Ep #177: When You Can’t SEE Your Goal

When your coach says “you can create anything you want, what will it be,” and your mind goes blank – I’ve just discovered a reason I’ve not heard anyone talking about in the coaching community.

This is me, BTW, a mind that goes blank wall, radio silence, crickets when coaches have asked me that question, and I always assumed it was inadequacy, but I’ve found another reason.

Not only does this explain so much of how I have showed up in coaching rooms, but it requires an entirely different way of coaching than what I’ve been doing.

Some of you will be shouting, “Oh Em Gee, that’s me!” Some of you, you just may use this episode to help coach clients who struggle with the same thing.

Either way, we’ve just found a new coaching portal that will help more clients achieve big dreams.

The doors to Free to Paid Coach are officially open! If you’re ready to learn the foundational concepts of confidence that get you from being a free coach to a paid coach who makes six figures and beyond, join us right now! 

What You’ll Learn:
  • Issues faced by individuals when their coach asks them to visualize their goals and their mind goes blank
  • Why going blank is a sign of cognitive overload and the brain’s natural response to protect itself
  • How to lean more on your intuition – get your abdomen, heart and mind in concert together
  • Why starting with the feeling line first creates the “snapshots”
  • Creating a “delusional future me” file helps your mind to see the vision of the future 
Listen to the Full Episode:

Featured on the Show:
Full Episode Transcript:

You are listening to episode 177 of The Confident Coaches Podcast, the one where we figure out how to see the future, 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.

Hi coaches. I’m so excited to be talking to you today. Today is actually a topic. It’s not that the topic is so much my favorite thing, but what I’m getting ready to share with you today, and I want you to take note of this. I think this is really important for those of you who think that you have to have everything all figured out and tied in a perfect pretty little bow before you can ever help anyone.

May not be, I’m actually introducing a topic to you where I’m not entirely sure what the solution is. I know. Crazy, right? Did you know that you don’t have to always have the perfect solution before you can help someone else? This is one of those examples and that’s why this episode, just like the idea of it is one of my favorite things, because I think the existence of the episode itself has the potential to teach you to stop waiting until you are perfect and have everything all figured out before you believe you can help so many people. Because I believe this episode is going to help so many people, even though, and I have some solutions at the end, I just haven’t really. We’ll get there.

I do have solutions at the end, but we’ll wrap up about how those solutions I am aware are first step, and I know that there’s more coming and I’m still going to share this kind of incomplete solution, so to speak, because I know the conversation itself. It is going to help so many of you, and even if it doesn’t directly help you, it’s going to help so many of you in your coaching because what I described to you in this episode, I don’t know the numbers.

I don’t know if it’s going to be half of you. I don’t know if it’s going to be three quarters of you. Like I don’t actually, I don’t know if it’s only going to be a quarter of you. I actually don’t know. And that would be super, super interesting. Like I already have a call to action in mind. I don’t know how many of you’re going to be like, this is me, and how many of you’re going to be like, this isn’t me, but oh my gosh.

This explains so many interactions I’ve had with my clients. Thank you. Okay. So I’ve really set up like high promises of what this episode is going to deliver, incomplete solutions, and an example of showing up when you don’t have all the answers, when you have incomplete solutions and the possibility to completely change how you coach some of your clients.

No big deal. Let’s get into it. So what am I even talking about? I have new awareness of a struggle that I’ve always had, and I’ve been unable to really articulate why. And I’ll get into I thought I had the why, and now I’m like, I think I might be entirely wrong about that.

It’s entirely possible I was wrong as to the why that this was a struggle. So the entryway to this conversation, this is not what the episode’s going to be about, is that right now there is a confluence of cosmic things, planets, moons, etc. That is, we are in a time of cosmic openness, like the portals of possibility are wide open.

I can’t really articulate what those are. That is not my zone of genius. I actually shared in Free to Paid Coach. Just a little bit of, what I’ve been reading, like it’s not. Not only is it not my zone of genius, like astrological information, not only is it not my zone of genius, I’m not sure it’s my zone of like vague competency. Like I know I’m in Aries. I know that’s a fire sign. I know about Mercury retrograde, so like I know enough to be dumb and stupid and pass on a lot of inaccurate information, but I do know that right now we are in a time of this idea of just the portal of possibility is open.

