional coaching.

I'm not going to say it's bad.

In fact, in many ways, it's phenomenal.

But it's different.

The limitations I just discussed, everything from the budget to time to the potentiality that the coach doesn't really know you that well, so it's not highly customized, there are challenges.

So self-coaching can make up that gap in a lot of ways.

With self-coaching, you are the priority.

You give advice to yourself about yourself and your experience to solve your own problems, achieve your own goals, and your course then is not limited to specific meeting times.

Although, I will say this, I have scheduled self-coaching time with myself on a repeated basis.

Yes, the podcast scripting that I do is technically part of that, but I've actually gone out of my way to schedule brainstorming times.

I have scheduled actual self-meetings where I will just think out loud and talk through a problem, and I'll put it on my calendar.

Sometimes it's spontaneous, but sometimes it's baked into my schedule.

So I'm going to say, you know, at 10 a.m. on Thursday, I'm going to work through this issue.

I'm going to think out loud about it, brainstorm about it, write it down, outline a process, and then go move forward.

That level of intentionality is required with your most challenging goals, and self-coaching gives you the chance to do that.

Of course, with self-coaching, your solutions are 100% customized to you because it's based on you, so you're looking for a personal solution that's the most personal you're going to find.

Also, and of course, with self-coaching, there is no limits on time or money because you're not going to pay yourself, I assume, and also with time, you're likely going to coach yourself for the rest of your life.

Whether you actually call it self-coaching or not, we all do this.

This is always happening all the time.

I just like the idea of labeling it and scheduling it and having a very specific process to go through because a structured program like that, a structured scripting session like that, is more likely to actually be executed on.

In other words, if I were to tell you that self-coaching is something you're already doing and it's good, you might nod your head and say, "Right," but then never actually take action on it, versus if I tell you that self-coaching is a specific process that requires scripting and public publishing, all of a sudden we've changed the game.

Now you're scheduling time to work on it, scheduling time to actually release that stuff publicly.

All of a sudden, it's a structured program, and then you're going to take action because there are deadlines.

There are tasks on your task manager.

There are booked events on your calendar.

You've just made it tangible and real, and because of that, you take the action that's required.

And that's the whole point.

The whole point of this entire model is to get us moving.

The whole point is to think through, "What would I do if?"

If I had to solve this problem now, what would I do?

If I had to outline this and then teach someone else, what would I say?

These kinds of questions, when answered, result in actual solutions and then movement, and that's the goal.

Now I do want to clarify a little bit about self-coaching versus traditional coaching here from the perspective of outside help.

Self-coaching actually includes outside help as well.

So coaching yourself includes learning from others.

It's not just you helping yourself with your own knowledge as you stand today because we're not alone in this journey of life.

We have outside resources, and we should leverage them whenever we can.

So self-coaching simply means you are responsible for the pursuit, and then you may or may not seek advice from others in the process, of course, including books, audiobooks, podcasts, coaches, consultants, public speakers, mastermind groups, therapists, doctors, all of these people, literally anyone and anything that can help you to learn more and clarify what to do next.

That's what this is all about.

We are looking for solutions from every possible angle, and then we intentionally apply that in a self-directed, self-coaching, structured pursuit.

I believe that when that is in place, when you have that kind of a structure, you are then more likely to take the action and get the results.

That's what this is.

[Music] At the top of the show, I did allude to the idea that it's highly likely you already have the knowledge and experience you need to start the process.

So why would you need the outside help, or how do you actually begin this process?

The way that I have viewed self-coaching, the way that I have viewed goal achievements, with every pursuit I've ever tried, is that there is-- I'll say this first.

There is a tendency to pause, delay, and procrastinate because of the most common excuse in the world, which is because I'm not already there at the finish line.

I don't have the million dollars.

I don't have the big business.

I haven't run the marathon.

I haven't gone to grad school.

Because I don't have the expertise and resources that somebody else might have, I'm not going to do anything.

It becomes this all-or-nothing trade-off.

Because I don't have what I think I should have to start, I never start at all.

