Making better decisions in your coaching business isn’t always about finding more information or getting advice from someone smarter than you. Sometimes the problem is that you already know what you want to do, but you don’t trust yourself enough to act on it.

That gets especially tricky for coaches who are used to working hard, learning more, and doing what they’re told will work. The “smart” choice can feel safer because it gives you something outside yourself to point to.

Better decisions come from learning to listen to your own guidance while still using good coaching, collaboration, and outside perspectives. You can listen to someone else without deciding they automatically know better than you do.

And sometimes the right next move is action. Sometimes it’s slowing down. The skill is learning to tell the difference.

Listen to the Episode

About This Episode

If you keep second-guessing decisions in your coaching business, looking for someone else to tell you the right answer, or trying to make the “smartest” choice, this episode is for you.

I explore why trusting yourself can be so difficult, especially when being smart, following instructions, getting good grades, or doing what other people expected became connected to approval and worth.

That pattern doesn’t magically disappear when you start a business.

Instead, it can show up as taking another course, asking another expert, changing your marketing because someone else doesn’t like it, or pushing yourself harder because business culture says you should hustle.

I also talk about the other side of trust: sometimes trusting yourself means doing the work, and sometimes it means slowing down. The important question is whether you’re resting because it’s the right next step or avoiding something because it feels uncomfortable.

This episode is about developing a practice of listening to yourself without shutting out useful advice. You don’t need to stop getting coaching or collaborating with smart people. You need to learn how to hear what they’re saying without automatically deciding they know your answers better than you do.

What You’ll Learn

• Why making the “smart” business decision isn’t always the same as making the right decision for you

• How being rewarded for intelligence and following directions can affect your self-trust as an entrepreneur

• Why slowing down can sometimes be the productive business decision

• How to tell the difference between outside input and giving away your decision-making authority

• Why journaling isn’t the only way to build a practice of listening to yourself

• How good coaching can help you find your answers without pretending the coach already has them

How Can I Make Better Decisions in My Coaching Business?

Start by noticing whether you’re actually making the decision or looking for someone else to make it for you.

There’s nothing wrong with getting advice. I regularly collaborate with smart people and use coaching to verbally process my ideas. The difference is that I don’t assume their opinion automatically means mine is wrong.

Someone may hear what you’re saying and point you toward the right “vein” without giving you the exact answer.

Sometimes the people I collaborate with are wrong about the specific solution while still noticing something important. Their perspective helps me find the area I need to explore. Then I go back and figure out what is actually right for me.

Good decision-making isn’t isolation. It’s being able to gather information without abandoning your own authority.

Why Do I Second-Guess Myself So Much in Business?

You may have had years of practice trusting other people more than yourself.

As children, most of us were told what to do because we genuinely didn’t know enough yet. Then school rewarded us for getting the right answers. Jobs told us what was expected. Other relationships may have reinforced the idea that someone else knows better.

Then you start a business, and suddenly you’re the person who has to decide.

That can expose how underdeveloped your self-trust really is.

Being “smart” can also become a protection mechanism. If you learned that being smart earned praise, approval, or a sense of worth, you may still be trying to get an A in your business.

The goal isn’t to stop thinking. It’s to notice when being smart has become a substitute for trusting yourself.

How Do I Know Whether I Need to Rest or I’m Just Avoiding the Work?

There isn’t a universal answer.

Sometimes trusting yourself means slowing down. Sometimes the next right step is doing the hard thing you’ve been avoiding.

That’s why blanket advice like “hustle harder” doesn’t solve the problem.

The coaches I work best with generally aren’t afraid of implementation. They know how to work. For those coaches, the bigger challenge can actually be slowing down long enough to listen.

The question becomes: Is this rest because I genuinely need to stop and listen, or is this avoidance because the next step feels uncomfortable?

You figure that out by checking in with yourself rather than automatically assuming that more work is always the answer.

Do I Have to Journal to Become More Intuitive in My Business?

No.

I don’t particularly love traditional journaling either.

I like free-writing my thoughts, sitting by the water, going for drives, and verbally processing with other people. I jokingly call driving “windshield meditation” because many of my good ideas arrive when I’m in the car.

