Ep #80: Why You Procrastinate & How to Stop with Sarah Arnold-Hall

You are listening to the Overthinkers Guide to Joy episode 80. This is the one
where I interview an expert on procrastination, how to overcome it, and how to
achieve your goals. Let's dive in. This is a podcast for overthinkers, overdoers,
and overachievers who are tired of feeling over -anxious and just want to feel
better. I'm your host, certified life coach Jackie de Crinis.
All right. Well, welcome back, friends. I have a special guest for you today. This
is my friend and colleague who lives across the planet from me.
Actually, not that far. Another island in the Pacific. She is Sarah Arnold-Hall, and
she is a procrastination coach who helps entrepreneurs actually execute their business
goals. She currently lives in Wellington, New Zealand. And I am so honored to have
her today on my podcast. Welcome, Sarah. - Yay, thank you so much,
Jackie. I'm really so excited to be here. - I am super excited to be here. We know
each other only remotely. We've taken courses together. We've maintained a friendship
for a number of years now as coaching colleagues. And like many of my coaching
colleagues, we share best practices and frustrations illustrations and stories. It's so
much fun to have a friend across the ocean and somebody I feel so connected to who
I have never met in person, but many, many Zoom calls and many emails and I just
adore her and I know you're going to adore her too. So welcome. So tell everybody
a little bit about what you do. Yeah. Okay. So what I do is I help entrepreneurs
who know what they need to be doing to get to their next level.
So whether that they have a particular goal or they want to grow their business, I
help them actually execute it because this is something that I really struggled with
in the beginning was I was taking all the courses, I was learning all the
materials, I listened to the podcast, I did all of the things that you're told to
do as an entrepreneur, like learning everything, and I would have a different
marketing plan every week. And I was always looking for that new shiny thing, and I
just couldn't get myself to actually follow through with one particular plan until it
worked. So I would always take action, but not enough and not in a way that
produced results. I would often try and do a huge, crazy plan for like,
you know, I wanted to build like a multi -million dollar company instead of like,
how do I get my first client. And so I would always be holding myself back. And
so once I learned how to overcome that, and I actually blogged every day for two
years, I meditated every day for a year, and I learned how to be disciplined enough
to follow through with a plan, then other people started asking me and I started
teaching them how to follow through on what they say they're going to do. I love
that. So give us an idea of what kind of entrepreneurs you work for. A lot of
times people, particularly people like me who had a background entirely prior to
being a coach, entirely in corporate life. I didn't even really know what an
entrepreneur was. I thought an entrepreneur was somebody who built things in their
garage. I thought of entrepreneurs like Steve Jobs, people who invented stuff and
then took it out to market and became a corporation later. But there's so many
layers to what that word means, entrepreneur. So I'd love you to kind of break it
down and talk about some of the clients that you work with, big and small. Yeah,
absolutely. Well, I think of an entrepreneur as anyone who's doing their own thing
to create income, that there's no like clear path for it,
right? That you're not being paid by someone else to do directly, you get paid by
your customers rather than by your boss. So that's a wide range of things.
I worked with people who, one of my favorite stories as a past client of mine who
came to me saying she wanted to open a bookshop. And she was like, "I think I can
do it in a year." And I was like, "No, I think you can do it in six months." So
she came on for six months. And in nine weeks, she had a bookstore open on the
high street where she lived. And she was making a 25 ,000 pounds in her first month
in terms of revenue and sales. And it was just a complete 180 from where she was
before. So that's a good example of someone who could be considered an entrepreneur.
I also work with a client who's a lawyer and she owns a huge law firm that she
created herself. And so she is trailblazing the next level of where her law firm
wants to go. So there's any type of entrepreneurship, including a lot of people who
are starting their own small businesses, like freelancers even. Anyone who just
doesn't have that clear path to where they need to go, that's my person.
