Ep #13: Why Obsessing Over Your Faults Is Keeping You Stuck

You are listening to episode 13 of The Confident Coaches Podcast, the one where you learn how to stop obsessing over your faults.

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.

Hello, my friends. How are you? I am watching it snow outside as I record this, which, I have to be honest, it’s beautiful, sure. But I’m actually dreaming of warm sun because I will be in Scottsdale by the end of next week on a couple’s treat. We’re going to take a trip to Sedona. We’re going to hike Camelback Mountain. And I just booked a family trip to Florida in March.

And it’s really funny, I was thinking about this; I love how living in someplace with all four seasons is kind of a perfect analogy to living life. Like, weather is life. So here in the Midwest, we experience it all. We experience below zero temps to over 100 degrees. We get snow, sleet, ice. We get humidity and rain. We get all the sun and we get everything in between.

So, I can fully appreciate and love when it’s perfectly warm and sunny outside because I’ve experienced the extremes. It’s just like life, right? We experience the extremes and then we can really appreciate it when it’s so amazing.

The more that we experience across the human range of emotion, the more we can really appreciate what being joyful and happy feels like. So, that’s weather is life. And the snow is pretty when it falls. I’m looking at it right now, but I’m warm in my house drinking hot coffee while I’m looking at it from inside my warm house.

And the dead heat of summer, you know what, that makes swimming and going to the lake perfect also. But let’s just be really clear; I’m going to love the Arizona and the Florida sun this month and next month, and all that much more because I do live where it’s snowy and gray sometimes in the wintertime.

But seriously, I do love me some good weather analogies, but enough about the weather because I am sharing some brand-new stuff with you today. My friends, I am so excited about today’s podcast, almost as excited as I am to be in Arizona next week because, what you’re going to hear on today’s podcast, you’ve never heard before because it’s a brand-new coaching concept and a coaching tool that I created. And I’m so excited to share it with you all.

But before we do dive in, I want to give a shoutout to Confident Coaches listener Tiffany, who wrote this fabulous review of The Confident Coaches Podcast on Apple Podcasts.

Tiffany wrote, “In just a few episodes, this podcast is already making a difference in my business and my life. Every episode has practical things I can do right now to help increase my confidence. I love how Amy Latta brings the perfect mix of straight talking and no BS with compassion and belief in you.”

Tiffany gets it, right? Thank you so much, Tiffany. Huge thanks to you. Tiffany is a brand-new client in my Confident Coaches Mastermind. I’ve actually known tiffany for years. She has moved away from more of a consulting role and now is doing more coaching in her business and she’s a brand-new client in my Confident Coaches Mastermind and she has set a goal for this year that scares the holy crap out of her, and I couldn’t be more excited to help her get there. So, thanks so much and a huge shoutout to my good friend and brand-new client, Tiffany.

So, today, I want to introduce you to a brand-new concept that I created while I was at Master Coach Training a couple of weeks ago. Now, it’s not exactly 100% brand new because, if you have been a client of mine and you’re listening today, you’re going to be like, “Okay, some of this sounds a little familiar.” But I’ve put it together in a way I’ve never taught before, so I’m so excited to share it with you guys today.

And what this is, is I was thinking about how some of my clients love to obsess over what they believe are their faults. And I was also thinking about a bunch of conversations that I have had recently about a TV show on HBO called Succession, because, oh my goodness, have you seen it? It is so good. I am so obsessed with this show.

Like, as soon as anyone asks about, like, “What show should I be watching right now?” I immediately ask, “Hey, do you have HBO?” And if they do have HBO, I’m like, “Stop, run to your TV, and start watching Succession.”

Really, it’s a TV show about horrible people. And that would not normally appeal to me, but the writers and the actors of this show have managed to take these horrible people and make them oh so very human and you actually start to feel sympathy and compassion for them, even though they are literal billionaires who haven’t a clue what it means to live like normal people and who are horrible to everyone around them. It’s just so good.

And by the end of season two, I mean, did you see the press conference that Kendall hosted? By the end of season two, I did not want the show to end. And I will deep dive with anyone on this TV show any chance that I get. I listened to the soundtrack while I worked. In fact, I listened to the soundtrack as I was drafting the notes for this podcast episode.

It’s like I cannot get enough to the point where people who spend a lot of time with me might get a little annoyed that I keep bringing it up. It’s like, “There Amy goes again talking about that damn show. Ain’t nobody got HBO, Amy, nobody’s seen this thing.”

