Free Mindset Coaching Exercise to help Your Audience Stop Self Critical Thoughts and Feel Less Anxious

You may come across clients or know people who have it all together, but are still critical of themselves.

You will notice that clients who are self-critical get anxious, stressed out or feel fearful pretty often.

I'm sharing a FREE 5-step exercise which helps your clients to create new, balanced thoughts to replace their self-critical thoughts. And feel calmer, in-control and empowered as a result.

You can download the FREE exercise below:

This free exercise is part of my done-for-you mindfulness course.

You can launch your own workshop + add an extra stream of income without all the hard work with this ready-to-launch workshop (well, why not?)

If you want to jump right in and download the FREE 5-Step Conquer Self-Critical Thoughts coaching tool to use with your clients, I’ll send it to your inbox.

Now, let's get back to this 5-Step Conquer Self-critical Thoughts exercise.

The rationale

Jumping from “I am a failure” to “I’m a success!” is too big a leap for many of us.

So in this exercise, we will not be creating ‘positive’ thoughts to replace the self-critical ones. We will be creating new balanced thoughts, which are believable.

I will share an exercise to challenge your clients’ unhelpful, self-critical thoughts. And create new, believable thoughts to replace them and help them feel calmer, less worried and less anxious.

If you prefer watching a video of this coaching technique instead of reading it here, you can click on my YouTube video below.

Step 1 of 5: Get your clients to write their most prevalent negative thought down

 Just focus on one thought for each exercise. For example:

“I am a failure who fails at everything she does - and this project is going to be the same.”

Step 2 of 5: Write down evidence which support that this negative thought is true.

This may sound counter intuitive. You may also realise that many of us will struggle trying to dig up evidence to support our negative thoughts.

This will remind us subconsciously that perhaps this thought is not 100% true after all.

Still using the example negative thought "I'm a failure..." from Step 1, an example for Step 2 can be:

“I never stay at any job for longer than a year. I tried to start a business, but I lost motivation halfway. I chose the wrong subject to major in, in college - should have chosen a major which will give me respect and a high-paying job.”

Step 3 of 5 : Write down evidence which prove this self-critical thought UNTRUE.

For example:

“I still managed to graduate from college, thus, I’m not a total failure. Colleagues have told me I am good at presentations. I have received feedback from clients that my work has helped them.”

The more evidence your clients can come up with, the better.

Step 4 of 5: Create new, balanced, thoughts - to replace the self-critical thought.

Step 4 requires your clients to be honest with themselves. The new thoughts have to be believable to them.

If the new thoughts do not resonate with them, create more new balanced thoughts until they feel good about themselves.

For example: “I am someone who is very idealistic and I jump into new projects with excitement and without doing proper research. That was why my side hustle failed in the past. I am someone who was unsure of my identity in the past. So I followed the ‘herd’ and studied a popular subject in college which I had no interest in. I was someone who was not used to following my passion. So I applied for jobs which were ‘respectable’ but I had no interest in. That was why I kept quitting jobs.”

As you can see, we are reframing their self-critical thoughts to become thoughts which are more fair, kinder to their circumstances and objective in nature.

Step 5 of 5: Get your clients to write how they feel before and after this exercise.

For example:

“Before this exercise, I felt:

• Helpless

• Anxious

• A little depressed about my life

After this exercise, I feel:

• Empowered

• Hopeful

• Calmer”

In Step 5, you can see that there should be a shift in their emotional state after this exercise.

——

Even though I extracted this exercise from my done-for-you mindfulness workshop, I still have to rewrite it so that you can easily read it as a blog post.

I hope you can apply this exercise and that it gives you inspiration during your coaching sessions.

Thank you and sincerely,

Shikah

Think you have nothing valuable to offer your clients?

Coaches, ‘value’ is subjective. What’s not valuable to one person can be of great value to another.

Two days ago, I went down the rabbit hole of browsing Reddit to see why people are skeptical of life coaches.

I find it refreshing to see other people’s perspectives. One skeptic’s comment struck me as memorable.

He said that life coaches are nothing more than ‘sounding boards’ - and you can get ‘sounding boards’ for free amongst your friends and family members.

I find this interesting.

Because there are people out there who will shell out money for ‘sounding boards’.

If a coach makes them feel 1) empowered 2) assured 3) a certain way which gives them confidence, some people will happily pay for that.

Value is subjective.

What is not valuable to that commenter, can be valuable to someone else.

There are some influencer-coaches who sell their manifesting courses at high prices (read: over a thousand dollars) and people pay partly for the ‘transfusion of energy’.

They want that coach’s rock-solid confidence, admire her energy and go-getting attitude.

And they find it helpful to immerse themselves in her energy because it makes them feel confident too.

I personally don’t find it worth it to pay $1000+ for a transfusion of energy, but who am I to say?

Thousands of women have enrolled in her courses. So there are people who find great value in that.

We may think that what we can offer is of little value. But who are we to judge? Value is subjective, after all :)

However, I personally believe that it is good to offer something tangible to clients instead of just riding on a transfusion of energy.

(Unless you are a big-name coach with a solid following which means you can offer anything you want :D )

It helps your clients and you too when you offer them exercises, assignments alongside motivation and feelings of empowerment.

Appealing to both your clients’ emotional and logical sides is a win-win for everyone.

If you use my experience-based done-for-you coaching tools, it's easy for you to assign exercises to your clients so that they will feel their investment in you is doubly worth it.

