Ep #73: Quarterly Course Correction

The Confident Coaches Podcast with Amy Latta | Quarterly Course Correction

I can’t believe how quickly it’s gone, but we are at the very end of the first quarter of 2021! So, it’s time to get really honest with yourself. How’s it going? Are you knocking it out of the park? Does it suck ass? Whatever the answer is for you, even if it’s terrible, I’ve got you covered in this episode.

The Quarterly Course Correction is something we do every three months inside my Confident Coaches Mastermind and I’m bringing it to the podcast today. This is work our Helga brain naturally wants to shy away from, really analyzing where we have gone off course. But as uncomfortable as it can be, this work is so vital in making sure you hit your targets in the next quarter and for years to come.

Join me on the podcast this week to discover how to analyze how the first quarter of 2021 has gone for you and your business. And once you’ve seen where you are, what’s gone right, and where you’ve gone wrong, I’m sharing some very specific questions and actionable tips that you can implement to make amazing results in the next quarter an inevitability.

Ready to learn how to create self-confidence and sign more clients? Our next session of the Confident Coaches Mastermind starts in April, so feel free to email me for more information or submit your application here!

I’ve created a brand new free training for you called Stop Overcomplicating Confidence. I see my coaches making the process of cultivating confidence way harder than it has to be, and in this training, you’re going to learn exactly how you might be overcomplicating it, what’s creating that, and how to stop. And the best part of it all, it’ll take you less than an hour. So what are you waiting for? Click here to get it!

What You’ll Learn:
  • The importance of deciding to review your progress quarterly.
  • Why we have a natural desire to run the other way when it comes to assessing our quarterly performance.
  • What we make it mean when we’re off-course, versus what it actually means.
  • Why there is always room for improvement, no matter how good the results you’re getting are.
  • How to question yourself to get a real insight into how this quarter has gone for you.
  • What you can do to course-correct and make sure you achieve amazing results in the next quarter.
Listen to the Full Episode:

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Full Episode Transcript:

You are listening to episode 73 of The Confident Coaches Podcast, the one where you get the exact tools to make sure you stay on track. Alright, let’s do it.

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 Confident Coaches. How are my Latta loves doing out there? Friends, the first quarter of the year. Holy cow.

I know technically it’s tomorrow. This episode’s coming out on March 30th and I know technically the first quarter ends tomorrow. But the first quarter of the year, did it fly by? Like, I feel like last year, time stood still. And this year, it is not standing still. Time is flying by. I am incredibly excited by what we have been creating so far this year, what my clients in the January mastermind are creating, the beliefs that we are working through.

We are doing a ton of money work right now. I actually have a money training going on right now that I’m offering, a ton of money work. And here’s the thing. And I can really see the difference. And I have a client that has been in a previous mastermind and she’s in this one, and I can just really see that as I have asked for more commitment level in investing and showing up, the difference in the clients of how much more they are getting out of the mastermind, how much more their confidence is increasing, how many more beliefs they are learning how to stop believing anymore.

And I have to tell you, it’s enough to get me a little misty eyed. So, shoutout to my January group. We are not quite three months in. Next couple of weeks, we’ll be officially three months in. And I just have to say, the amount of willingness – and that’s really what this comes down to, is the willingness to see this is what I’m thinking and it doesn’t serve me. It makes me feel like crap.

And if they’ve heard me say it once, they’ve heard me say it a million times; you are arguing for you on misery. You are arguing for your own pressure and your anxiety and you don’t have to. And how many of them are willing to just look at themselves in the mirror and say, like, “She’s right. I could keep arguing for these thoughts that make me feel like crap, and I’m not going to do it anymore.”

And so, shoutout January class, I’m super, super-proud of you. I also want to give a really quick shoutout – and I love these. I get these little reviews on Apple Podcasts for the show where I don’t know who the person is and it’s just a cute little snippet. And it just makes me smile. So, I just want to give a quick shoutout to Hcurly2.

I have no idea who Hcurly2 is, but their review was, “What a gem, so many brilliant nuggets of gold. Thank you, Amy.” Well, Hcurly2, you are welcome. And I just love, if you guys have any reviews to leave for the show, it just helps more people find the podcast. Who is a coach that needs confidence?