And I know that when we met, and it's a shade of gray different, but you were
doing impossible goals when I first met you. That was kind of your brand. That was
your niche. What was the segue? Or is it still feeling, is that really still very
much the marketing lens that you go through, which is the idea that somebody has a
goal they just don't think is achievable and you make it achievable for them? Yes,
that's it. That's true for entrepreneurs as well. So, I actually teach impossible
goals in my program and seating them up. So, the reason that I made this segue is
I realized there's going after your impossible goal and then there's just what's
stopping you. And I realized that where I'm a real expert is in helping people
overcome what's actually stopping them. And I realized once people can have that
skill of following through on what they say they're going to do, now you just need
the plan. And that can be done with a bunch of different ways. You can have an
expert create you a plan, you can create one yourself. But the main problem that my
people were facing wasn't that they didn't have a plan that could work. It was that
they weren't doing doing it. So that's why I ended up transitioning across more to
focusing on the action piece. I love that. Do you find, and is it again,
maybe too large of a question, and I'll chunk it down if need be, but do you find
that most people have difficulty manifesting or achieving their goals because of a
mindset piece? There's a blocked limited belief, or is it actually an organization
piece. I think the mindset precedes the organization. I think it's the reason why
you're not organized. I had a client a couple of days ago say to me, "Oh, I don't
want to put anything on a calendar. I like to go with the flow." I'm like, "Okay,
this is a thought. I like to go with the flow. Do you prefer that thought or do
you prefer achieving all your goals?" Because you can absolutely have flow within
your structure, but if you want to create what you want on a timeline that you
want it on, you can't expect to just go with how you feel because most of the
time you're not going to feel like doing whatever the thing is. - So you hold them
accountable to a schedule in their-- - They hold themselves accountable to a schedule,
yes. I teach them how to be accountable. - So when you're working with people who
are artists, and I use that term loosely 'cause I define artist as anybody who
creates something, right? So it can be somebody who literally paints or sculpts.
It can be somebody who writes. It can be a musician. It can be an actor. It can
be all kinds of different artists. Oftentimes, artists tend to work when they feel
the spirit sort of shows up, right? The muse shows up like you articulated.
They go with the flow. And what happens to an artist, if they only write or create
or sculpt or do whatever they do, even act, when the mood strikes them,
is that nothing gets done. How do you give a creative person that container,
or how do you help them create that container when their entire life has been, but
I can only write, paint, slash, sing when the mood strikes me. - Yeah, that's such
a good question. So I don't know if I'm gonna get the quote exactly right, but
Rick Rubin, he speaks in his book about creativity.
He says that creativity is making decisions based on your taste. And I love that
because it puts the ability to do it back in your hands at any point. the
inspiration doesn't have to strike. And I would say for me, it's the best when the
inspiration strikes and it's just like flowing out of you so beautifully and it just
sort of happens on its own. But in order to have those moments, you have to create
space for that to happen. And I really like regularly scheduling time to get into
that zone or the feeling, the vortex, some people call it, really matters.
So I think the most important thing that I do any day is getting into the identity
of who I want to be and really feeling and embodying that spark,
that creativity. So every morning I asked myself the same three questions. I actually
just did it in the journal that I have right here. And I asked myself three
questions. What result do I want? Who do I need to be to create that result?
And then now that I already am that person, what do I believe? What do I do? What
do I eat? What do I wear? How do I show up? - I love that. - Thank you. By
getting into that, I feel like I'm opening up the possibility for creativity to come
in. But you have to allow structured space in your life because if you just wait,
then creativity shows up. And it's often not gonna show up. Sometimes I have days
where I just get so frustrated and I'm like, I tried to make a video three times
today and just didn't happen. But tomorrow, I'm going to try again and maybe the
creativity will come. So let me dial back to that. So the idea is that you
schedule your client, your ideal client, schedules the time in which they want to
execute this thing that they want to do. So if it's a marketing piece or a
creation piece. Like in the case, I coach a lot of Hollywood writers. And so they
obviously at times, if they're not working on a show or on a particular movie
deadline, when they're in what we call the spec phase, meaning they're writing for
their next project, they're writing for the anticipation of getting their next gig or
maybe selling something on spec. There's not a lot of motivation because There's no
paycheck, there's no boss, there's no timeline, and weeks will go by and sometimes
I'll have writers who are like, "I'm just stuck. They call it writer's block, but
it's basically just stuck." What we talk about a lot is scheduling time to sit down
and write, and they're like, "Many will push back." It doesn't work like that. I
can't just write from 10 to noon, and I said, "Well, but you can schedule that
time that that's all you're doing." even if nothing comes out, you're sitting down
writing. You're in agreement with that for your entrepreneurs. - 100%. I think it
was, oh, there's a famous writer. I can't remember his, I know his name is Victor.