And if you want a done-for-you mindfulness course to add to your list of income streams, you can get it here.  (You get 51 slides, a ‘written for the ear’ script and even a mindfulness workbook. All set to launch ASAP :))

I’m in the middle of launching a sales copywriting service tailored for coaches and course creators.

I’m excited about it, although I’m not sure if this will be a hit or not.

Meanwhile, take care of yourself and thank you for adding great value to your community and the world.

Sincerely,

Shikah

Not a ‘hustler’? That’s okay.

Hi Coaches, this is your permission to work the way you want if ‘hustling’ isn’t your thing.

It all started with me wanting to be more ‘productive’. Ugh.

I was driven to create a strict work schedule. After reading that many self-employed people have a strict schedule of working from 9-5, I decided to see if it works for me.

I knew it was a mistake but I bulldozed that. 

I started with a 9-1pm work schedule. A strict one which I said I will stick to, come hell or high water. Even if I felt uninspired. Even if I felt exhausted. Even if I felt no motivation.

I was very happy for the first 2 days. I am working on a done-for-you mindfulness workshop (launching soon!) and everything fell into place.

And then I slowly started burning out. Yes, after 4 days, my brain was fried.

I was burning out because ignoring my alignment and how my body felt, was the wrong move for me. (Can you relate?)

I wish I am a ‘hustler’. I have friends who are ‘hustlers’ - they can sleep for 3 hours a day, go for their day jobs and then work on their side hustles at night. I wish I can be like that.

But let’s face it - some of us will suffer if we do this whole hustling thing. 

Some of us are made to work with inspiration and flow.

We are superstar workers when we work in the flow (hands up, my flow mates!). Blog posts write themselves. The creative output is on point. Our email newsletters hit the spot. Our videos and podcasts get ‘likes’ and people saying ‘thank you - this helped me so much!’

Acceptance is key for us, I think. I’ve accepted that I can’t work a strict routine everyday.

Do I feel frustrated sometimes? Yes. I launch lesser coaching workbooks when I could have launched one week after week like a machine. 

Do I feel happier and enjoy life more everyday when I work with my flow? Yes.

It’s not worth it to sacrifice my alignment and sanity just to ‘get a new workbook launched fast!’

And as coaches, if you are burnt out, exhausted and running on empty, you have nothing to give to your audience.

Give yourself permission to work with the flow if that is natural to you.

Forcing yourself to be miserable is not going to help yourself, your loved ones or the world.

If you want to encourage self-care to your audience, you can email them some of the coaching tools in my done-for-you self care workbook. Or even use the tools as group coaching material.

If you like listening to podcasts, I have recorded a 5-minute episode here.  My podcast is still new (and I have not even decided on the podcast cover yet).

Or listen to it below:

Meanwhile, take care of yourself!

Sincerely,

Shikah

Stressed that you are not a big-name coach?

“Your life purpose does not have to involve changing the WHOLE world. 

Your purpose can be fulfilled by changing YOUR world.”

I clicked ‘pause’ on the YouTube video I was watching. It was a video by Sonia Choquette - intuitive coach extraordinaire.

Is Ms. Choquette right? 

Is changing our own little ‘world’ enough for us to say we are living our ‘life purpose’?

I had the thinking that if I am not the next big entrepreneur who makes 7 digits per year, I’m not fulfilling my biggest potential. And my life purpose journey has fallen short.

But - not all of us are destined to be big-name coaches like Gabby Bernstein or Denise Duffield-Thomas. (Or worse, comparing ourselves to Queen Oprah!)

When you make just ONE person feel good about themselves, it has a ripple effect.

Let’s look at how this cycle works

You make a frazzled mother feel good about trying her best even though she feels like a failure > She got in a good mood > And attended to her kids cheerfully that day > Her kids were happy to have a present + relaxed Mum > They got in a good mood too 

If you shift the vibe of just one person, her whole community benefits from it.

So don’t be disheartened if you are spreading light and positive messages around but feel that you are just impacting ‘one’ person.

That ‘one’ person will extend your positivity to her circle. And this circle will grow.

So thank you for the work that you do, coaches.

Sincerely,

Shikah

FREE (BRANDABLE) Discover Your Gifts Coaching Tool + NEW Discover Your Life Purpose Workbook

Hey Coaches - if you are thinking of launching a Discover Your Purpose program, you will love this new brandable workbook!

I have created a FREE Discover Your Gifts and Talents coaching tool which you can download and use with your clients at the bottom of this post.

I want to genuinely help you coaches create positive change in this world in an easy way.

That is why I have created a Discover Your Life Purpose and Passion Workbook which you can brand and use with your clients.

So how can your clients transform with this Discover your Life Purpose & Passion Coaching Workbook?

1. Discover their unique gifts + talents and being authentic to themselves

2. Learn how to discover their true life purpose + start experiencing clarity

3. Start finding their true passions + honour them

4. Learn how to make the BEST decisions with my Value Score Method

5. Uncover their authentic life values and respect them

Can you personalise this Workbook?

Yes, you can swap the images, tweak the branding colours in the Challenge workbook to be in sync with your brand.

Want the free and brandable Discover your Gifts and Talents coaching tool?

Use this as a lead magnet to get more subscribers, or as content for your blog and save time!

Take care, thank you for the work that you do and may you have a wonderful day today.

Sincerely,

Shikah

PS: In short, I have created Discover Your Life Purpose Workbook which you can edit and use with your clients. Save your time and energy and spare yourself all the headaches associated with creating coaching content!