Playing the Mental Game of Self-Coaching: For Anyone Who Presents.    Do you usually perform well and learn from your speaking experiences? Or are you your own worst enemy on and off the platform? Do you use one of the most powerful tools in the peak-performing speaker’s armamentarium, self-coaching? This article reveals 5 secrets pro speakers use to improve and 3 crucial steps to putting these strategies into immediate action.    538 words.

Playing the Mental Game of Self-Coaching

For Anyone Who Presents

Bill Cole, MS, MA
Founder and CEO
William B. Cole Consultants
Silicon Valley, California

Top performing professional speakers regularly look for help from coaches, gurus, peers, books and other sources. But all the information in the universe won't help if it's not translated into useable form. This is where self-coaching takes center stage. Self-coaching is the ability to combine knowledge about yourself with outside information to make meaningful, positive changes in your life and to perform well when you need it most.

No one can teach you anything. Ultimately, only you can take information from a teacher or coach and transform it into your personal power. Savvy speakers take responsibility for their own learning and devise strategies and systems that put information into action.

Here are five mental game success secrets that peak performing speakers can use to improve their self-coaching skills.

1. Be Willing To Grow. If you are reading this article about self-coaching it means you want to grow as a human being. This desire is manifested by your seeking experiences that help you improve personally, as well as professionally. The self-coaching speaker realizes that to grow professionally, personal growth is a must.
   
   
2. Cultivate A Beginner's Mind. The Zen tradition says, that to learn, we must be an empty vessel. If we know it all, we can't be very open to new knowledge and experiences. The self-coaching speaker realize that an open, seeking attitude allows new experiences to come into our consciousness.
   
   
3. Benefit From Mistakes. Peak performers respect mistakes and use them to learn. Poor performers tie themselves up with negative emotion after every mistake. When we view any mistake as failure, our self-destructive emotions mask the valuable feedback around every mistake. The self-coaching speaker welcomes all feedback.
   
   
4. Develop High Self-Awareness. Self-awareness is not about what should be-it is about what is. The self-coaching speaker places a high priority on becoming self-aware and realizes that self-knowledge can be about the past or present. Self-awareness is the master skill.
   
   
5. Deconstruct Your Personal Experience. Peak performers use self-reflection to deconstruct their experiences. They know that the unexamined life fleets by out of control. Only by reviewing personal experience do we gain some degree of awareness over what we have done and over who we are. The self-coaching speaker embraces this process so new realities and realizations can be consciously created out of that.
   
   
6. Develop A Mental Game Plan. Take these three questions as a start in developing your self-coaching action plan this week.
   
   a. What systems can you develop to increase self awareness about yourself? Can you write in a journal? Speak your thoughts into a tape recorder?
   
   b. Who can you partner with to assist you in your self-coaching quest?
   
   c. How will you translate what you learn about yourself into immediately useful action?

To learn more about how presentation coaching can help you become a better, more confident speaker, visit Bill Cole, MS, MA, the Mental Game Coach™ at www.mentalgamecoach.com/Services/PresentationCoaching.html.

Copyright © 2005-2011 Bill Cole, MS, MA. All rights reserved.

Bill Cole, MS, MA, a leading authority on peak performance, mental toughness and coaching, is founder and CEO of William B. Cole Consultants, a consulting firm that helps organizations and professionals achieve more success in business, life and sports. He is also the Founder and President of the International Mental Game Coaching Association (www.mentalgamecoaching.com), an organization dedicated to advancing the research, development, professionalism and growth of mental game coaching worldwide. He is a multiple Hall-Of-Fame honoree as an athlete, coach and school alumnus, an award-winning scholar-athlete, published book author and articles author, and has coached at the highest levels of major-league pro sports, big-time college athletics and corporate America. For a free, extensive article archive, or for questions and comments visit him at www.MentalGameCoach.com.

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