I'm gonna get the first or last name wrong, but he was saying that he ordered his
servants to like lock him in his room and take away all his clothes in his office.
So he had no choice but to just sit and write or stare out the window. That's it.
There were no other options because you couldn't leave yet, no clothes. That's
amazing. I just kind of love. I think you have to create space for creativity. I
think creativity is waiting all the time, but we don't give it the opportunity
because you're busy doing the dishes or doing something else before watching TV. But
if you sat down, you're like, "All right, come now, creativity." It's not always
going to come the way you want it to, but you can create a lot more of it if
you deliberately get yourself the space. And how often do you find somebody comes
back and says, "Well, I scheduled two hours every single day for my marketing plan,
or I scheduled two hours to write my novel, or I scheduled two hours to write a
song." And nothing happened. I've never heard anyone say it. And I don't think
that's because creativity doesn't. I think people, if there's a challenge, it's that
people then after the first day go, "It didn't work the first day, I'm not even
going to follow through the next day." I'm not even going to sit down the next
day. I think if you sit down and you follow through on that for five days in a
row, something's going to come. Yeah, it would be rare. I mean, if it was, I mean,
we would just coach on it and we would figure out, okay, how can we look for
other ways to get inspired? I personally find that sometimes I just have had a lack
of inspiration recently. And so I'll listen to somebody's podcast and I'll be like,
"That is such a great concept. How would that apply to something totally different?
Maybe it's about cooking or something. How does that apply to my people?" And then
I get all the spark of inspiration. But I think there's questions, right? You have
to keep asking yourself, "How does this apply? Where could this be applicable to my
thing? How could I make something out of this other the thing that I think is
amazing. We're cross -pollinating all the time, but you have to ask yourself the
questions in order to have the inspiration arrive. I totally agree. I love the idea
of hunting for inspiration. Now, not to the point where you're in a rabbit hole and
you're on YouTube videos, and then your day is gone because all you've done is
watch funny clips and hamsters doing pushups or whatever. I love the idea that when
you're stuck creatively to go out and read something, or listen to something, or
watch something. And again, not mindless television, right? But like a classic movie,
or read a phenomenal book, or listen to an inspiring podcast, and glean something
from that that you take to whatever audience you're trying to create. I think that's
just such good advice. Well, and I think you can just decide this podcast I'm about
to listen to. This will be the one I'm going to get the inspiration. You just
decide, I'm going to give myself this one YouTube video or this one thing and I
have to take something from it. Because I think that's where the real creativity
comes when you actually do like create boundaries. Uh -huh. Uh -huh. This goes to
something that I talk a lot about and something I was very guilty of for most of
my life, but about multitasking versus focus. And I think there was a good decade,
and I think we're still in it because of smartphones and all the things, right?
Where people believe multitasking is the answer to time management.
And I can see you shaking your head and I feel the same way. And I think it's
the kryptonite to time management. I think we think by multitasking, we're meeting
all of our masters. And I think what ultimately happens is it kills creativity and
it kills focus. I think there's like a very specific type of multitasking you can
do that is where your brain, I don't know the actual brain science behind it, but
it's doing two different things. So for example, I know that I can listen to music
and put on the washing at the same time. I can listen to a podcast and go for a
walk, no problem. - Yes, yes, yes. - Because they're like completely different skills
and one of them is being done, you know, either on autopilot or one part of your
brain, I always could listen to music while I was doing art at school, but I
couldn't while I was doing English because it's like using the same bit of my brain
and it's like switching too fast back between them whereas for some and I can kind
of do both. Yes, I agree with that. Well, I talk a lot about that like when I'm
writing my blog posts or I'm creating a podcast, I listen to classical music because
that actually calms my brain down so that I can then focus on the task at hand.
But I wouldn't be able to listen to pop music because there's lyrics and there's
like a beat and like it would, to your point, can't listen to music and learn
English or study English. that doesn't work for my brain, but classical music does.