This idea that the more right now that you put out and believe you are what you cannot see in the reality ahead of you. The universe is going to be responding in kind the universe, cosmic forces are very in alignment with you being delusional about what’s possible for you. You acting as if. You are whatever it is you want to be.

Now, we talk about this in life coaching a lot. What is future you? The whole concept that there’s a future version of you who has everything that you want and visualizing that. So the idea of acting as if you are whatever you want to be. This is not new, right? This is future use stuff.

This is what does she have, what results has she already created? How does she think, how does she feel? What kind of actions is she taking? This is like life coaching 101, right? And, but to really go like above and beyond what you can even see in your reality that everything as your reality right now is, can be entirely different.

And to act right now as if you already are a 100k coach, a million dollar coach, a high powered speaker running your own coach training program. Really stretching your ideas as to what’s possible. Here’s what I’ve noticed. Does the, you can have and be whatever you want. So what would that be? Does that question shut you down?

The question itself, not you can answer the question, but your doubt is so overwhelming, but I am talking about you, just you your dream. Can you articulate what your dream is? We’re not talking about the doubt you might have. We’re talking about just the vision of it. Can you articulate that at all or does your mind do what mine does?

Mine goes like blank slate. Like literally there’s no sounds. There is no words in my head is like a white sheet in my head. Like literally I just have a bright white flash in my head. I’ve had, I can’t think of how many times coaches have said, let’s wipe the slate clean. You can burn it all down and create whatever you want.

What would it be? And I don’t have an answer. Like it’s literally crickets, and so what I’ve always done is give the answers. That is my version of someone else’s dream. So many things are coming clear to me. I’ve always been able to look at other people and say I want some of this.

I don’t want any of that, and even my future you work that I do in Free to Paid Coach. One of the places we start with is who you admire most and what is it that you admire about them? Because what you admire, what in them is what’s in you. Like even as I teach that, I’ve used the gateway of using other people to help give you ideas, it’s not necessarily a bad thing.

Okay? This can be very powerful to start with people. But I’ve seen the downside of being unable to go really beyond that. And so for those of you who this question, and we ask this question all of the time in coaching friends, I ask this question a lot in coaching of you can build whatever business that you want to build.

It does not have to look like anyone else’s. Does that shut you down? Do you does your brain either freak out or go completely blank? I learned something else this week outside of the astrological phenomenon going on, where like all the portals possibility are open right now.

I also learned something totally different is that some people can’t see a completed thing in their mind’s eye. And this is me. I have so many examples of this since I was a kid. Even so some completely non-business-related examples is like home decorating. Not my jam. I home decorating is a nightmare to me.

I actually used to work for a home builder, and I was the director of marketing, and my office was across the entryway of the building from the home center. So the home center is the giant place that people who’ve, they’ve bought a house, they come into the home design center and that’s where all of the sample.

Paint stone, brick fixtures, cabinets, all of it was there. And I would wander around the home center and like it was a complete nightmare to me. I didn’t even know coaching existed. This is so far outside of the realm of coaching. I could never understand why, and it wasn’t just the overwhelm of choices.

Picking up paint colors, will this piece of floor go with this color? I cannot see it in my mind’s eye. I’ve always seen in movies, and I’ve, used to work in some design-based industries. I was in the marketing department, but like I was working adjacent to those industries, and I’d see like sample boards where you’d have like samples of fabric and samples of like cuts and designs and kind of like a storyboard, a visual storyboard of what the finished products would look like.

And I’m like, my brain couldn’t put it together into a cohesive picture. Does this sound familiar at all? Let me give you a couple other ideas. Wardrobe, clothing, dressing myself. I can look at something and I can say I like that outfit, but when I go into a store, or just even trying to like, okay, but what do you want to wear, Amy?

I don’t know. I can’t see it. I can’t picture it in my head. I have always learned better through visual. I like recipe books with lots of pictures and not just pic I want pictures of a finished product, but I like pictures of the prep work. Also, if something is a complicated build, like you’re buying a piece of furniture for Ikea.

Oh, nightmare because they’ve got five sentences on how to build an entire cabinet. I’m like, where’s the video? That’s like walking me through this. It’s this idea that if I can see the completed thing, then I can start deconstructing it and figuring out what I need to do that I can do. But if you give me a bunch of pieces, I don’t know how to constructive thing to put it together.

If you give me a bunch of to-dos in my business, I can’t be sure. Of the final product, but if you show me the final product, I can probably deconstruct it. Do you understand? Are you getting more of an idea? So in this article that I read that talked about, and I, before I say this out loud, I want to be really clear.

