Ep #155: Sticky Thoughts

You are listening to episode 155 of The Confident Coaches Podcast, the one where you stop letting sticky thoughts stop you. I’m your host. Amy Latta. Let’s dive in.

Hello my coach friends. How are you doing out there today? I hope you’re doing amazingly. I’m doing actually fantastic as always, and I’m really excited to bring this episode to you today because it’s something that’s a hot topic of conversation in both of my coaching programs right now, and I use this term a lot.

I will get confused about it and I will forget the name, and I know what will really solidify this in my brain, and in my audience’s brain, and in my client’s brain, and that’s to make a podcast about it. From this point forward, everyone will know what I’m talking about, including myself.

So, this is just as much for me as it is for you, as of course is most of my podcasting. What am I talking about? I’m talking about this idea of sticky thoughts; sticky thoughts are thoughts that just seem true. Thoughts that you’ve run Models on. You intellectually understand the difference between the circumstance and your thought about it, and this is definitely a thought. You know it, you intellectually understand it. You’ve run the model on it. You see that it’s creating things you do not want. And also, you have not let it go yet. It’s. It’s sticky. It’ doesn’t want to let go. We can’t “WD 40 this thing.” We can’t “goop” on this thought, so it goes away out of our brain, right?

These are thoughts that you’ve probably gotten coaching on, or that you have self-coached on, and yet there’s part of you that still believes it. You still have some belief in these thoughts because they’re sticky, they’re tacky, they don’t want to go away. Even though, and this is what makes them particularly sticky … even though you really don’t want to think them anymore. I don’t want to be thinking this anymore. I want it to go away.

It’s like when you buy something at Target clearance. You know, Target clearance stickers, you can’t get that shit off. You want to get it off. There’s always this like extra sticky residue and you will work, and you will work.

Sometimes you just decide to leave it there and eventually it will come off. This is what I’m talking about there. I just surmised the entire topic: Sticky thoughts are like target clearance stickers. Now everybody who shops at Target knows exactly what I’m talking about. You don’t want it there, but it doesn’t want to go away.

And eventually you just, you just decide, “am I just going to leave it there or not?”

Ultimately sticky thoughts are thoughts that you’ve convinced yourself are a problem as long as they are there. It’s a problem that the sticker is on the back of that thing, and you can’t get it off. “It’s a problem that I keep thinking these thoughts and they won’t go away, even though I see what they are creating for me, and I don’t want to keep perpetuating that.”

So, this podcast episode is going to change your relationship to your sticky thoughts, which is different than, we’re going to change your thinking about your thinking. We’re going to get a little meta. We’re going to get a little layered here. I love these topics, man! I love these juicy topics. You know what I mean? When we think about our thinking?

Okay, so what the hell am I talking about? Sticky thoughts.

This is not an exhaustive list, but this is a long list and these to me are the most common sticky thoughts. This is quite a big list, by the way, the most common sticky thoughts that come up in the coaching sessions for free to paid coach and path to 100k. And in fact, I give my Path to 100k Mastermind huge credit for the list I’m getting ready to share with you.

Directly out of the mouths of my clients’ thoughts, including: “I don’t fit in … I always mess things up … What I’m doing isn’t enough … I’m always behind … I can’t handle this … I’m not capable … I never get it right …

What I’m doing isn’t working … I don’t have it down enough to share … I haven’t figured out how to share it …This isn’t good enough … I need to do more … I don’t have anything else to say …I don’t have any good ideas …

I don’t have any original thoughts … I should be further along … I’m not meant to be successful … I’m missing something, and I don’t know what it is … I’m too broken to be successful … I’ve been at this for ages …

My niche’s problem isn’t urgent enough … I’m behind … I’m too lazy … I need to work more to succeed … I’m not smart enough … A bigger life isn’t meant for me … I’m not driven enough … I’m not articulate.”

Did you see any of yourself in that list that I just said? It was quite a range, right? Quite a lot of things.

Time, knowledge, experience, how long this is taking. Have you yourself thought some of those? This is not an exhaustive list. You might have some.

Here’s the good news: you are normal. Of course, you think those things. This is not surprising. Of course, we think these things because we’ve been socialized to believe that those who get it first are the best, or that only a handful of people have the good ideas we should be following, or that you have to get it right the first time in order to believe you can get it right at all.

We’ve been socialized to believe that we have to belong, and we have to fit in, and we can’t stick out. We’ve been socialized to believe that messing things up is a bad thing. So of course, we think these things. That is not surprising. Now we just get to decide what we want to do about it. And this is what this de this podcast is all about.

What are we going to do about it? So, there’s an example of what some sticky thoughts are and like, let’s acknowledge, “of course we think this way. We’ve been socialized to think this way. The thoughts are not surprising. Now what are we going to do?” I think knowing what your sticky thoughts are and that they are sticky is a huge help in and of itself.

So, understand this, not acknowledging them, not shining a light on them doesn’t give them less power, and in fact keeping them in the dark gives them more power. The more you try to hide your sticky thoughts, the stronger an influence they will have on how you’re showing up.  