The important part isn’t the specific practice.

The important part is having some kind of practice that gives you room to listen.

You may think best while walking, driving, talking to a coach, sitting quietly, or writing things down. You’re looking for a way to hear what you already know underneath all the noise.

Should a Business Coach Tell Me Exactly What to Do?

Not according to the way I coach.

I tell my coaching clients, “I don’t have your answers, but I think we can find them together.”

That’s an important distinction.

A coach can ask useful questions, notice patterns, bring expertise, challenge your thinking, and help you explore possibilities. But that doesn’t mean the coach automatically knows the right answer for your particular business.

Most coaches already believe this principle when they work with their own clients. Their job is to help clients discover their answers.

The question is whether you’re willing to practice that same belief in your own business.

What Endotype Changes About This

The Endotype Formula is about understanding yourself more clearly, and that matters when you’re trying to make business decisions.

Generic business advice can make it easy to assume there is one correct way to think, market, decide, or take action. Understanding your Endotype gives you another way to recognize how you naturally operate instead of automatically comparing yourself to the way someone else runs their business.

Your Endotype doesn’t make your decisions for you. It gives you more information about yourself so you can make those decisions with greater awareness.

What Might Be Getting in the Way

Sometimes what looks like careful decision-making is actually protection.

Being smart can become connected to worth. If you were praised for good grades or being the person who knew the answer, being “smart” may feel safer than trusting something you can’t neatly prove.

That can show up in business as constantly looking for another expert, course, strategy, or opinion before you move.

It can also show up as immediately changing something because another smart person questions it.

The pattern isn’t that asking for advice is bad. The pattern is deciding that someone else must be right because you don’t trust yourself enough to stay in the conversation with your own instincts.

Your Next Action Step

Choose one decision you’re currently making in your coaching business and give yourself 10 quiet minutes before asking anyone else what they think.

Drive, walk, sit somewhere quiet, or free-write.

Ask yourself:

What do I already think the answer is?

Then notice whether you immediately start arguing with your own answer.

You don’t have to make a giant decision today. The goal is simply to practice hearing yourself before outside opinions get involved.

Want Help Taking the Next Step?

If you’re making business decisions and having a hard time separating your own guidance from everything you’ve been told you’re supposed to do, private work with me may be a good next step.

The goal isn’t for me to hand you the answers. It’s to help you understand yourself, talk through what you’re seeing, and find the decisions that actually fit you and your business.

Let's Chat - no obligation, just help

If you haven’t discovered your Endotype yet, take the Endotype Formula Quiz to start understanding how you naturally operate.

https://www.endotype.com

Listen Next

Suggested related episode topic: What a lack of self-trust is costing you in your coaching business.

I close this episode by sharing that the next conversation will explore another price we pay when we don’t trust ourselves.

About Laura Hulleman

Laura Hulleman is the founder and creator of the Endotype Formula and host of Getting Coaches Paid. She helps coaches understand themselves, their clients, and the way they naturally build their businesses so they can create an income and impact they are proud of.

Episode Transcript

Laura Hulleman:

Hi friend, I’m so glad you joined me on the podcast today.

Today we’re going to talk a little bit about trust.

On our last episode of the podcast, we talked with Terry, and one of the things that we discussed was using our intuition to make choices, and to price things, and to choose between decisions.

An awesome idea. But only, like Terry said, if you trust the choices.

She made the mistake, and I’ve made the mistake in the past too, of not trusting the choices.

Every time I’ve trusted the choice, it’s turned out well. Every time I’ve not trusted the choice, it’s turned out not so well.

Why don’t we do that more often?

I think for a couple of reasons.

First of all, I think if you’re like me, you get busy, and you’re smart.

I’m smart. You’re smart.

And our brain starts taking over. Our ego, the id, whatever you want to call it, right?

And we’re like, “This is what we do because I’m smart. I studied marketing because I’m smart. I took that course because I’m smart. This is what it should be.”

But what we don’t realize is sometimes smart is a protection mechanism.

Sometimes smart is the way that our young child or our adolescent self creates worth and value.