I am not a doctor. This is not a diagnosis for you, for me, for anybody, but. This sounds familiar. This can be a symptom of ADHD where our mind is working in the opposite direction of some other people. and this article talked about some of its solutions were if you have a kid who can’t figure out how to get ready for school in the morning, and it’s like this constant battle.

A solution can be to take pictures of him ready to go to school, what that looks like, and that can actually give them a visual to check in and I was like, oh, that’s ingenious. That’s just like me. Give me pictures of how to put my outfits together with the accessories and I can do it. But if you give me all of the accessories and all the clothing and all the pieces of clothing laid out on a bed, I’m like, this is really hard.

I got to try everything on. My husband’s always like, what’s happening in here? And I was literally trying on like half of my wardrobe to try to put outfits together. But if you showed me the outfits, I just can’t see it in my mind’s eye. There was also another example of particularly around kids.

Instead of telling kids to make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, show them a completed picture, I’m like, this is so me this is why, how, why I like my recipe books this way. This is why I like, if I’m going to redecorate my house, I need to see pictures of it.

I’ve talked to friends who are decorators before and they’re like what do you like? I’m like, I don’t know. Say you could do anything in your house, what would you do? And I’m like, I have no idea. I don’t even know where to start. I don’t know what to visualize. I don’t know. Show me a bunch of examples. Show me what you like, and I’ll tell you if I like that I’ve been doing this in my business guys.

I’ve been doing this in my business. Have you been doing this in your business? Is it easier for you to define your dream based on what other coaches achieving? Is it very hard for you to define your dream without basing it on what other coaches are achieving? It’s a crazy question because now I have an understanding as to why that might be.

So I’ve always learned by seeing, I’ve been thinking about, I can’t stop thinking about how this translates to our business. And every single time, if we clear everything of the slate, we burn it all down. We rebuild from scratch. What will we build? This has always been something where I’ve always looked to other people first, and here’s another implication of, this is why I think using what other people are doing as a launching point can be okay, but don’t fall into this trap that I am in now. And it’s not even so much that it’s a trap. I just wasn’t have having the awareness of it until now. No wonder in some of these coaching rooms as my business grew, and it grew because I was emulating what I saw around me.

I just copied what the mentor had done while my peers didn’t necessarily. So as I got into these higher levels, and we aren’t supposed to just be replicating what everybody else is doing they took what the mentor said and completely deconstructed it and made entirely different decisions.

This peer would say, she told me the same thing, but I still did it this way. And I was confounded. I was confounded. And this whole idea of yes, I understand that I can decide whatever I want, but I can’t see the end result. And if I’m trying to create an end result that nobody else in this room is creating.

I can’t see it in my mind’s eyes, so no wonder I reverted to just doing what the mentor said, and this is why I’m sharing with you because I spent years on coaching, I must think I can’t do it. My mind is blank. I must feel so inadequate. I’ve been coaching around, I must be just so inadequate at this.

I’ve been coaching around inadequacy as opposed to understanding, oh, that’s just not how I think. Oh my gosh, guys, and still blown away by this. That’s just not how my brain works. My mind just doesn’t think that way. It has nothing to do with my inadequacy as a businessperson. It has everything to do with, my brain just operates differently.

Oh my gosh, this is such good news. I can quit fucking coaching around my inadequacy. That’s not the problem. Oh, I just need to figure out how to visualize my future in a different way and understand that my mind works differently than my peers. That’s why they could do it, and I couldn’t.

Oh my God, this is so helpful. This is so helpful, and this is why I’m sharing with you now, even though my solutions that I’m getting ready to share, I do have some solutions. Turns out I’ve built in a lot of solutions into my coaching practices and didn’t even realize why those solutions were built into there.

I didn’t even realize where these things seemed so important to me. Now I’m saying I already have a lot of this built into my coaching programs. I didn’t even realize it. Before I get to the solutions, here’s the part where I want to interject your clients into the conversation.

Because this whole conversation has either entirely resonated with you and you’re like, that’s me. That’s me. I totally get it. Oh my God, Amy and I have the same brain or it’s not.

I did a pep talk on this in Free to Paid Coach earlier this week, and this did resonate with a lot of people and members were sharing that they thought, but you just must be defective.

