Handling The Overwhelm Of Being A First-Time Coach
Updated: Mar 10, 2024
Written by: Brooke Summer Adams, Senior Level Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
Being a coach for the first time can be an incredible experience but also a stressful and very much uncomfortable one. As much as it’s easy to enjoy and get excited about the prospect of changing lives for a living, getting paid generously to do so and living a life on your own terms – the process to make this happen can be overwhelming. Not only do you have to learn how to coach, how to find clients and how to set up a successful business and online presence… but you also have the added stress of stepping outside your comfort zone.
Getting seen and showing up online, sharing your vision with friends, family and even strangers, doubting your abilities, staying on top of business as an entrepreneur for the first time while still maintaining normal life, endless learning, endless action taking, the urge to be perfect and fighting the desire to procrastinate are all common obstacles a first-time coach can expect to face – often, all at the same time. While the journey to being the coach you dream of is a beautiful one, it’s also at times – undeniably overwhelming.
Brooke Summer Adams – an Internationally Accredited Transformation Coach, NLP Master Practitioner, International Speaker, Trainer and Writer and Yahoo Finances’ Top 10 Female LifeCoach of 2021 – who helps first-time coaches transform themselves so they feel ready to transform others…is here today to share the top-tips she uses with her 1-2-1clients to release the overwhelm of being a first-time coach.
Trust the process
This may sound crazy, but stop focusing on the results you’re seeking. When you focus solely on the goals, you’re wanting to achieve and the end results of your efforts, you become very short-sighted. Not only that, but by placing your focus on what you’re working TOWARDS, you emphasise the awareness that you are not PRESENTLY there. Instead, focus on the process. The small steps you’re taking each and every day. By focusing on the process, you’ll be keenly aware of each little bit of progress you make, the small successes in the day and the ways in which you are moving forward. By keeping your focus on where you presently are, you emphasise the momentum you’re creating, you emphasise you’re awareness of all that HAS been done, over all that HASN’T. By doing this, you prevent feeling the overwhelm that’s triggered by the perception of still having lots to do and being far away from where you want to be. Trust the process. You can have everything you want, but not overnight. Not having everything achieved yet always comes before having it achieved. Not knowing something always comes before knowing something. Be where you are. You’ll get to where you want to be, but in order to get there, you have to take it one day at a time.
Stop worrying about how it looks
Something that can make even the simplest of tasks overwhelming is worrying about what other people think or striving for perfection. Posting on social media can be done in less than 10 minutes. However, those 10 minutes can quickly turn into 60 when you keep changing your fonts and colours over and over again to get it to look perfect or overanalysing your words with the concern of how they’ll be interpreted. Let go of the idea of doing things perfectly. Striving for perfection will only make things take longer than they need to and even once finally complete – you’ll still find something that could have been done “better”. Your momentum and success will come from taking action, the quicker you take action, the quicker you’ll build that momentum and success. Release the concern for what everyone else will think about the action you take. As a first-time coach you can almost guarantee that your intentions for doing what you’re doing is to change YOUR life and make an impact on the world. Therefore, what anyone else thinks is irrelevant. Follow your intentions, if you’re showing up to help others and not to please others- don’t worry about pleasing others, focus on making impact.
One step at a time
Huge tasks that take ages to complete can easily get overwhelming. However, small manageable steps that can be completed in a small amount time are easy to get done. If you have “create website” or a similarly large task on your to-do list, break it down into the individual steps- “get a domain”, “create paragraph 1 of about me copy”, “create paragraph 2 of about me copy” and so on. What used to be “create website”, sat on your to-do list for months without being ticked-off, overwhelming you due to the amount involved in its completion… now becomes small steps that can be ticked off each and every day. The perception of seeing a task as small and manageable not only prevents overwhelm but also procrastination. By breaking down your actions in this way, you’ll find yourself taking consistent action without getting overwhelmed – and this will become addictive. Your visual of fast and easy ticks off your to-do list will build momentum. Therefore you’ll start to feel on top of your journey and proud of the movement you’re making by focusing on all that HAS been done – rather than being overwhelmed by all that’s STILL to be done.
Get a coach
Getting yourself a coach will make this journey so much easier. A coach will be able to help keep you focused on all the progress that you are making, rather than all you still need to do – preventing overwhelm. A coach will be able to hold you accountable to the steps you plan on taking, keeping you on top of the journey - preventing overwhelm. A coach will be able to shift your mindset around perfectionism and help you release the fear of what other people think – so you can get on with taking consistent action and building momentum- preventing overwhelm.
Brooke specifically works with first-time coaches on their journeys of becoming the coach they want to be and creating the vision they hold. You can connect with Brooke using any of the links below.
People can connect with me via Email, Facebook, Instagram, or my Website. Wherever you go, you’ll find helpful training and info on all things transformation. Read more from Brooke!
Brooke Summer Adams, Senior Level Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Brooke Summer Adams is internationally accredited in Transformational Coaching, certified to a master-level in Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP), a graduate of Psychology with a 1st Class Honors Degree (BS.c), a Yahoo Finance Top 10 Female Life-Coach of 2021, a Brainz 500 Global Award Winner of 2021, a Workshop Facilitator at the worlds 1 Coaching Academy and an international Speaker, Trainer, and Writer.
After overcoming chronic stress, low self-esteem and body dysmorphia, Brooke was inspired to take to University to study Psychology, become an Internationally Accredited Transformation Coach and NLP Master Practitioner and set up her own online coaching business.
After several successful years in business transforming over 100 women into the best versions of themselves, being recognised as a Yahoo Finance Top 10 Female Life Coach and becoming an International Speaker and Trainer, Brooke then moved into the field of transforming first time coaches ‒ so they feel ready to transform others.
This experience, on top her qualifications, allows her to transform first time coaches into the version of them who has what it takes to create their vision, by helping them build unshakeable self belief and confidence, overcome fear and take aligned action.