But that’s how you know you’re obsessed, because you can’t stop talking about it. And let’s be honest, some of y’all get obsessed too, but you’re not getting obsessed over TV shows. No, us humans – if you have a human brain – we like to obsess over our faults.

So many of us and so many of our clients, friends, have fault obsession. And so today, I’m going to share with you what fault obsession is, why it sucks for us, and how to get over your fault obsessions. And I really want you to pay attention to this episode because if you do this work here and you share it with your clients, holy mother, you’re going to help them so much.

Okay, so, first off, fault obsession is indulgence. We are obsessed with what we believe to be our faults as coaches. “I’m a terrible speaker. I’m not good at sales. I don’t ask great questions.” Who knows? We could create a laundry list of fault obsessions.

I have a client who’s obsessed with how she’s not great at technology. If any of our sessions come around to funnels or websites or Mailchimp, it’s inevitable that she will respond, “Well, I mean, you know me and technology.”

She has repeated this fault so many times she’s become really comfortable with it. I mean, sure, she feels crappy thinking about it. every time she goes there with her obsession, she immediately feels inadequate; so much so that she doesn’t even need to consciously think, “I’m not good at technology,” in order to feel inadequate.

Here’s one of the many characteristics of fault obsession. She has thought this so many times and she has felt inadequate so many times over it. she has obsessed so damn much over this perceived fault of hers that just pulling up Mailchimp triggers inadequacy.

She doesn’t even need the thought to be there. Her obsession has allowed her brain to bypass the conscious thought, “I’m not good at technology,” and just go straight down her spine and trigger the feelings of inadequacy in her body.

She has hardwired technology that just exists in the world to trigger inadequacy in her body. Just like the mere mention of the word Succession or the first few notes of the theme song and I start to get giddy. But that’s like obsession on a good thing. We’re talking about her negative fault obsession.

The other super fun thing about fault obsession is it starts to feel good after a while. That inadequacy actually starts to feel good, like a drug. It’s like, “Tap the vein, baby. Momma needs a shot of inadequacy,” because it triggers a nice dopamine hit. So, let me obsess over how I’m not really that good at tech.

I can see that she’s obsessing over not being good at technology and I can see so clearly that this is just a thought that she has and she doesn’t have to think it. But to her, it’s like a drug that makes her feel really good. And she doesn’t have any time for logic, right?

So, if this obsession with our faults is stirring up crappy emotions that might actually feel comfortable for us, what’s the problem? I mean, if it feels comfortable and it’s safe, it’s not actually a literal drug, why not just let ourselves obsess?

Okay, so here’s why fault obsession totally sucks for you; we don’t want to allow ourselves to obsess over these faults because these faults are the very reasons we tell ourselves we can’t have what we want. My client wants to sign more clients of her own and have this amazing coaching business. But she’s decided that being bad at technology is the reason she can’t do it.

And as long as she continues to obsess over this fault of hers, she’s convinced that she can’t sign more clients, she can’t have the amazing coaching business that she wants. Think about it. Our clients come to us with a desired outcome. They want this thing. And our work as a coach is to help them find the solution to the thing that they want.

So, if you have a client presenting you with a fault obsession, unless you work through it, it’s going to be the thing that they allow to prevent themselves from what they want to create. This is why it sucks so much. Our fault obsessions are the very excuses we use as to why we can’t have what we say we want to have. And that’s just crappy, no matter how good that little dopamine hit feels, right?

So, how do we get over our fault obsession? There’s three main steps to getting over our fault obsession and step one is, we have to acknowledge it. My coach can see my fault obsessions a mile away, but I don’t see them because they just feel true. And I can see my clients’ fault obsession no problem. But to her, it’s just fact.

So, how do we acknowledge our own fault obsessions if we’re not very good at seeing them for ourselves? Here’s the question that I ask; what do I think is in the way? I can’t remember where I heard the phrase, but there’s this phrase that goes like this, “What’s in the way is the way.”

It’s the idea that the thing I keep butting up against, that thing that, every time it comes up, I run away. It’s that thing that’s been pointed out to me but I have yet to deal with. That thing, it’s in the way between where I am and where I want to go. And if I would only lean into it, if I would only go there into the thing that’s in my way, almost always, I find it is the way to get what I want.