When they had the blank wall, they thought they weren’t creative because I used to be in one of the solutions. I have is like using visuals out of like magazines. Like vision boards. Maybe there’s a reason why vision boards can really work for some people, right? And people were like, oh, I just, I thought that meant I wasn’t creative.

I thought this meant this wasn’t for me. I don’t think that way. I’ve not had a struggle with this. I’m not really sure what Amy’s talking about with the home decorating and the clothing and the wardrobe, and I can visualize, and first of all, if you can do that in your personal life, you can totally do that in your business.

That could be a whole separate episode right there of, for the people that are like, actually I can see things in my mind’s eye super clearly. I can look at a bunch of color swatches and I can totally see the whole package picture together. You can totally do that in your business also, but you may have clients who struggle with visualizing in future.

You work that when you ask them if you can create anything you want, what would you. If you notice that they can’t give you an answer, if you see that they are struggling with those questions, this may be happening for them. And it’s hard sometimes, right? When something’s very easy for you, you don’t even realize it’s a thing that could be going on.

Can you hold space for them to make it easier? This was not modeled for me. I want to be really, which is why I just, I kept coaching I just must be really bad at this. I just must be so inadequate at being a businessperson because I had coaches who were just like, I just would never think that I would just never do that.

Why are you doing that? I would just never do that. Literal words said to me and I’m like I am so you telling me you would just not isn’t actually helping me very much at all. So I just got my mouth shut and I just kept replicating and I just kept feeling more inadequate. And it turns out, oh, this is just a, how Amy’s brain is a wired situation.

oh my God, I’m literally like pounding my head against the wall. Oh my goodness. Understand that this could be happening for your clients, and if you. That use the solutions that I’m getting ready, the solutions I have come up with so far. Let’s start utilizing them. This is going to be an ongoing exploration, guys.

I’m going to be working with clients and Free to Paid Coach and Path to 100k, and in one-on-one. I have two spots right now and continue exploring this and for those people who have trouble answering this question. I know one of my one-on-one clients I started working with a couple weeks ago.

She’s super clear on what her vision is. She has no problem coming up with a vision. She threw it at me, no problems whatsoever. Don’t think that she would relate to this conversation but does. She has clients that might struggle with that. This might be happening for them, and I’m going to continue exploring this for me as well as my clients and all of my programs.

This is not the end of this conversation, but I found talking with people that I have, again unintentionally already built some solutions into my programs. So number one, anytime people have trouble with the result that they want to create or the actions that they think they need to take or the thoughts that they need to feel, I’ve always come in the feeling line.

Start with the feeling. If you can’t see it, what does it feel like? What do you imagine feeling when you’ve achieved this goal? What do you imagine it feels to be. For me, I’m imagining more peace, calm, and ease. That’s what comes up for me. I always find the feeling line is a great place to go whenever we are unsure of where to go with the client.

Let’s go to the feeling line. What do you imagine it feels like? To have a business that looks exactly like what you want it to look like, it has all the pieces that are 100% you and no one else. It’s okay if you can’t define those pieces yet. Let’s see if we can’t get into the feeling line first, because then what flashes, what snapshots come to you?

First, explore what you imagine that feels like and then practice sitting in that feeling more often and keep a delusional future me file. I was actually sharing with clients in Free to Paid Coach. I’m like, if the word delusional is a little like uncomfortable for you, I’m like, this is Amy’s world domination.

When I have dominated my corner of the world, this is what I imagine. Keep that file, keep a notebook, and make notes as those flashes come to you. Go into that feeling as often as possible.

This is me having achieved a business that is 100% reflective of who I am and what I really want to create, and it has no one else but me.

I imagine it feels like when I am there and challenge your mind. I invite you to show me what will create that feeling. What is in this picture? When I feel this way, my mind shows me flashes of what that might be and allow it’s put in an order with your own mind to deliver images of what it looks like.

This business that is 100% you and no one else.

Let’s get in there through the feeling line and then let’s start and this, so like starting in the feeling line and what do you feel? I’ve been coaching this for forever. Turns out I’ve actually been coaching that forever in all levels of my coaching now in Path to 100k. So these next steps come out into path to 100k because that’s where we really take Free to Paid Coach is all about, you just really believing that you’re a paid coach and learning to be get uncomfortable asking, being okay, feeling uncomfortable, asking for money, and really believing you could do something you’d never done before and having your own back and all that stuff.