Do you realize that there are literally hundreds of thousands of life coaches out there and we’ve just scratched the surface? So, if you know another coach out there, or just being able to leave a review on Apple Podcasts just helps other coaches find this work. The ones who are sitting there looking at their first quarter of 2021 and saying, “Well shit, this isn’t what I wanted to create…”

They are wondering if this is really something they should be doing. They’re thinking that they’re behind. They’re worried that other people are getting clients and they aren’t. They’re wondering if this is a real job or not. All of those things that we all struggle with, we can all do this work together.

So, that is actually what we are talking about today, is the first quarter. It’s the first quarter. How dd you do? How are we doing? You ready to pack up? You knocking it out of the park? Is everything amazing? Does it suck ass? How are y’all doing out there? Let’s have a conversation about it.

I am going to be sharing with you some very specific, like ask yourself these five things – I think it’s five things. If it’s not five things, I’m not sure. But ask yourself these specific things so that you can actually evaluate how your first quarter has gone.

Now, wait a minute, before you go running the other way, I know firsthand, because what I’m getting ready to share with you is something specific that I share in my coaching. So, inside Confident Coaches Mastermind I share this exact stuff right here and we do it as a group every 90 days or every quarter. We go through this exact same thing.

And how many people, because we also do a weekly evaluation, and how many people don’t do the evaluating work for a million reasons. First of all, there’s a thought that it’s not really that sexy, right? And when things aren’t working, when you’re looking at your result line and you’re only looking at your result line, there is a desire to run the other way, to want to bury our head in the sand.

I want to offer you that that’s so normal. There’s nothing wrong with you if you don’t want to do this work. What I want to offer you is the very answers you are looking for will only be found when you do this work. That’s why it’s so important to do.

It’s this crazy thing where the very thing that’s going to help us find the answers of what we need to do so we can create what we want to create, we won’t do the thing, which is, let’s evaluate what’s not working. Let’s evaluate what is working. Let’s see, what did we do? What did we not do?

Our willingness to evaluate our work is everything. And how many people run away from it… And it’s really so interesting how Helga can be like, “Well, we don’t really have the result that we want so I don’t really know if it’s worth our time to really dig in deep. I mean, if I had something good to report, I would report, but I don’t really have anything good to report, so is it really worth my time reporting?” Or it will be like, “There’s probably some shit in there that I don’t really want to deal with and so maybe if I just avoid it, maybe if I just pretend that it’s not there and we can just keep trucking along over here…” not paying attention if the trucking along that we doing is actually getting us anywhere, right? “I’ll just keep doing what I’ve always done and hope I’ll get different results.”

Now, have you seen that quote, that’s the definition of insanity. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. That’s not how it works.

What I want to offer you, lean in my friends, that by the end of this episode right here, you’ll have very specific things to go gather, look at, and ask yourself so that you don’t keep doing the same thing over and over again and expect different results.

You’ll be able to see, “Ah, this right here, this might be a thing. Maybe I should change this right here.” You’ll be able to see what things you can change so that you can get different results.

So, again, I have used this analogy in multiple podcast episodes. I can’t even remember how many times I’ve used it. Or maybe I just use it a lot in the coaching calls with the Confident Coaches Mastermind, so maybe I say it there more than I say here. But I really want you guys to remember that you are – and I use so many analogies, like you’re a scientist in the lab. You are an explorer on the edge of the jungle. We’re going to go with the edge of the jungle analogy for this one right here.

You are an explorer at the edge of a jungle. And on the other side, there is a beautiful clearing with a waterfall and everything that you’ve ever hoped for. But the path to get there is not a straight line. It’s got obstacles. There will be sharp turns in the road. You literally won’t be able to see any farther than a couple of steps ahead of you.

How you get there is going to be different than all of the other explorers trying to get to their different path. Like, every person’s path is going to be different. It’s not going to be clear. You won’t know the path until after you’ve created it.

And here is the thing. Your number one job is to just believe that no matter what’s happening on the path, that clearing is out there and you’re going to reach it. That is your number one job. Your number one job is to believe that the clients are there and that they want what you have to offer and that they’re waiting for you to offer it and your result are inevitable.

It’s inevitable that you’re going to make it there. And remembering that when you are in the thick of the jungle, when you are macheting your way through and you can’t see more than five feet in front of your face and you’re not really sure what direction you’re headed in but you know that you just keep going because you believe so firmly that the destination is a given.