In fact, it helps me kind of get in the zone when I need to focus. So that's
sort of my trick. But I don't consider that multitasking, I consider that actually
inspirational.
So a little bit different. Yeah. And obviously, we can, you know, drive a car and
listen to the radio, right? That's multitasking to some degree. But to your point,
one is a little bit autopilot and using a different part of the brain and the in
the other, but you wouldn't want to learn to drive with the music. Blaring.
Absolutely not. It's like sometimes if you've ever been in it with a driver who's
like, "This is just a really stressful park. Can we turn off the music, please?"
Yeah, yeah. Because it's like the brain just doesn't want to do them both. Well,
even now in the very sophisticated automobiles where everything is automated, there's
sensors like if you're merging And somebody's coming or it's got blind spot, it's
got all these beeps, right? There's even a sensor now where when you put your car
in reverse, it actually automatically turns down your radio. Wow. Uh -huh. Now,
it doesn't turn it off, but it turns it down. And the implication being that it
takes more focus to look at whether it's a rear camera or you're just looking in
your rear view mirror than it does going forward. And then it knows that you need
to turn down the sound so you can hear the sounds behind you. So it's just
interesting what the brain can do. And I've known people, there was a writer I knew
who managed three huge series, just, you know, 26 episodes a season.
He was the executive producer of all three. So he was always going back and forth
between shows, post -production, writing, all the things. And he had five kids and
was able to sit in the kitchen and write or rewrite a script while all five kids
were like running around and like his wife was making dinner or whatever, his wife
was an executive. And I was like, how does he do that? And she just said he has
just laser focus when it comes to writing and he likes being around the family. So
it kind of kills two birds with one stone. He gets to be present. I mean, he's
not playing with them. He's writing, But they get to like have their lives and not
have to like tiptoe around and he just goes to work. And I don't think I could do
that. I think if I were writing and rewriting 26 episodes of a show, I would need,
you know, to be like locked in a cave in silence. But that worked for him. So
everybody's brain is different. Yeah, you have to be honest about what kind of brain
you got as well. Because it can be easy to be like, Oh, like, I'll just quickly
do this other thing. But actually, for most of us, we need to not do that.
- Yeah, particularly the phones, right? So if the ding of a text or the ding of an
email or a phone ringing distracts you like it does me, I absolutely have to
silence my phone when I'm doing laser work or focused work because my eyeballs will
easily slide over to the phone and like, oh, what's happening over there?
- Yeah. - Definitely. Yeah. So you had the bookstore client who opened a brick -and
-mortar bookstore within nine weeks, which is kind of unbelievable. I mean, even to
identify where you could have a bookstore, not to mention sign a lease, get the
books, figure out the business plan, all the things, that sounds like a huge win.
Tell me some other really kind of just interesting and out -of -the -box clients that
you've coached for impossible goals or business goals. Sure. One client I actually
met at an event and he was a brand new coach and he had this goal to pay back
his mother, I think, for his certification, which was like $21 ,000. And he wanted
to do it in a month because she had like a surgery that she wanted to have. So
he had this deadline, this timeline to make $21 ,000 in his first month as a coach.
He wanted to make it in 21 days. that was his goal. And I overheard him say,
you know, I've got like a 17 page plan to do this. And I was like, oh, no. Oh,
no. So I went up to him and I was immediately like, we have to create you a new
plan. And I've never seen anybody like have such a big goal in the beginning that
feels so impossible, achieve it in such a short space of time. So in the end, he
created 21k in 28 days in his first ever month as an entrepreneur,
which we worked together doing this. We created him a simple plan that was like no
bigger than you could have written it on a business card. And he just went out and
executed it. And every week he would come back with challenges. And he met 750
people in one week. He had 750 conversations. And that's how he created the
opportunities. I think most people just aren't willing to do that kind of thing. So
if he came with a spatial kind of willingness, was incredible. - Wow. Where did he
meet? I mean, you can't be too specific 'cause we don't wanna give away his
identity. Where would somebody even meet 750 people unless they're going to a massive
event or maybe he went to a massive event? - No, he made them all online. - No
kidding. - He talked to 150 people individually. Wow.
