Love Those Results! 5 Ways Coaching Transforms Your Overthinking Mind
Summary: Coaching helps over-thinkers, introverts, and perfectionists break free from self-imposed limits by shifting their mindset from doubt to confidence, rigidity to flexibility, and perfectionism to learning. Through simple steps for new perspectives, positive language, and greater self-awareness, they unlock their full potential into making lasting transformation.
When I reflect on what gets me jumping out of bed every day — what makes my day every day, it’s these five ways my clients transform right before my eyes.
As a Coach, I work with a very particular group of individuals who would all identify themselves as over-thinkers, introverts and perfectionists. They, like me, are in a state of constant improvement until one day they see that the biggest improvement to make is getting out of their own way to finally make the impact they want.
When I’m coaching someone, our focus is achieving goals, having breakthroughs and developing new habits or strategies so that they’re never in this same place again. Coaching can help ensure you make lasting personal change.
Here are five ways coaching transforms your overthinking mind. To help you, notice any situations that come to mind. Raising your awareness is the first step to change.
Breaks the pattern of black/white thinking
Over-thinkers really don’t like being at a crossroads
The unknown is a very uncomfortable place to be that doesn’t support you to over-think the way out.
Most over-thinkers are binary in their thinking. Something is true or false. It’s a yes or a no, etc. Having this habit leads to many unmet expectations and frustrations. That’s why over-thinkers don’t like to feel in “limbo” at the crossroads. The unknown is a very uncomfortable place to be that can’t support you to over-think the way out.
When you break the black/white thinking habit, you give yourself permission. That’s what happened to my client Cathy. Black/white thinking became an excuse for why she wasn’t happy. When she looked at it from a different perspective, she needed to give herself permission to be happy in less than ideal circumstances. That shift resulted in her sharing with me that she’s “living in another "dimension" of herself.”
Stops you from being hard on yourself
A tough inner critic
Especially for introverts, means you struggle with finding your voice, advocating for yourself and articulating your value.
The inner dialogue. Ouch. It’s not nice to an over-thinker. It’s so cruel and punishing digging right to heart of our self-worth, image and ego. Having a tough inner critic, especially for introverts, means you struggle with finding your voice, advocating for yourself and articulating your value.
The negative self-talk convinces you not to speak up for fear of looking dumb, ruining your reputation or worse. So you spend countless work meetings in your own head. All your brilliant ideas are never spoken out loud.
Only seeing your weakness is a vicious cycle. So when we coached Egan on how to leverage his value of courage at the leadership table, he saw real results. He began to speak up more often, even speak first. He stopped editing himself in the moment, and let go of perfection. Within a few weeks, he trusted his instincts and lead a company presentation. Not only was it well received, but his approach set the standard for the meeting moving forward. He said, “Now, I seek data instead of doubts.”
Uses a new and more positive vocabulary
Whatever you find “hard” about what you do next, there is one thing to make it easier.
Change the words and you’ll begin to change your thinking.
Do you say the same words over and over again that reinforce what you don’t want. Maybe it’s a “battle” with a colleague or a “fight” that you need to advance your career. Words are powerful, and they reflect your thinking.
Whatever you find “hard” about what you do next, there is one thing to make it easier. Change the words and you will begin to change your thinking.
My clients have eliminated words from their vocabulary like:
hard
but
crazy
idiot
and more…to see the harsh self-talk change almost instantly. Why? It feels better to use positive language. If you’re talking about something being “hard,” it will feel hard and frustrating as you say that.
But this one transformation has another meaning too. If you anchor into one word like “amplify” or “energy” or “abundance” as a theme for you, you will also change your thinking!
Sees themselves as others do
I call out your BS.
I see through it because old stories are not congruent with who you already are!
Another major transformation comes with clients who work on their confidence. Inevitably, they would not rank themselves as high as others. We can and have verified this in 360º feedback reports.
A combination of the first three points above, the client is only looking at the internal indicators that say they’re not good enough, they’re not where they want to be, they messed up, etc.
When partnering with a Coach, you have a neutral sounding board. I call out your BS. I see through it because old stories are not congruent with who you already are!
One day, a client of mine who was working on developing leadership presence shared her progress about meeting with executives and having great strategic conversations. She then said she wanted to work on her leadership presence to be at the table. I quickly called out, “Don’t you see it? You’re already at that table.”
Shifts from perfectionism to learning
We zoom out of the current situation to see the bigger reality.
When we do, we use different words like experiment, opportunity and learning.
We couldn’t make it through this list without the elephant in the room—perfectionism. Countless times, my clients will want to make it perfect when they’re a beginner, a newbie, a learner.
What’s happening here? Well, the measuring stick or quality bar is far too high for them. They are applying a disproportionate set of rules on the initial steps. The high expectations create unnecessary pressure! This is another negative feedback loop like negative self-talk that causes indecision and inaction.
Clients will complain of not getting in a groove, or knowing what to do. They’ll start a new job and worry they haven’t figuring out the new process or systems yet. They will be one week into the job saying this.
We zoom out of the current situation to see the bigger reality. When we do, we use different words like experiment, opportunity and learning. One client realized how much progress he had made building his business. How much research and decisions were already behind him. He created a roadmap so that he could remember the effort, and catch himself “starting from scratch” at every turn.
Final thoughts
Over-thinkers have strong mental muscles to problem solve, to envision and to carry out plans like no one else can. It’s when over-thinkers start to spin their wheels that coaching is an effective method to get them unstuck and moving forward on the right path again. Whether it’s black/white thinking, being harsh with yourself, words that you say, BS stories or trying to make things perfect, the transformation can start when you’re tired of holding yourself back. And I think you know what I mean…
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