And you don’t have to make getting off course be a problem. And that’s why so many of us avoid this work. This is called the Quarterly Course Correction because we make getting off course become a problem, that we won’t bother to take the next step, which is to course correct.

The fact that you got off course is not the problem. The problem becomes when you aren’t willing to take a look why so that you can get back on course. Again, using this analogy, you’re hacking your way through the jungle. You’re hacking your way through the weeds. That’s a lot of what this feels like, right? It really does feel like you’re hacking through weeds sometimes when you’re trying to figure out what your audience really is going to connect with, what’s the offer that is going to compel them to schedule a consult call with you.

And we will make that be the reason why we stop believing that we’re going to make it there. And the bottom line is, as long as you stay focused on believing that I am absolutely going to hit my goal and the clients are there and this is going to work, the fact that you get off course is never a problem, which is so interesting because we will make getting off course be the very reason why we don’t look and figure out why, why we won’t do the evaluation.

We’ll make the fact that we got off course be the very reason and the excuse that we make for not getting ourselves back on course. It’s so funny. I mean, it’s such a Helga thing to do, “You got off course. I guess you’re just going to keep going in this wrong direction and we’re never going to figure out why because if we take a look and figure out why, we’re just going to beat ourselves up for getting off course.”

Why? There’s no reason to ever beat yourself up for getting off course because no one knows how you’re going to do it until after you do it. No one succeeds without getting off track. No one succeeds without failure. No one succeeds without going in the wrong direction just to have to course correct and get back on the right track. No one does.

Why do you think you should be the only one, the only successful person in the entire world who should never get off course, who should never stray from the well-worn path? What I want to offer you is that’s the opposite version of success. That’s the opposite definition of success. Success only comes from going in the wrong direction and then realizing it and then turning the other way around. It only comes by taking a sharp left turn when you should have taken a sharp right turn. You don’t know that you should have taken a right turn until you make the wrong turn, right?

We don’t know that until we do it. And no one on this planet has the exact right path that is right for you. You have to do it this way. And that doesn’t mean any of it has to be a problem.

And here’s the other thing I want to offer you too. It doesn’t mean that it has to be miserable. This doesn’t have to be terrible. That doesn’t mean there won’t be days where you are like, “I honestly don’t know what’s happening.” But we can always find a way to bring fun into this. This is an adventure, not a trudge-ery.

If you think about this is an adventure and I’m figuring this out, we have fun in all that we do. I can figure this out. When you approach it from that – I just had a vision of the seven dwarves, like, “Hi ho, hi ho…” singing your way through this, dancing your way through this, even though you’re not entirely sure where you’re going. It’s entirely possible.

So, now that we understand why it is not a problem to get off course, how your number one job is to believe, and this doesn’t have to be a trudge-ery, you can actually find ways to bring fun into this. How do we in fact course correct?

Because the bottom line is, you’re absolutely going to make wrong turns. You will make decisions that do not get the results that you want. None of that has to be a problem. So, how do we course correct? How do we get ourselves back on track?

So, some of these questions I’m going to offer you came from a concept that I learned from my master mentor coach Brooke Castillo when I did a program from her called 100K Mentoring. She called this our 90-day audit. But then I also added a couple more things to it, specifically for my Confident Coaches Mastermind.

So, once again, this is one of these brilliant things where you take somebody else’s work, you mix it with your own brain, and you create something that’s new for your people. That is exactly what I’m getting ready to share with you.

So, here is what we do. And I want you all right now, if you are listening to this, commit to doing this work over the course of sometime this week. Because we have one quarter, we have one 90-day block under our belt for 2021. Commit to looking at your January 1st through March 31st this week.

So, the first question you want to ask yourself is, what are three things that I am proud of or that I’ve accomplished? And they can be big things. They can be small things. Maybe it’s how many clients have you signed? How many dollars have you made? How many Instagram stories did you post? How many Reels have you learned how to do?

Write all of it out and own all of it. Did you follow your calendar? Did you set boundaries? What are you proud of? What have you accomplished? Even if one of those things is, “I didn’t quit. I’m still here…”

So, again, what are three things that you are proud of or that you’ve accomplished? And if you have more than three things, absolutely, write it all out. Write at least three things and as many as you can think of.

