Ep #78: Stop Celebrating Small Wins

You are listening to episode 78 of The Confident Coaches Podcast, the one where you stop celebrating the small stuff. What? Let’s go.

Welcome to The Confident Coaches Podcast, a place for creating the self-confidence you need to do your best work as a life coach. If you want to bring more boldness, more resilience, and more joy to your work, this is the place for you. I’m your host, Amy Latta. Let’s dive in.

Hey my confident coaches. How is everybody doing out there? Welcome to May. That means my birthday month is over but that’s okay. The weather is warmer, it’s beautiful outside, who’s ready for some gloriously warm weather here in the northern hemisphere?

I hope you all are doing well. I hope you guys are having a great week. Life’s pretty good around here. I have to tell you, we’ve been in quarantine, this time last year we were all in quarantine and I kind of forgot what the end of the year is like.

My boys have been in in-person school all year. There have been a lot of canceled events, a lot of modified events, but this spring because it is warm and we can be outside, we have a full roster, my friends. Full calendar.

We’ve got spring concerts. We haven’t had a concert in like, a year and a half. I’ve got two boys in band, we’ve got spring concerts, we’ve got baseball, we’ve got soccer tournaments, we’ve got baseball tournaments. We’ve got end of the year celebrations.

They’re all different and modified than how they’ve ever been before, but holy cow. Not to mention April and May are the two busiest months for the Lattas in general because everybody except for one person has their birthday in these two months.

And so I’m kind of like, oh yeah, it’s been two years. So send some Latta love this way and to all of you parents out there who are experiencing maybe not the full end of the year experience that we’re used to, but definitely something entirely different than we experienced last year.

So I am happy to say though, my boys have had a wonderful sixth grade and ninth grade. They’re first years in middle school and high school. Ended up being quite wonderful. So thank you, just a shout-out to all of the teachers and all of the school administrators for being awesome.

I also want to give a quick shout-out – I couldn’t remember if I’d shared these before. I have just a couple of short podcast reviews from Apple Podcasts. So if you are listening to this on an Apple Podcast app, it’s super easy to rate and review The Confident Coaches Podcast.

And the reason that us podcasters ask for those things is it just helps other people discover the how. So whenever you leave a review, whenever you rate the podcast, on whatever app you listen to, it just tells that app service hey, we like this, and it offers it up to more people as a suggestion.

So if you love what you hear on The Confident Coaches Podcast and think other coaches should really know about this work that Amy’s putting out into the world, that’s why I ask for that. So quick shout-out to Kristin Foust and Hcurly2. That’s your iTunes name. I don’t know who Hcurly2 is but shout-out to both of you.

Kristin said, “If you coach people in any way, listen to this podcast. Down to earth and real about being a confident coach and tools to put into action.” I feel like I’ve read that one before but I couldn’t remember so I included it again. And Hcurly2 said, “So many brilliant nuggets of gold. What a gem. Thank you, Amy.”

So thank you both of you guys for leaving a review on the show. And even if you don’t have an Apple phone, you can go to your computer and create an iTunes account and leave reviews for all of your favorite podcasts. Everybody would appreciate it. So thank you guys for taking a moment out.

So today, I’m going to be a little contrarian. It’s from a place of love. I am so moved to tell you all, I was thinking about what’s something that I’ve really understood as of late that I’m experiencing, that my clients are experiencing, and it’s actually something that I got coached on when I was in Las Vegas at my Two Million Dollar group mastermind, which I shared about in last week’s episode.

If you haven’t listened to that one, you definitely want to go back and listen to that. And one of the things that I realized is this whole conversation around small wins. And so I just feel moved to tell all of you to stop celebrating the small wins.

And there’s a good reason why. And I know that this is something new that you’ve heard from me. If you’ve listened to me before, these words, stop celebrating small wins, may come as a huge shock. Like, wait a minute, this is contrary to anything I’ve ever heard come out of Amy’s mouth. Because I’ve said many times before, celebrate all the wins, big and small.

And I have such a compelling reason why it’s been so important. Because not celebrating wins is like working for a boss that you can never please, only in this instance you’re the boss and you can never please yourself. I don’t know about you, but I’ve definitely had those jobs when I was in my 10-year corporate marketing career where I was always asked to go above and beyond, and instead of celebrating when I did that, my bosses would just ask me to keep doing it.

Keep raising the bar, meeting the bar, and then never celebrating that, other than the normal performance review type of situation. And eventually, I was like, why am I working so damn hard? If I’m always going to be asked to do more with less and that bar is always going to continually be raised and I keep meeting it but meeting it was only hurting myself, I felt under-appreciated and that my success was my own undoing.

Because as I hit bigger and bigger wins, those wins were then used against me. And speaking specifically like, right now on the top of my mind, I was in corporate marketing so budgeting for projects and budgeting for programs and budgeting for events was a big part of it.