Step number one is to just admit them.

Write them down. When you go to answer the question, What’s my belief? I can sign a client today. Write down all the shit that comes up, all the negative stuff that comes up, which ones feel the most true that you’ve gotten the most coaching on that you just can’t let go? Those are your sticky thoughts.

Own them. Name them, claim them. Don’t let them hide in the shadows, and then call truth to that bullshit. Put those shitty ass sticky thoughts into a coaching Model. When you think that, how do you feel when you feel that way? What kind of actions do you take? What kind of actions don’t you take when you do and don’t do those things? What are you going to create? See what this line of thinking is creating.

I’m inviting you to just see it, to keep any guilt or any shame separate from just the acknowledgement of what those thoughts are creating for you, because of course you think those thoughts, that’s not shocking at all. We were socialized to think thoughts like this. Now you get to decide what you want to do.

What if some of them do take time to unlearn? What if some of them you aren’t just ready to let go of yet, and let’s acknowledge that some of them will be easier than others.

Some of these sticky thoughts as soon as you stick them in the Model, it could be a thought that, you know, you’ve thought for a long time, but as soon as you stick it in a Model and really clearly see your action line and what it’s creating for you, sometimes it’s pretty easy to drop it sometimes.

You just need to do my process of unbelieving. I’ve talked about it on the podcast. There are entire modules on how to unbelief In Free to Paid Coach, it’s one of the best damn modules you will ever experience. That module alone is worth a thousand dollars to join Free to Paid Coach. Like sometimes you can just run it through my How-to Unbelieve process a couple of times, and it starts letting go.

Some of these sticky thoughts you will be able to let go of, but your friend or your peer won’t, and vice versa. Again, normal. We are all human and all humans do not think alike. Some thoughts will be stickier for some people than they will be for others. So, your work right now … this is where I want you to lean in for a second. What if you don’t have to let it go completely?

What if your work isn’t to completely unlearn it and let it go? But what if your work is to believe that you can still sign your next clients, that you can still become a paid coach? And you can still scale to 100k and even make a shit ton of money with those thoughts still there.

I know this was big news for my coaches inside Free to Paid Coach and Path to a 100k, because we’ve been trained as coaches that when you find these thoughts and you see what they’re creating for you, you’re supposed to drop them if you want to keep moving forward. And I’m like, “Yeah, okay, sometimes.”

For some of you, this is going to be some next-level work because it requires you to believe two things at the same time.

What I am asking of you is to believe that two things, that are in conflict with one another can be true at the same time that you can be thinking a thought that creates a negative feeling and creates actions you do and don’t want to be taking, and creates a result that you don’t want, and that you can also create results that you do want, even with the presence of this other thing.

Another concept that I teach in Free To Paid Coach is called Gradient Models. I’ve talked about that on the podcast before too. And Gradient Models is like, there’s the completely believing the shitty thought and there’s completely not believing the shitty thought. And we think it’s either one or the other, and gradient models are all the tiny little models in between, and that’s what sticky thoughts are

There’s somewhere in that gradient, and it doesn’t have to be crystal clear, and all cleaned up for you to go create amazing results in your coaching business.

Honestly, isn’t this where most of life is? Between two things, not just the two things? Like, literally that’s all of life. Why do you think you’re thinking isn’t any different?

So, sticky thoughts. I want you to start identifying them. What are yours? I gave you a pretty good list earlier in this episode. What are your thoughts? Go ahead and write them down, answer the question. I want you to pay attention to what comes up when I challenge you.

Can you go sign a client today? Write down all the reasons why you can’t. Which ones have you been coached on before? Which ones are like, “Oh, there’s that shitty thought.” Once again, these are your sticky thoughts. See what they’re creating for you. Put them in a fresh Model and then just start recognizing it more. “Oh, there’s that sticky thinking I got again. I can see it at play again. There it is. I’m familiar with you.”

Start the process of unbelieving, tt’s possible you’re not true. I don’t have to believe. Start allowing for that gradient energy of kind of like believing it a little bit more and believing it a little bit less, and most importantly, believe that these sticky thoughts can be there, and they do not have to stop you from solving your client’s problems and passionately telling them all about it.

That’s your work. It’s a short but super-sweet and sticky episode for you this week, my friends. Talk to you next week.

Coach, it’s time to sign your first free client, your first paid client, your next client, and to learn how to do it consistently and having a hell of a lot of fun along the way. This is exactly what you’re going to do in Free to Paid Coach. It’s the only program giving you step-by-step what to do to become a paid coach and step-by-step how to handle the roller coaster emotions that come with doing what you need to do to become a paid coach.

If you know you can’t not do this life coaching thing, but believing that you can do it, handling rejection and remembering how to do all of those things shuts you down, the Free to Paid Coach Community is waiting for you. Find everything that you’re looking for inside. It’s only $1,000. Payments are available, and then you’re in forever.

Visit www.amylatta.com/ftpc to join us right now. See you inside. Let’s get paid, coach.

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.