He pulled sick days from his job. He pulled out all the stops. He was like, "I'm
going to do this." And it was incredible. Even 21 days passed and he hadn't closed
all of the people, right? Some of the people were still thinking about it. And he
just decided to keep going. He didn't give up at that point. He wasn't there yet,
and he just kept going. And I think there's this determination that I see with my
clients. If you have that ambition and that determination, but you just have a block
because it's so overwhelming, such a big goal. That's what I helped my clients with
really unlocking that block to get them to take the action. But my best clients all
come pre -determined. That's a different word, but pre -determined.
They are so determined and they're so ambitious. They already come with that kind of
label of desire, and then it's pouring gasoline gasoline on a fire. That's amazing.
So we started talking a little bit about, and I don't know if I articulated this
completely, but thought work versus action. And you said, I think it starts with the
thoughts. Like in other words, I think it starts with digging through what are the
limiting beliefs people have that are preventing them from achieving their goals. And
I think it might accurate to say sort of clearing out those cobwebs before you even
put in an action plan? Actually, we do it the other way around. So I think the
reason why there's some of those cobwebs there are there is because you just can't
visualize what the plan is. So I always do the first thing we do is we create the
plan. And then we look at the plan and go, now what are the cobwebs? Now what are
all of the thoughts? Because sometimes there's a whole bunch of thoughts that get
eliminated that you don't even need to worry about because they're no longer relevant
because of the plan. So I always create the plan first with my clients and then we
do like figuring out what's stopping them from doing that plan and what's gonna hold
them back. - So interesting. And how much of the work would you say that you do?
I mean, you can talk about it in percentage or just kind of in general is belief
work. So not different than limiting beliefs, right? Like there's a lot of authors
who talk about money blocks, right? So people who get in business, they're reasonably
successful in terms of attracting clients and they seem to have a good product,
and yet money doesn't come or the business makes sense. And when they get into it,
and again, so many coaches have written on this subject about money beliefs and
limiting money beliefs and money blocks, a lot of times there's like a hidden belief
that people aren't deserving, they don't think they're deserving of money, or they're
afraid of making more money than their parents had, or they think money is dirty,
or they think money is the root of all evil. But it's a hidden belief, and it
shows up in their business. So even though they maybe have a good product, or even
though they're well -liked, they don't seem to make a living in their business
because of that. A lot of people say, "Well, that's very woo," meaning sort of
esoteric and not concrete. And you kind of have to sort of give up this limiting
belief to the universe. How much of your work do you do on those elements?
Well, a lot. So I'm going to say like 80 % of the work that we do is figuring
out every session is like, why are you not doing the thing? Right? Like, that's
ultimately the question. You need to do the thing. what's stopping you? Why haven't
you already done it? Or why are you not moving into it? And it's always going to
come down to what they're thinking, what they're believing about doing that thing.
There's five different emotions that they're creating within themselves. So they're
either confused, overwhelmed, self -doubting, fearful, or lethargic.
Those are the five. All right. So we'd say those again, because I want to make
notes and I want to talk about each one of them. There's basically five feelings
that can get in the way. - Five feelings that stop people from taking action. And
I've deduced this list over years of working with people and realizing, hang on a
second, there's really only five. And the beautiful thing about these five is they
kind of lead into each other, right? So if you're confused, like I don't know what
to do, suddenly you're overwhelmed by everything there is to do. And then you start
to doubt yourself. Can I really do this? Which brings up all of the fear, like
what if it doesn't happen? And then you feel lethargic. Well, there's no point even
doing it. Why would I even bother? So there's a reason they're even in that order
when I describe them as confusion, overwhelm, self -doubt, fear, and lethargy.
Interesting. So the first thing then to do is clear up the confusion. Exactly.
Which is why we create the simple plan immediately. >> Okay. And sometimes I would
presume that requires hiring somebody to get them out of the confusion, right? So,
like, if you're trying to, for example, build a website for your new product or
business, and you know nothing about computers, then that might mean either
researching how to build a website or hiring somebody to build your website. Yes?