So I was always asked to come in under last year’s budget, and then I would totally figure out a way to shave that and come in under last year’s budget, and then next year’s budget was based on what I created this year. So wait a minute, I keep saving you money and then you make next year’s budget off of that, and then I got to beat it again?

It’s literally how I would talk in some of these meetings because I was just a 20-something newbie and I was like, wait a minute, this really seems like you’re not celebrating my awesomeness and in fact, you’re kind of using it against me.

And obviously I could have used a life coach on so many levels but I just really felt like why am I putting up with this crap? And that’s what we are doing with our brain. So I told you all of these years and my clients for all of these years how important it is to celebrate all the wins, big and small, because no one wants to work for that guy.

And if you’re constantly pushing yourself out of your comfort zone and then not celebrating yourself when you create something new, eventually your Helga brain is going to revolt. Eventually she’s going to be like, listen, I’m out, I don’t want to do this anymore.

And coaches, I’m just here to tell you I got it all wrong. I got it wrong. We should not celebrate all wins, big and small. We should not celebrate the small wins and here is why. Because there’s no such thing as a small win.

I know, tricked you. What I got wrong is the wins and the way we describe them, as if there are big wins and there are small wins. Not a thing. All wins are big. Every single one of them. We’re no longer classifying wins as big or small because anything that you create in this world is huge.

Any time you’ve done something you’ve never done before, that’s astronomical. And it doesn’t matter. When we try to categorize them, when we try to put them in a box, we make some wins better than other wins, and that’s bullshit. And if anything, it should be the other way around.

Dare I say this, “small” ones are the most important wins of all. Way more than those big flashy wins that we always like to talk about. Because if you’re a coach who’s only done free coaching or peer coaching, and I know some of you are like, “But I need to make thousands of dollars or it’s not good enough,” bullshit.

That first $500 you make as a paid coach, it’s the hardest money you will ever make and that is huge. Huge. And we’re sitting here and we’re undervaluing it, calling it a small win because it’s not thousands of dollars, bullshit. It’s a harder win. It’s a more hard-earned win. It’s a more fought for win because it’s the first time you’ve ever done that before.

If you would normally shut down for weeks at a time after getting a no on a consult and you just don’t do that anymore, now maybe you just need a couple hours, or maybe even a day or two to regroup, that’s huge. I used to go a large stretch of time, like weeks and months of not really showing up very much.

So when I stopped doing that and I got it down to like, hours or days, that was ginormous for me. That was a huge win for me that I was able to keep showing up in my business week in week out whether or not anybody was scheduling a consult call with me, whether or not anybody was saying yes or no, whether or not the handful of clients I had were getting any results.

Not shutting down, not checking out to go watch – you guys have heard this story. I watched 10 seasons of Supernatural in seven weeks. Talk about checking out because things weren’t going the way that I wanted them to. When I stopped doing that and I still kept showing up even though I didn’t have different results yet, huge win.

Much harder earned win than now, today, where I just do it out of habit. That’s not that hard for me anymore. It used to be super hard. That was such a huge win to celebrate.

If you post every single day and make an offer to help someone five days a week when you only used to do it a few days a month, come on, bust out the party streamers, that is so worth celebrating. Now, I’ve talked a lot about this in the past. I’m pretty sure I’ve done podcast episodes on this and definitely inside my Confident Coaches Mastermind, which is my six-month long mastermind that I run.

Sometimes our success looks different depending on what you create in that time. What makes a Confident Coaches Mastermind successful client is not always ginormous huge “big” dollar wins because the big wins might look very different depending on the client that you are when you enter the program.

I absolutely have clients who go from making $500 a month to five figures a month. I have clients who are already making $50,000+ a year who surpass that six-figure year during the mastermind. Yes, absolutely that happens. I also have clients who stopped hiding and who finished the mastermind actually posting regularly and doing Facebook Lives and making offers in a way that they never did before they started.

I have clients who define success in a way that is related to them, who create a business that is reflective of their values and has defined success as to what it means to them, and they’re building a business in a way that’s completely different than anyone else but it’s 100% in alignment with them and it’s exactly what they’ve always wanted to create and that they didn’t think that they could. That’s not small. That’s huge. That’s ginormous. That is worth celebrating.

So when I think about what I’ve been offering to all of my students and all of my clients for years that we’re going to celebrate your wins, big and small, I’ve been reiterating to them and to their Helga brain that there is actually such a thing as a small win and it’s a lie.

That there are possibly wins that are not as valuable as the “big” ones, the big wins, the ones that make splashy headlines, the ones that coaches who coach other coaches love to put upfront. They’re the ones that have more razzmatazz, they make the splashier headline.

I want this podcast episode right here to be a shift in the coaching industry where how you define success and what is a win in your book is not only just as valuable but might be even more valuable for you than being a six-figure coach in six months.

Because if you are a coach who struggles with confidence and that means you’re a coach that struggles to believe you can do what you’ve never done before because your Helga brain is looking for proof that you can create what you’ve never created before, if that is you, anything less than massive overnight success might feel small.