What’s in the way is the way. You have to go through it in order to get to the other side. We spend all this time trying to walk around it, yelling at it, reacting to it. but if we would just go through it and deal with it, then we could get to the other side.

So, what do you think is the biggest thing standing between you and your goal? What have you kept butting up against? What have you not dealt with? There’s a very good chance that that is your fault obsession. Acknowledging our fault obsession requires us to be honest with ourselves about what we use as an excuse for not having what we want, and our willingness to see that it’s possible that this is just an excuse and not actual truth.

If we do struggle to find it on our own, if you can’t identify the, “What’s in the way is the way,” for yourself, then we can always ask other people. Friends and mentors, and especially our own coaches, ask them; what do I bring up all the time? What are you sick and tired of hearing me talk about when we bring up me wanting to create what I want? What do you hear me always say is a struggle? What would you call an excuse if I were being honest and you were being honest with me?

And then be willing to hear what they have to say and be open to their honest feedback because what they share with you may very well be the thing that’s in the way of you and the business you want to create. It’s your fault obsession. And once we acknowledge it, once we know, then we can get to work on it. And that’s where step two comes in; debunking the fault.

The truth is, the faults we obsess over, guess what, they’re not actually faults. Can we call them what they really are? Your fault obsessions are actually just habitual thoughts. Faults are just thoughts we’ve practiced so many times it’s become a habit.

Remember, nothing is ever really a fault. Unless we’re talking about the fault lines that create earthquakes, faults are just subjective, not something that we could get all seven and a half billion people on the planet to agree on, right?

So, it’s not true that my client just isn’t good at technology. It’s not true that you’re a terrible speaker or you’re not good at sales or that you don’t ask great questions. These so-called faults are just habitual thoughts. And this is the best news because habitual thoughts are just habits, and all habits can be changed.

I mean, look around your life. You have a ton of habits. We brush our teeth before bed. We get up, we workout, we shower, we get dressed. We have habits all day long. We’re creatures of habits, right? And we can change them.

There are all kinds of things that we used to do on a regular basis that we no longer do. I have a ton of them. I used to smoke. Now, I don’t. I used to watch the Today Show when woke up in the morning. Now, I turn on a podcast instead.

If we were to look at our lives, we would find tons of evidence in our lives of habits that we’ve had in the past that we don’t now have, that we’ve either broken or that we’ve replaced with new habits. So, your fault obsessions are just habitual thoughts and they’re not who you are as a person. And now it becomes so much easier to get over them because we can call them what they really are, which is just a habit, just a habitual thought.

And so, I’m going to share with you now how we get over them. One reason that fault obsessions are so tricky is that our brains naturally default to truth. We like to believe people, especially the one that keeps talking to us inside of our head.

Have you ever seen this one movie? It’s a really bad horror movie from 1979 called When a Stranger Calls. Though my husband insists that it’s fabulous. It’s the story of this babysitter getting tormented by a caller and it turns out the calls are coming from inside the house. That’s what’s going on with you right now.

These fault obsessions are coming from inside the house. They’re coming from inside your head and your head only. And we believe them. Like, we really struggle to believe that anyone can be deceptive, much less our own minds. And we’re just not that great at detecting deception in others, but especially in ourselves because we really want to believe what we’re hearing.

But it is possible to become good deception detectors. And we can do that by running these fault obsessions, these habitual faulty thoughts, through what I call the I-see-you. So, you have a built-in deception detector called the I-see-you. They, the proverbial they, guesstimate that the average human brain has 50,000 thoughts a day.

I visualize all of these thoughts coming through our brain like a news scroll coming across our TV screen. You know what I’m talking about? You’re watching TV and there’s that scroll along the bottom. And every once in a while, you catch something on there, but for the most part, it’s just scrolling on by, right?

Now, most of those thoughts are unconscious thoughts. They’re reactive thoughts coming from the primitive part of our brain. It’s your lizard brain. It’s your inner cavewoman. We’re wired for safety and we’re pretty sure we’re all going to die if we step out of the cave, right?

So, this thought scroll is running all day long, and sometimes, thoughts scroll in and they’ll drop down and take root into a feeling. And then that feeling drops down and then takes root into actions, or sometimes no action. And then those actions give us results.

And our fault obsession is just a habitual thought that loves to pop up on our thought scroll. So, here’s the fun part; and here’s what I really love. We don’t have to actually let any of those thoughts take root into feeling unless we want to, even if we are addicted to those feelings.