Yes. Yes. Websites is a really good example, because I really stare people away from
websites. Always. Websites create this huge challenge in the beginning. So I talk a
lot with my clients about result producing action. And the example that I give is
like, if you are a professional basketballer, the result producing action is to shoot
the ball into the basket. None of the other actions that you do, whether it's
running up and down the court, pumping weights in the gym, defending even, none of
those things get you the result because without shooting the ball into the basket,
you don't have the result. And so we're trying to focus as much as our energy as
possible on the result producing action. And the way you can figure out what your
result producing action is, is to figure out what is the action that comes directly
before the result that I want. So if you're wanting to create a customer, usually
the result producing action is to ask somebody to buy from you. And so that's where
your focus should be. It's possible that maybe you need to have a website because
you're selling, say, e -commerce things. And so, yes, the thing before that would be
there needs to be a payment platform. But it's suddenly a lot simpler than putting
up this entire website. You need a sales page that people can click with a button,
right? So we break it down really, really simply. Usually people don't have to hire
out, but sometimes my clients do. They'll hire someone to help them with a website
or a freelancer to help them with something specific. If that's the confusion. Right.
Yeah. So then the overwhelm starts to dissipate once we identify or you identify the
Mm -hmm. We've got a simple plan. We're looking at, we're like, almost always my
clients go, "Oh, is that all?" Like, I thought this was going to be really tricky.
But once we've just really eliminated all the fluff and we're just looking at what
are the result -producing actions, there's very few things. Almost always my clients
have less than five things that they actually need to do. So that removes the
overwhelm. Then when the overwhelm is gone, then the self -doubt starts to paid.
Well, yes. And if it hasn't, then we've got some clear ideas of like, where is the
self doubt in these steps? We've got five things here that you need to do. Like,
where's the self doubt showing up? And we can very clearly start to work on it.
Because we're not just working on, I'm not just doing like a whole session with a
client on feeling worthy, like we're looking at the specific thing that's stopping
them. Because I really think most people are always going to have a level of
confusion level of confusion, overwhelm, self -doubt, fear, and lethargy throughout
everything they do. So we're not trying to solve self -worth forever. We're trying to
solve it for this one action that you need to do to overcome that so you can
learn how to let go of the fear of what people will think. In that moment,
you can do it again next time, at least then trying to make someone feel, we're
not going to heal all of their childhood wounds in one coaching session. Right,
right, right. And then the lethargy dissipates once the fear is gone, or that's what
your observation has been. It can. I think the lethargy is probably the sneakiest
one, because after you've gotten rid of all of the other things that feel like
legitimate excuses, like, "Well, I don't know what to do and I don't have enough
time, and who am I to do this," and all of these things, suddenly you're left
with, "Oh, I just really don't feel like doing it. Like, that's honestly, I just
don't want to get up and do it. And so that one, I think is actually the most
challenging of the five, because you really have to dig deep and get yourself to do
stuff that you just honestly just don't feel like doing. You'd rather be doing
something else or it's just such a challenge. And do you see people giving up on
their goals when they let the lethargy win? Yes, that's the one that affects people
the most. So I'd love to and tell me if it's a natural segue for your people
because it certainly is for mine, which is because I deal with so many creative
people, a lot of perfectionism in my clientele and perfectionism,
which can be lovely in small doses because it can make you work,
and strive for being the best at something, or being really, really skilled in some
way, and that's really important to stand out in a creative field. But when
perfectionism becomes debilitating, because as you know, perfectionism often becomes a
spiral of not finishing, because so many people think it'll never be good enough so
they either never get started or they never finish it one or the other. Do you see
that also with entrepreneurs and business goals? Yes. And I would say the distinction
that I make is that perfectionism is the action that comes from one of those five
things. So if you're self -doubting, often that creates the act of you being a
perfectionist with your work. But I think perfectionism itself is not like an emotion
that you're having. The emotion is the self -doubt or the fear that's creating or
the confusion that creates the perfectionism. And so how do you coach out of that
piece of this, what would be masquerading as perfectionism but looking like self
-doubt? Well, my favorite thing to look at is, especially with entrepreneurs, we're
always doing this for someone else. There's always someone else involved. There's a
customer or someone you're serving. And I'm always telling my clients, like the
analogy I imagine is like a battlefield of people. And there's all of these people
who have just been injured. And you are a hospital. And you have to go out and
tell people that you exist as a hospital. Some of those people are going to be
like, "A hospital? Oh my gosh, amazing. Take me there right now." Other people are
going to be like, "I don't know if a hospital is really going to work for me
right now. I'm bleeding. I've got my legs completely broken. It's never going to
work." And with those people, sometimes you can talk to them more and help them
convince them to come and sometimes you can't. But there's a battlefield of people
who don't know that you exist. And when it comes down to worrying about having it
look perfect or do something perfectly, you can spend time making the hospital walls
paint them a different color. You know, you can make it all lovely and you can try
and get the best doctors in the world. But ultimately, if you're not going out and
telling people you exist, yeah, like they are lying on the battlefield, dying.