And you’re undervaluing the hugeness, the power behind the necessity of celebrating showing up for yourself and your people, even when you don’t feel like it, no matter what. For some of you, there is no bigger win right now than showing up without the results yet.

Because you’ve never done it before. That is ginormous. It’s absolutely worth celebrating and we are going to celebrate all of it. When I say stop celebrating small wins, I am showing your brain and mine and every client that’s currently in Confident Coaches Mastermind and every future client of Confident Coaches Mastermind that there is no win that is small anymore.

Your first $500 is the most important money you will ever make to your Helga brain. When you keep showing up after 10 nos in a row, you’re showing your Helga brain what you are capable of and what you are made of and that’s not ever small. It’s huge. It’s exciting.

When you stop checking out on Netflix and instead prioritize thinking about your business or thinking about your clients, or honoring your work hours, when you’re self-coaching yourself and you’re doing it anyway, even when it feels uncomfortable and you don’t really want to.

Listen, I will take 20 coaches doing all of that work for the very first time over 20 coaches who can hit six-figures next week. Because I know here’s the reason why, those are the clients I want to work with because I know if you can learn how to show up for yourself even when you don’t have the results you want just yet, when you learn to do that and you celebrate that every single week in all the different ways that you do that and all the different things that you try, then that six-figure success for you, it’s inevitable.

It’s a given. We can’t have that level of success if you aren’t willing to celebrate exactly where you are right now and seeing the beauty and the honor of where you are right now and how you are showing up and how you do show up for yourself and for your clients, even if it’s not what you “think it should be.”

When you drop the could’ve, would’ve, should’ve and it should look differently, and you really honor where you are and you celebrate all of that, that my friends, that is what we’re celebrating. This is why the Confident Coaches program is so important in the coaching industry, because we’re used to celebrating six figures and above, right?

We’re used to seeing those people get on the podcast, we’re used to seeing those stories. Those are the banner headlines that all the people in the industry for years and years have led with. But celebrating the first time you do what you’ve never done before over and over again, that is the norm I want to see in this industry. Imagine the collective confidence boost, all of us, that rising tide lifting all ships, when we all start celebrating, guys, I didn’t freaking quit.

So right now, I want you to take some time today. I want you to actually carve out a little bit of time today to write down all of your wins. You haven’t made any money as a life coach yet, so what? What have you created? How many posts have you made that didn’t exist before in the world?

How many things have you created? How many concepts or new ideas have you thought of? How many people have you just even talked to? How many conversations coaching related have you spoken that you had not ever done before?

If you’ve only made a few thousand dollars, let’s celebrate every stinking dollar because it’s not just a few thousand dollars, it’s thousands of dollars that you have created that did not previously exist for you. And that’s huge. That’s not just worth noting. That’s worth celebrating.

Sure, there’s always more that we can attain and that we can achieve, but that win in the future is no better and no bigger than your win today that you showed up and you turned on this podcast and you listened and you’re going to learn a little something from it.

I guarantee you, I know you think that win’s going to feel better or give you more confidence but I guarantee you those feelings are fleeting. And they don’t last because your Helga brain is always going to come with you and it’s always going to be looking for the next bigger win and bigger win.

So learning to celebrate all of the wins now is going to help you so much in the future. And I just want to say I am sorry for previously stating that we celebrate wins, big and small. Because I was reiterating the idea that there’s even such a thing as a small win.

Whereas now, I know and I understand that every day you don’t quit is the biggest win of all. This is what confidence is. Confidence is not going to come after you hit the money, after you hit the “big” win, after you become a six-figure coach. Confidence is not waiting for you on the other side of that.

Confidence is going to come when you understand and you really learn that you can handle whatever comes your way because you have your own back, because you’re learning to believe something new about yourself, because you’re making next best step decisions every day and every step you take, no matter what direction, is huge.

The only way you don’t win big is if you quit. If you didn’t quit my friends, you won big and we’re celebrating it. And this is what we do in Confident Coaches Mastermind. We celebrate all the wins because they are all big.

We post three wins every single day, we talk about them in the coaching calls, we share with me your wins, and it’s so fascinating. Well, I mean, here’s this one little thing, but it’s really big, and I’m changing the dialogue of that from this moment forward.

No longer justifying your wins inside Confident Coaches Mastermind. CCM students, be prepared. No longer justifying what we list under our three wins of the week. We’re owning everything that we do. We’re celebrating all of it. There are no wins, big and small. There are only big wins.

Any time you didn’t quit, any time you show up in a way that you’ve never shown up before, any time you have done something you’ve never done before, boom baby, that is the most important win we can possibly celebrate. It makes all of your future wins inevitable.

This is what we do in CCM. I’m so excited to have you guys with me. I’m so excited, we’re already going to be talking about enrolling for the July class. That’s going to start next month. This is your work, my friends. I invite you to join us.

Let’s go celebrate the wins. All of them. Alright confident coaches, remember, until next week, let’s go do epic stuff.

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