And from my perspective, what self-coaching does is it removes that obstacle.

And it asks the question, "If you were to start today, what would you do?"

If you were to leverage the resources you actually have access to right now, how would you leverage those?

Because everyone who got anything in life, everyone who ever did anything, started where they were with the resources they had at the time.

Anyone who is successful today was once not successful.

Wherever you are today, you can gain the experience and move yourself forward.

That's the joy in this.

We can self-coach starting now.

There's never a reason to not self-coach.

There's never a reason to wait.

The process can always begin immediately, in this very moment, to ask and answer those kinds of questions so that starting now is the solution.

And delaying the process is never on the table.

So, to answer the question, "Do you have the knowledge and experience you need to start?"

Absolutely, yes.

You do.

You can start right now.

You may say, "Well, Jeff, I know nothing."

Great.

You can start with nothing and you can grow from there.

Zero becomes one.

That's what we're going for.

And in that pursuit, you're going to realize how quickly you're going to make progress.

This is actually fun.

I actually really like to begin from zero because the initial growth is extraordinary.

That's where you get tons of motivation, tons of ideas, tons of enthusiasm towards the pursuit.

Starting from zero is actually a very exciting place.

So, don't view it as a place of weakness or a place of fear.

It's the opposite.

It's the most exciting place to begin.

And speaking of beginning, let's discuss how you can begin self-coaching today.

Step number one is to pick your method.

Now, I discussed the idea that public is the way to go, right?

To share what you're doing with everyone.

You don't have to do that.

It's an optional component here.

So, there are two options with your method, both private and public.

In the private sector, you could begin with brainstorming on a whiteboard, on a journal, on a piece of paper.

Begin by just writing down your ideas for if you had to solve this problem now, how would you approach it?

You could also privately talk to a trusted source, a spouse, a partner, a close friend, or even to hire a coach.

You could begin this process privately by yourself to ask and answer these questions and solve your problem.

Of course, then you could upgrade and go public with blogging, with podcasting, with a video on YouTube.

There are a lot of ways to share what you're doing publicly.

What I would argue is that beginning privately and then upgrading to public might be your best choice because there's a few things you're going to want to do first.

In the private sector, you're able to basically make a lot of mistakes and be really goofy and no one knows about it.

I'll use this show as a good example.

These episodes of this podcast are recorded and then published later.

There is a lot of work that happens between the recording and the publishing, which involves editing.

In the editing process, I have cut a lot of nonsense.

Now, you may say, "Well, Jeff, you sound kind of weird sometimes.

There are a few things on the show you do make mistakes.

We hear them."

Yes, I know that.

I've left those in on purpose.

But there's a lot of stuff that I have not shared publicly, a lot of stuff that I have cut and removed.

The editing process is very private.

When I record these shows, it's just me here in my house.

My wife is at work.

My kids are at school.

It's just me here in my home studio recording and saying whatever I want, and I let myself do that.

I give myself the liberty, the freedom to say whatever I want, to think whatever I want, record whatever I want, because I know there's an editing process coming next where I can cut all the noise, remove all the stuff that was not helpful, not beneficial, super embarrassing.

All of that stuff is cut out, or at least most of it.

I'll leave it a little bit for fun.

But then I take what I've done and I share it publicly.

I intentionally put it out into the world for you to listen to and benefit from.

But of course, I'm the one who benefits from the process probably more than you.

And honestly, that's probably what's been happening for so long, is that I actually end up with more of the self-help benefit because I'm directly solving my own problems.

If the topic of the show this week relates to you, you may get benefit from it.

But if it doesn't, you move on to the next one.

What I'm looking for here for you in this process is to privately allow yourself the freedom to make these mistakes, to share whatever you want with yourself, remove all the stuff that's a little too embarrassing, but then you publicly share what remains, and you help someone else through that process as well.

So the private becomes public, the editing between the two allows you to feel more comfortable sharing this stuff publicly, and you have the chance to directly address your own stuff.

So step number one is to choose your method, whether public, private, or some kind of a hybrid model.