And then in Path to 100k, we were really like, okay, we’re going to grow this business to 100k, but it’s going to be the business that you want and no one else’s business.

One of the first things I’m going to ask you is what lights you on fire? What do you instinctively get excited talking about? What’s in your business right now that’s already working for you, that you already love, that you already feel naturally drawn to doing that probably holds some answers there.

And then what’s a hard no for you? I think it’s really important that when we’re talking about what’s a hard no for you, what’s not in your picture, that we’re distinguishing between your soul’s hard no versus your mind’s hard no. Y’all know what I mean? I really see being a sought-after speaker as so key to my future, but once upon a time, the idea of speaking in front of a group, I would rather like nauseous, mortifying sounds terrible, but that’s just because I lacked the confidence.

That was my mind’s hard no, but my soul’s hard no was, no, I really want to speak to large audiences. Okay, so this is already built into Path to 100k and then following that it, what’s working, what’s not working? What’s step three of the Path to 100k process is creating an epic action plan.

Epic action and implementing an epic action plan really builds deep self-trust because I think that is a key there, that getting better at articulating the future vision, where you are headed, your big world domination destination in the future really requires you to have a deep level of self-trust that even if you can’t completely articulate everything in the picture, you still trust that the picture is there, and the more you move forward, the more clear that picture gets.

That’s my solution. I reserve the right to improve upon that solution, to dive deeper, to add to all of that. But this is what I’m already coaching in my programs that I’m now seeing are answers to this obstacle. I wasn’t even aware was standing in my way. This makes so much sense. This makes so much sense of how I’ve been showing up in rooms that other people are like, I just don’t have that problem.

Oh, it’s simply because my mind is wired in a way that it does struggle to see a final picture. That’s why I have resorted to looking at other people’s final pictures and just making it a little bit more Amy, as opposed to what’s a hundred percent Amy. I love this so much, and I’m going to add I feel like it’s written in the solution, but I didn’t explicitly say it.

So before I stop talking, I want to make sure I say this, that I think this also will improve the more you just get really quiet with yourself and lean more on your intuition, hand over heart, hand over gut, really getting in your abdomen, your heart, and your mind in concert with one another, and trusting that the answers are already inside of you, even if we can’t yet access them.

And you spending time in that energy of getting those three things in alignment, that the more you practice that, the more you feel the energy of this goal already happening. Even if you can’t see it yet in your mind’s eye that it’s already there, it’s already right in front of you, it’s okay that you can’t see it, but that light bulb will come on.

The more you create that energy by connecting those in your gut, your heart. I just had another analogy. It’s like you’re in a dark room and the picture is right there and the string of lights are already, they’re already up. You just have to keep walking forward and the power to light up the lights comes from you aligning your head center, your heart center, and your gut.

I just made that shit up right there that just came out of my mouth, and I love it so much. I’m like, I get that the power to turn on the lights so you can see the vision is within you. It just comes from being more aligned in your own energy. Boom. I love it. Somebody write that down.

This is what we’re doing in Free to Paid Coach if you’re a brand-new coach, if you’re looking to sign your first paid client, if you have not made at least 10k, Free to Paid Coach is the program to be in. If you’ve made at least 10k path to a 100k is the program you need to be in.

If you prefer working one-on-one, if you haven’t already signed your first clients, you just need to do Free to Paid Coach. Don’t hire me to sign your first client. That’s not the best use of your time and your energy. Free to Paid Coach honestly has everything you need. But if you’re ready to grow, if you’re ready to scale either to 100k and beyond, there is a one-on-one option if you’re interested.

I think the question that I really want to know is, what percentage of you related to how my mind functions? I would love to know, is it half of you? If you’re listening to this, I would love for you to reach out either on the socials, Instagram at @iamamylatta or in this email: amy@amyLatta.com

This episode is always emailed out. I would love to hear from you. Do you relate to what I said? is this just something that will be in your coach’s toolbox to use with clients? That’s the question I want to know? Is this something you going to use just for your clients, or do you completely relate to this and you’re going to use it for you and your clients?

That’s what I want to know, every single person listening to this, I want to know your answer to that question. You can hit me up on the socials on Instagram at @iamamylatta. I relate to this for myself and my clients. I’m going to use this for my clients. That’s the question that I want to know.

All right, my friends. I can’t wait to hear from you. I’m so excited to see what you’re going to create in the world, and I’ll 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.

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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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