Think about it. When you were a kid, did you get praised, rewarded, or monetized for getting A’s on your report card?

Did you feel better when you got A’s than when you got a C?

Smart. Yay. I’m good now.

And here you are running a business, still trying to get an A because you’re smart, not because you trust your inner guidance.

Yeah. Maybe that’s not you. Maybe it’s just me.

Just me. That’s fine. It’s just me.

But it is something that I’ve had, and I continue to have to move through, is that trust.

Here’s where it gets weird.

There are a lot of business coaches out there. There are a lot of business people out there that are like, “Hustle and grind. Do the work.”

What does Dave Ramsey say?

“Live for two years like nobody else is willing to, so you can live the rest of your life like nobody else is able to.”

My best Dave Ramsey right there. I didn’t get enough twang on it, but it’s close, right?

There’s this mentality of hustle.

Sometimes trust is slow down.

Sometimes trust is rest.

When is it rest and when is it avoidance?

You know that by checking in.

Maybe you have an amazing coach who can ask you that question: “What’s your next step? And is this trust?”

Or is taking this next step about going back to the grind? Grinding it out? Doing the hard work?

The clients that I work with, and probably if you’re listening to this podcast, you’re not afraid to do the work.

You’re not afraid of implementation.

Those are the people that I work absolutely best with.

It’s also the people that struggle to actually slow down, listen, and trust.

The other thing, the other reason why trust is so difficult, is because most of us don’t know how to listen.

We don’t know what to listen for.

We don’t have a practice of it.

When I say the word journaling, what’s your response?

I don’t love journaling, per se.

I do love free-writing out my thoughts.

Do I do it every day?

Nope, I sure don’t.

I love going and sitting by the water and just listening.

I love taking a drive, right?

I call it windshield meditation.

A lot of my great ideas come from when I’m driving.

I love verbally processing with other people.

That’s why coaching has been so valuable for me all of these years.

But here’s the challenge.

You have to be around the right people, and you have to understand that those people don’t have your answers.

I frequently collaborate with some really smart folks, folks that have been on this podcast as experts.

And those folks will say, “Oh, you know, I’m not sure I like that idea,” or, “I like this thing. I think it’s like this.”

And I will listen.

But we’re going to play that TikTok game: We listen and we don’t judge ourselves as wrong.

We just listen.

Because usually, because of the people I’ve surrounded myself with, there’s a kernel of truth in it.

There’s a whiff of the thing that I’m also sensing.

That’s why I’m verbally processing.

I don’t think this idea is quite done yet. I need to just kind of talk it out.

I think there’s something that I’m missing.

And they’ll be like, “Well, I think it’s more like this.”

And probably 75 to 80% of the time, they’re wrong.

But they’re in the right vein.

So when they can help me identify that tunnel, that vein, where I need to go and explore, I need to go figure it out, that’s very, very helpful to me.

But see, in my past, when I trusted myself less, when I trusted intuition and guidance less, I would have said, “Oh, they’re right. Okay. Oh, you’re so smart. You’re smarter than me. Oh, change my marketing. Change my course. Change my thing.”

When I work with coaches all the time, I tell them, “I don’t have your answers, but I think we can find them together.”

Do you believe that?

Do you believe that with your clients, that your job as a coach is to help them find their answers?

Do you practice it in your own business?

Trust is hard.

Especially when we have learned for so many years not to trust ourselves.

And we have, right?

How many times were you told, “Just do what I tell you to do,” as a kid?

Which is necessary.

We would have been licking wall sockets and electrocuting ourselves.

We didn’t know enough.

We were immature.

We needed the guidance.

And some of our parents did a good job of starting to put us on track of trusting our own guidance.

But dare I say, the majority of our parents did not.

They continued to want to control all the way through into our adulthood.

And then, right, we go and get a job, and we’re told what to do.

And then we go and get a spouse, and we’re told what to do.

And we just continue to not trust ourselves.

So now here you are in your own business with a lack of trust.

That’s a challenge.

And it’s a challenge for an even bigger reason.

We’re going to talk about that next week.

We’re going to talk about the other price you’re paying around trust.

Tune in.