Step two is to actually choose the goal at hand or the problem to solve.

And in this case, being specific is your best friend.

We're not looking for big generic things.

Specific problems have specific solutions, and that's action-oriented.

You can't just generically become healthy.

That never happens.

We specifically do certain things, eat certain foods, work out at certain times.

Your specificity in your goal or in your problem to solve is the crux of this working or not.

Without this being specific, this process will fail.

With it being specific, you can then be very targeted.

Here's the exact problem I have.

Here's the exact solution I want.

Then all of a sudden, it's actionable, you can schedule it, and you can do it.

So whatever you do, whatever you choose here, be specific.

Step number three, you want to, in this process, ask and answer your toughest questions.

And I'm going to put a real emphasis here on tough, on difficult, on challenging, on chronic.

Yes, you could solve easy problems, but honestly, there's just no point in pursuing this entire process for easy stuff.

This process is designed for the hard stuff.

It is designed for you to work through the issues that have been bugging you for a long time, because those are the issues that will cause the biggest forward movement in your life and your business.

This is where the biggest growth will happen.

And so when I ask something like, "What's your biggest problem?

And if you could solve it right now, what would you do?"

I'm asking you a couple of questions there.

But the first one is, "What is your biggest problem, your most annoying issue?"

When you start there, that's where all of a sudden you're like, "Wait a minute.

This thing, this elephant in the room I've been avoiding, is now all of a sudden on the table, and I have to address it."

Now let's imagine for a second you do actually solve that problem.

Well, then you get to go on to the next one and the next one after that.

There's always going to be another problem.

But hopefully, as you solve these problems and go through this process, this gets easier, because now you've got the skill set to ask and answer difficult questions.

That's a powerful skill set.

That's one you can use in a variety of ways.

So don't miss the opportunity to challenge yourself in a way that's going to be the most beneficial.

Now, of course, the final step, number four, is to actually take action on your own advice.

If you don't take action, this whole thing might be a big waste of time.

Yes, it's still beneficial to ask and answer questions on paper, but the intention behind it, the whole point of this, is it leads to you doing something different.

A new habit, a new set of tasks, a new project to pursue, a new career perhaps, a new place to live, whatever the end result needs to be.

You're going to take action on that and move yourself forward.

And that's where the joy shows up, the enthusiasm, the motivation.

The momentum is built in action.

So whatever process you've chosen, public or private, whatever goal you've chosen to achieve, whatever specific targeted item you have here, whatever that is, do something about it.

And then when you do, this whole thing works, and it's glorious.

All right, now for a quick review this week.

First of all, traditional coaching is great for many things, but it does have limits.

And those limits can then be overridden by number two, self-coaching, which is a phenomenal choice.

But yes, it does require you to take responsibility for the problem and the solution and do something about it.

Number three, you could try a more formal approach to self-coaching to see how that could work for you, which could include everything from a scripted episode, a public post that's pre-scheduled, events on your calendar, tasks on your task manager, some kind of a structured approach to say, "I'm going to take self-coaching more seriously, and by doing so, here are the steps I will take."

And then finally, number four, you can take your goals public in your preferred medium, whether that's audio, video, written word, choose your medium, schedule those public posts, take your own advice for yourself out into the world, and see how that simple decision can amp up your clarity, your decisiveness, your confidence, and your willingness to say, "Here's what I'm working on, and here's what I have discovered in my own journey, and I hope you can benefit as well."

And for the action step this week, yes, please, try some self-coaching for one of your current goals.

Ask and answer your own difficult questions.

Imagine you have to explain your rationale and methodology to someone else, and then just do that thing.

This doesn't have to be hard, it just has to get you and your brain moving in the direction of problem-solving and action-oriented behavior.

Of course, subscribe to this podcast in your favorite podcast app, or become a VIP member of the 5AM Miracle community by getting the premium, ad-free version with exclusive bonus episodes at 5ammiraclepremium.com.

And that's all I've got for you here on the 5AM Miracle Podcast this week.

Until next time, you have the power to change your life, and the fun begins bright and early.

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