Coaching is a perfect home business. This is my home where I live and work.
Over the next few months I’ll be mentoring six life coaches in a radical new approach to starting a coaching business. This is a pilot program for my proposed Readymade Coaching Business service.
Although the Readymade Coaching Business approach will eventually contain modules that address a range of coaching niches, for this pilot program we’ll focus on just one niche: Habit Change Coaching.
How I choose pilot program participants
Basically I choose the first six people who applied and indicated agreement with the pilot program terms and conditions. I took a waiting list for the latecomers, because I thought I might increase the group size to 10.
However, in the end I decided to limit the group to six. My reason is because it’s a pilot program; if I have too many participants it will turn into a full-blown program.
By accepting the first six people who applied, I hope to have a representative group of coaches. In other words, I didn’t preselect for “stars” (although my six folks do look pretty special) or for people who already had a headstart with their website or marketing.
On the other hand, the fact that these six people each got their application to me within a day or two of the announcement indicates that they are motivated and fast moving.
Who are the coaches?
I’m excited about getting started with my folks. We’re going to meet weekly via teleconference starting Monday August 16th. The six coaches are:
Robyn (USA)
Edna (Canada)
Cheryl (USA)
Rox (South Africa)
Jacqui (UK)
Kelly (USA)
You might find it interesting to see some of the application answers.
To the question “Why do you want to be in this pilot program”, one coach wrote:
Because I really NEED to and WANT to get moving, yet as a new Coach have no clue really where to start and this really is an awesome opportunity to get going with some professional direction, personal responsibility and being ultimately accountable.
That sentiment was a common theme. Another coach said:
It sounds like exactly just what I need to get my business off and running. I need someone telling me step by step what to do so that I do not become overwhelmed.
This confirms my belief that coaches are willing to do what needs to be done to market their coaching business, as long as they know what to do! They need a step by step program pared down to the essentials, and that’s what I intend to deliver.
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This sounds very interesting. I have a tip that you might find helpful. For breaking simpler, unconscious, behavioral bad habits, there is an extremely simple method. These are habits such as biting nails, pulling hair, talking to yourself, picking skin, touching acne, cursing aloud, where it is difficult to quit since you don’t think not to do it until after the fact, i.e. there’s no moment of deliberate decision before you engage in the behavior.
The method is as follows: First, it is probably necessary to consciously make some kind of effort to stop the habit—e.g. biting your nails. So if you realize you’re about to bite them, or have just started biting them, then consciously prevent yourself or stop immediately. But, as everyone knows, the willpower method by itself is usually unsuccessful. The idea is to choose some kind of personal forfeit as “punishment” for the behavior in question. Then, whenever you realize that you have just bitten your nails, you perform the forfeit. (Of course it’s necessary to consciously realize you’ve bitten your nails, after the fact; but one usually does realize this when one is trying to break the habit—the problem is you don’t realize it until it’s already too late.)
The forfeit can be anything that is (1) something you would typically NOT want to do at random times on a moment’s notice; (2) not so onerous that you might actually refuse to do it from sheer laziness; (3) not, in itself, potentially habit-forming; (4) can be done anywhere, at any time. Examples of forfeits I have tried or considered are: (a) going to a dictionary, finding a word that is new to you, and learning its meaning; (b) multiplying two two-digit numbers together in your head; (d) making yourself listen to a particular song you hate, in its entirety; (e) doing ten pushups. Although I haven’t tried it, (a) is nice since it has the side-effect of improving yourself in some way while breaking the habit; but it requires that you always keep a dictionary handy.
The single most important thing in applying this method is not to cheat and not to delay. That is, every time you bite your nails—even if you just started to—immediately perform the forfeit (or at least do so within a minute or so). Do not delay, or “pretend to yourself that you did the forfeit”, or save up multiple forfeits and do them all at once, later, when it’s more convenient.
You will quickly find that the sneaky brain becomes aware of the fact that every time it unconsciously decides you should bite your nails, your conscious mind will come in and make it do some work it doesn’t particularly want to. This makes you become aware of the habit before you actually do it, and gives you time to choose not to. After some time, you will stop wanting to at all and the habit is broken. (This method also works for instilling positive habits, e.g. brushing your teeth within ten minutes of dinner—just do the forfeit when you realize it has been more than ten minutes and you haven’t yet brushed your teeth.)
This cure does not, of course, address any root causes of the habit.
Hope this helps!
Hi Barbara,
I contacted you in September about your Pilot Program but it was closed at that time. You commented that you may have another program start up in January 2011. Please keep me posted for your next session. Thanks.
Jane Trail
Hi Jane, thanks for checking back. In the end, I decided to give up on the idea. You can read the reason why here.