We’re all human, right? We make mistakes – often multiple times – and experience setbacks. As a coach, vulnerability is a powerful tool; however, it can be difficult to be vulnerable without undermining your credibility as a coach. What is the right balance of seeming human without looking like a hot mess?
Don’t Be Afraid to Admit Your Mistakes
Accountability is a positive trait for coaches to have. Your coaching clients will respect you more if you admit your mistakes and make an effort to fix them rather than trying to cover up mistakes. If you screw up, be honest. Make amends.
Be willing to share mistakes that you have learned from so your coaching clients learn from those mistakes too. Make sure these mistakes happened far enough in the past that your coaching clients don’t worry that you’re the blind leading the blind. Make sure that there is demonstratable proof that you learned from your mistakes and have turned things around.
How to Make Fewer Mistakes
Being accountable for your mistakes only goes so far. If you continue to make similar mistakes, then you are just saying the right thing instead of putting the work in to do better next time. Mistakes happen but look at how you can avoid that mistake happening in the future. You can do this by:
- Double-checking things before they go live
- Hiring someone who can do the task to a higher standard
- Educating yourself so you can make improvements
- Changing your processes to prevent this from happening in the future
- Expanding your team so you have more time and focus to spend on your tasks
Build fail-safes like these into your processes so it becomes easier to avoid making the same mistakes than it is to make the mistakes.
Be Selective About What You Share
Even in your personal relationships, you will be selective about what you share with people. Some things you’ll be happy to share with acquaintances and work colleagues. Some things will be reserved for close relationships or even people with experience or interests in particular areas.
You should treat your coaching business the same way. Building a personal brand doesn’t mean you have to share everything. In fact, it is beneficial to hold things back. You need to protect your mental health and your peace. Unfortunately, when you put yourself out there online, you will deal with trolls. That’s something that is outside of your control. What you can control is the information those trolls have access to. Don’t put anything out there that would be painful to have thrown in your face.
It’s a delicate balance to put enough out there to allow your ideal coaching clients to get to know and trust you without giving people ammunition to use against you. Trust your gut. Do what feels right to you.
Vulnerabilities That Undermine Your Authority
The best way to prevent undermining your authority is to avoid sharing vulnerabilities that would cause your ideal coaching clients to question your expertise or ability to coach them. Here are some vulnerabilities that are left unshared:
- Issues with past coaching clients
- Mistakes in your area of expertise that happened in the last 3 years
- Mistakes in your area of expertise that you haven’t learned from and made significant improvements on
- Problems or mistakes that call your judgement into question
- Mistakes or problems that show a problematic mindset or bad attitude that would make coaching clients question the experience of working with you
These vulnerabilities could lead to a lead rethinking if they want to work with you, even if you can show improvements.
Vulnerabilities That Make You More Human
TikTok is living proof that people value the unedited and raw. They want to relate to people instead of feeling bad about falling so far short of the people they look up to. In addition to using case studies to show that you can help people get from where your leads are now to incredible results, you can use stories of mistakes you made to make yourself more relatable. We’ve covered ways of being vulnerable that undermine your expertise. Here are some ways of being vulnerable that will make you more human:
- Mistakes that you made in your personal life
- Your need to rest or take a break because you are feeling overwhelmed/sick/exhausted
- Ah-ha moments you experienced outside of your coaching business
- What expertise you seek out from coaches or experts
- What you learned from applying a lesson you teach in an unexpected area of your life
If in doubt, ask yourself if you were reading this story from a coach, how would you feel about that coach? Would it make you like them more or less? Would it make you trust their ability as a coach more or less?
TLDR: Don’t be afraid to be vulnerable. Embracing your fallibility and humanness is a strength not a weakness. Just pick the stories you share carefully to ensure they don’t make you seem unlikeable or like less of an expert.