Remember that with fault obsessions, we have an addiction to that negative feeling that they create because we have fought them so much that negative feeling actually starts to feel comfortable. And yes, it’s true that all results we have in our life can be traced back to a thought, but not all thoughts we have have to create a result.

Remember, we’re thinking 50,000 thoughts a day. We don’t have to believe all of them and let them create 50,000 results for us, right? We always have the power to acknowledge our faulty habitual thought at any point along that thought, feeling, action line and pull it back up into the thought scroll and let it scroll on out.

We do that by running it through the I-see-you. The I-see-you is your own deception detector, and all it is, is a set of three statements that help us pull out of a fault obsession, and it goes like this. Let’s take my client and her fault obsession, “I’m not great at technology.”

She’s got her daily thought scroll running and that thought comes across her scroll. And I offer her one of these three I-see-you statements. I see you and I hear you and it’s possible it’s not true. I see you and I hear you and I don’t have to believe you. I see you and I hear you and I don’t believe you.

You have to pick the deception detector that fits the situation. We find the one that allows us to pull that fault obsession back up into the thought scroll and scroll it on out.

So, with my technology client, I invited her to say her fault obsession out loud, and then follow it up with one of those three statements. And the one that rings most true to her, the one that allows her to let that fault obsession pull up and out onto the thought scroll, that becomes the I-see-you statement she practices outside of our coaching sessions.

And now, she has a tool to break that addictive connection to her fault obsession. “I’m not great at technology,” comes across the thought scroll and she runs it through the I-see-you, “I see you, I hear you, and it’s possible you’re not true.”

And, as our brains start to believe that it’s possible you’re not true, she has two more statements that she can ramp that up with. I see you and I hear you and I don’t have to believe you. And she goes and she practices that regularly. And eventually onto, “I don’t believe you.”

I run so many of my own fault obsessions through my I-see-you and most of them are now at the, “And I don’t even believe you,” stage. I mean, the fault obsessions keep coming across the thought scroll. I just don’t have to believe it anymore because I’ve practiced this enough times. I mean, of course, my brain also keeps creating new fault obsessions as I keep growing my business, but no worries, because I’ve created a tool for that.

So, it’s fine to obsess about TV shows or anything like that, but the faults we obsess over only keep us from what we say we really want. There is no upside to a fault obsession; only your time and energy.

So, here’s your work this week. I invite you to find a fault obsession of your own. So, that’s step one; what’s in the way? What is preventing you from having what you want, the thing you use as your excuse? If you aren’t sure what it is, ask your closest confidante because they will probably know because they’ve heard you repeat it over and over again and they’re kind of sick of hearing it.

So, acknowledge that this is not a fault because, step two, debunk that fault. This is not an actual fault that you have. It’s a habitual thought you have thought over and over again. Remember, there are no faults; only habitual thoughts that you use as an excuse as to why you can’t have what you want.

And then, step three, run that fault habit thought through the I-see-you. As it comes across your thought scroll and it tries to drop down into a feeling and then into actions, “I see you. I hear you. It’s possible you’re not true. I see you. I hear you. I don’t have to believe you,” or, “I see you. I hear you, and I don’t believe you.”

Run it through the I-see-you and practice and let it become just another thought in your thought scroll. And seriously, if you have HBO, hit me up so we can talk about Succession, okay? Alright, my friends, until next week.

Congratulations to Avery Stone, the grand prize winner of The Confident Coaches Podcast launch giveaway. Avery won an Apple watch just by subscribing, rating, and reviewing the podcast on Apple Podcasts.

So, while the prizes have all been given away, I hope you loved today’s show. And if you did, make sure you don’t miss an episode. Subscribe to The Confident Coaches Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your podcasts. And while there’s no fabulous prizes left to give away, you will have my undying glove and possibly be one of the listener shoutouts if you rate and review to let me know what you think and to help others find The Confident Coaches Podcast because this is some good stuff and we shouldn’t be keeping it to ourselves.

It doesn’t have to be a five-star review. I genuinely want to know what you think of the show so I can continue producing fabulous podcasts that provide tons of value to you. Alright, thanks, friends.

Thanks so much for listening to The Confident Coaches Podcast. I invite you to learn more. Come visit me at www.amylatta.com and until next week, let’s go do epic stuff.