And just think about, like, go ahead and start with tasks. What did you task-wise accomplish and not accomplish? And own all of it. and don’t be afraid also to talk about, have you had any mindset shifts? Are there some beliefs that you believed at the beginning of this year that were hurting you that you no longer believe? Have you unbelieved some things? Have you stated believing some new things? Put it all in there.

Okay, so then the next question is three things that are not working and why. Same thing here; own all of it. And the important thing here is the why part. Why do you think that happened? Why did you want to sign five clients but you only signed one? Why do you think that was? Why do you think you didn’t sign the other four? What might be the reason for that?

And be willing to ask yourself those difficult questions. Have you just not taken the time to spend more super-thinking time thinking about what your clients need to hear? Do you have a money story issue that you haven’t worked through yet? Do you still have a lot of thoughts around money? Are you still wondering about your value or your worth?

And here’s an interesting thing that when we learned this in 100K Mentoring, I still remember. So, I had three mentors in that. There was Brooke Castillo, who runs The Life Coach School, plus two of her top coaches, Corinne Crabtree and Kara Loewentheil. And I still remember Corinne Crabtree who – my coach Stacey might be surpassing her, but as of right now, Corinne Crabtree is still the number one coach in The Life Coach School under Brooke.

And here is like the top earner of The Life Coach School. When we did this exercise, she’s like, “I came up with 11.” A woman who has the most successful coaching business, this would have been two years ago, So, the woman two years ago who had the most successful coaching business in The Life Coach School outside of the woman who owns the coaching school, when we did this, come up with three things, she came up with 11 things.

And I remember, “What? How did you find…” And this was something so important that I learned. No matter how well your business is doing, in other words, no matter the results, own all of the different ways that you could improve.

So, even if something is kind of working, how could you make it even better? So, this does relate to the podcast episode I put out last week about processing negative feedback.

We can’t improve if we only look at the good. Now, I realize, some people struggle to find any good. But some of us are like, we kind of look at our business with rose colored glasses and we don’t really own where we could improve and what thinking we could improve on.

So, that is something that has always stuck out to me. I always remember that lesson from Corinne right there of just remembering that no matter how your results are, don’t be afraid to list all of it.

And here’s the reason why. Because something not working or something that could be improved doesn’t mean you’re not working and you need to improve. Do you see that difference? We’re talking about separating you and your human worth and value from the things that are or are not working in your business.

And we like to conflate the two all of the time. Your Helga brain will always tell you that if you haven’t signed the clients that you said you were going to sign, you’re the thing that’s wrong and you’re the thing that’s broken and it must be you.

And as soon as we realize that those two things are separate – and this is a huge part of what we do in Confident Coaches Mastermind, is separate you the human being from you the owner of your business. That your confidence and your self-love and your self-belief does not have to be dependent on what’s happening on your results line.

It doesn’t matter. Your worth and your value, it does not depend on the income that you’re bringing in or whether you’re in the red or whether you’re in the black. Your value and your worth as a human has nothing to do with the amount of things not working in your business. It’s so important for us to practice working on that belief.

So, this is one thing. Be clear, I’m giving you an exercise that we do inside Confident Coaches Mastermind, but you are getting it without that coaching right there that we actually do this in a coaching setting where we can help, like, here are the thoughts that come up that you need coaching on, right?

Now, in Confident Coaches Mastermind, we also do a quick confidence scale measure. This is where we measure where’s your confidence on a scale of one to 10 in marketing your business and selling your business, selling your coaching and your actual coaching itself. So, this is another opportunity. We’re just going to check in with those numbers to see how our confidence is growing, no matter our results. Or sometimes the confidence dips.

Sometimes, those first couple of months, the confidence kind of dips because we brought up all of your doubt and we haven’t quite gotten you to the place where you’re believing new things yet. And that takes five months, sometimes that takes 10 months. I know, for me, it was a solid eight to nine months before I really started believing new things, which is why a lot of times my clients do two full rounds of the mastermind, because sometimes you need that extra six months to really start believing new things.

So, that’s not something that you might have paid attention to on January 1st. But for those of us in the mastermind, for my clients in the mastermind, we also do a quick where are we on the confidence scale.

