Wondering about the self-coaching questions?
Hi, I'm Colleen. I know you have a lot on your plate already, so I designed this quick, simple, (and free!) self-coaching program as a way for you to have an easier time creating a life you love. You'll be amazed at what 10 minutes a week will do for you.
You may be wondering about the questions I use in the weekly Helping Yourself to Help Others self-coaching email program. (I abbreviate it to HYHO and say it like "hi-ho"). Lots of people ask me about question #2 in particular. It's my favorite! 😄
Each question was designed to uncover a specific type of useful information.
My goal is to help you
- Acknowledge and appreciate all the things you ARE doing (rather than focus on the areas you fear you're falling short)
- Develop some internal metrics of success, ways of keeping your goals in mind and recognizing when you're moving toward them
- Identify specific short-range, small steps that will help you focus on what matters most
- Set off a few creativity sparks with the final question, which is different every week
Some weeks, you may feel like you've answered these questions before and they won't reveal anything new.
⚠️ Don't fall for that trap! ⚠️
Each day you have new experiences, thoughts, and emotions. You always have new areas to explore and new things to discover about yourself.
So that's the short answer to "what's up with those questions?"
If you'd like a deeper understanding of each question, you can find them here: question 1, question #2, and question #3.
The work is in answering the questions. Writing works best, but when you don't have time to write, just answer them out loud. (And if you could use a little extra support, encouragement, and accountability in doing this self-exploration, you know where to find me.)
Answer the questions, and you will learn more about yourself. I guarantee it.
Question 1: How have you shown up for yourself this week?
Your mind (mine too!) is wired to look for danger. It’s always on the lookout for what might go wrong, what could become a problem, what needs to be done to keep you safe.
That’s awesome because it keeps you alive. And it’s also mentally draining, physically exhausting, and emotionally arduous.
This is your brain working as it is designed.
Question 1 is about developing the art of noticing.
If you’d like a more pleasant experience, you’ve got to train your brain to notice what’s good in your life, what’s going well, what you’d like to celebrate and acknowledge.
At first, that feels hard, but, I promise, it gets easier and easier the more you do it.
In the Helping Yourself to Help Others (HYHO) self-coaching program, you are doing more than just answering a few questions each week.
- You are creating a habit of noticing what works for you.
- You’re building the skill of prioritizing what matters to you.
- You’re connecting to your personal desires and trusting that they’re leading you to the life you want to lead.
Question #1 is deceptively simple: How have you shown up for yourself this week?
Even in your most challenging week, you’ll have an answer to this question … once you develop your skill of noticing.
And the beauty of it is that it doesn’t matter at all whether your examples are big things or small. In fact, the smaller they are, the better.
When you answer your questions, look for tiny, little ways you’ve shown up for yourself.
You’ll be able to come up with more if your sorting criteria are gentle. Are you wearing comfy socks? Did you give your dog an extra minute of love before bed? Have you showered today? Hooray for small wins!
The hidden magic here is that the more examples you come up with, the more your brain will learn to be on the lookout for the large and small moments in which you make an active choice that supports you being your best self.
Celebrate approximations!
Question 2: What lets you know that you’re moving toward your personal goals?
This is a broad question by design. It’s a way of helping you find your own guideposts rather than me telling you what to look for or value.
Think of question #2 as the bucket that holds a variety of subquestions like:
What encouraging signs are you seeing?
What feels better than it did before?
What important things are getting done?
How are you making sure that what matters to you is happening?
What are you noticing about your level of resistance and/or resentment?
How’s your emotional regulation lately? Are you able to name, notice, and navigate your emotions as they arise?
How will you know when you have what you want?
Overall, the question is really, what are you noticing that feels right to and for you at your deepest level?
Question 2 is helping you define personal metrics and ways of seeing your own progress.
So often we’re racing toward goals, but we don’t really know how to recognize when we’ve achieved them. We just keep pushing forward without taking time to stop and celebrate how far we’ve come.
But question 2 is teaching you to notice the deeper meaning, feelings, and thoughts that underlie your experiences. It's teaching you to explore what matters to you and to notice when you feel in alignment with your true nature and purpose.
Simply by answering your HYHO questions each week you are showing up for yourself in a way that will have powerful, lasting effects.
Give yourself the gift of taking a moment to check in with you. You matter.
When you start feeling, “Yeah, yeah, yeah, I’ve answered these before. I don’t have anything new to say this week” (and, yes, that feeling will come!), that’s when you'll start uncovering deeper insights.
Keep going! Trust the process.
Question 3: What will you do or try this week?
Never underestimate the power of choice. When you answer question 3, you’re making a plan to try something and see how well it works for you. It’s all a grand experiment, and you are in charge.
Question 3 is gently giving you a chance to show up for yourself.
The “do or try” language is intentional.
Often we have to think about doing things for quite some time before we actually move forward. That is normal, natural, and completely fine.
If this week, you are going to do or try to do something that moves you closer to your goals, you’re giving it awareness and curiosity. Whether you do the desired behavior or not, you will learn something valuable about yourself.
Whereas if you tell yourself you should or need to do that same thing, you’re likely to wind up in a shame spiral of guilt and self-judgment if you don’t do it. That stops your growth in its tracks and makes it sooo much harder to get going again.
There is no 3-step formula for success. You need to find what works for YOU.
And the only way to do that is to conduct some experiments. So put your lab coat and goggles on, and let’s see what you discover.
When you start feeling,
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, I’ve answered these before. I don’t have anything new to say this week”
(and, yes, that feeling will come), don't give up.
That’s when you'll start uncovering deeper insights.
Wait! What about question #4?
Every week, I include a bonus, just for fun question. These are designed to get you thinking in a new way.
Sometimes you'll surprise yourself with what comes out. There's magic in discovering more about yourself.