Alright, so once you’ve identified the three things you’re proud of that you’ve accomplished, once you’ve identified what’s not working and your thoughts why, and for the mastermind members, we do a quick check in on the confidence scale, then we look to the next 90 days.

So, when we are course correcting, we’re taking a look at what’s working, why do we think it’s working, what’s not working, why do we think it’s not working? Now, what are we going to do with that information? This is the course correction part.

This is the correction part of the course correction right here. We set a new 90-day goal. How many clients at how many dollars each for what total? So, Y clients at Z dollars each for X number of total dollars. What’s your new 90-day goal?

And then ask yourself, on a scale of one to 10, how committed are you to that goal? And what do you need to think in order for it to be a 10?

So, whenever I do on a scale of one to 10, whatever your number is, let’s say you’re a five, let’s say you’re a six, why is it a six instead of a one? That’s going to show you where your belief is. Why is it a six instead of a 10? That’s going to show you where your doubt is. So, what do you need to think in order for it to be a 10 should answer that doubt.

And when I’m talking about doubt should answer belief, that comes right out of the podcast called How to Unbelieve, or How to Believe. Just go back and listen to both of them because I can’t remember. I think that might have been the How to Believe episode.

And then lastly, what’s your action plan for hitting your goal? And basically, again, this is something we go into depth in, in the mastermind, where we talk about making offers. There’s an entire confidence in marketing section that we have inside Confident Coaches Mastermind where there are actual how to come up with 100 ideas in 15 minutes. It’s actually something we do in the bootcamp, which bootcamp for the April group, which we’re actually still enrolling the April group this week. If you are listening the last week of March, we’re enrolling through the end of the week because the mastermind starts next week and the bootcamp is April 12th and 13th and that’s something that we do right there, where we come up with 100 ideas in 15 minutes of what are you willing to try, what are you willing to fail at in order to get there?

So, the first part of the quarterly course correction is the evaluation part. What are three things that you accomplished or that you’re proud of? What are three things that aren’t working and why? And then for the masterminders, checking in on your confidence scale. And then the second part of the quarterly course correction is using that information to decide what the next quarter is going to look like.

Set a new goal. Tap into how committed you are. And what do you need to think in order to have that commitment be a 10? And then, what’s your action plan? What are you willing to try? What are you willing to fail at in order to get there?

Because remember, you’re going to keep going and keep forging this path. No one else can give you the path. No one else can tell you how to get from point A to point B. You are going to do the work yourself. But it’s okay because as long as you’re willing to check in with yourself, you can do this every month.

We actually do a version of this every week inside the mastermind. We can do it every month. At a minimum, do it every 90 days so that you can be like, “Okay, we went a little too far this way. We are going to course correct back to here. Here’s something that I was really excited about that was bringing in revenue but it’s kind of bringing me away from the path of where I really want to go and I need to come back in again.

Sometimes things that look really good on paper or sound really good but are getting you not in the direction you want to be going and your willingness to cut those things out, sometimes that comes out in this evaluation too.

Alright, my friends. So, are you going to commit to doing this work? Here’s what I want. If you are listening to this right now, I want you to share your podcast in your social media, on your Instagram stories or wherever, and say, “I’m committing to doing the work that Amy is asking us to do. I’m committing to doing the quarterly course correction. Join me.”

Let’s get everybody committed to doing these quarterly course corrections and see how much further you get this year because you were willing to do this work. Alright. So, I’m going to be looking for it today.

And if I see it all this week, if you commit to doing this and you post and you tag me, I am @iamamylatta in your Instagram stories, if you post that I will absolutely share it and we will cheer you along. Alright, my friends?

Alright, remember, you guys are doing amazing things. I cannot wait to see what you create this year. And until next week, let’s go do epic stuff.

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In this free training, you’re going to learn exactly how you overcomplicate confidence, what’s creating that, and how to stop it. Here’s the best part, all of it, less than an hour. Less than an hour of your time. You will feel more confident in less than an hour.

Friends, this is the best training I’ve ever done. So visit amylatta.com/podcastgift to get yours. Again, that’s amylatta.com/podcastgift. Go now and feel more confident in just an hour.

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

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Hi, I’m Amy.

For years, I took a ton of action to sign clients.

I learned to create self-confidence and powerfully believe in myself first, and then built a multiple six-figure coaching business.

And I can help you do it, too.

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