That's a dramatic analogy in my head. Like they're really struggling. They're in so
much pain and you're not telling them, Hey, I exist. I'm here to help you with the
problem. So I think that the imposter syndrome or the self -doubt that often sparks
perfectionism comes from focusing on ourselves. And the moment that you take the
focus off you and you put it onto someone else, if you saw someone who was
hurting, you're not going to think, "Let me just quickly get another qualification."
You're just going to run over and help and you might not be the most qualified
person to help, but you're the first person on the scene, you're going to help
until someone else can. So you've got to take the focus off you and start putting
it on other people. And imposter syndrome, self -doubt, it just very quickly
disappears when you realize that it's not about you and it is about helping. I love
that. How did you come to this line of work? How did you come to coaching? That's
such a good question. I study psychology in philosophy at university.
Looking back, I can see how much more philosophy has actually influenced my ability
as a coach, not psychology. People assume psychology would be. But in psychology, on
the first day, we were told, "Your opinions don't matter. We don't care." Literally,
they said this, "We've done the research. We don't want to hear what you have to
think." And in philosophy, they're always interested in how you can sculpt a new
argument. And I think coaching is essentially arguing against your brain's beliefs.
You're looking at where's the false premise here. And that's what we're doing all
the time in philosophy. No, that doesn't make sense. You can't come to that
conclusion because it's built on some false beliefs. And so that really helped me
build that skill. but I thought I would be a psychologist. And then I really wanted
to work with people on flourishing and on really going where they wanted to go.
And I found that the psychology was going to be really heavy, although I really
admire psychologists for doing the work. Really, I created the dream job that I
have, like I wanted to do exactly what I'm doing now. And so I couldn't do that
in the current system that we have. 100%. Yeah. I share that and I love that.
I love that explanation. And it's true. Philosophy is to be sort of redundant in
the term, but is based on the Socratic method, right? The arguing of the point and
challenging the basis of the belief and psychology is prove it,
you know, run an experiment, run a double blind experiment, make sure that it's
quantifiable, and then you can make that declaration or that determination. I have a
bachelor's degree in psychology as well, and I'd love psychology, but I think your
analysis of marrying the two is so apropos for coaching,
which is really bringing the best of psychology with the best of philosophy and
creating this hybrid so that we can challenge the thoughts, and not everything has
to be quantifiable to be effective. Exactly. So good. So good.
So tell the listeners where they can find you, how they can follow you, how they
could work with you, learn more about what you do, your podcast, all the things.
Yes, they should definitely come and listen to my podcast. It's called Stop
Procrastinating for Entrepreneurs, and you can find it on YouTube or Spotify,
Apple, everybody listen to podcasts or you can find me under Sarah Arnold-Hall on
any platform. I want all of them under my name. Awesome. Sarah, thank you so much
for taking the time and telling us about what you do and how you came to do it
and sharing your philosophies and so good. And I always learn something when I talk
to you. So I learned something again today. I loved it. And Thank you. Thank you
so much for having me. It's been so fun. I'll talk to you soon. All right, bye.
Thank you for listening to this episode of The Overthinker's Guide to Joy. If you're
enjoying these episodes, please subscribe or follow this podcast so you can always be
in the know when the next episode drops. If you would like to learn more about
working with me as a coach, you can connect with me through my website at
jackiedecrinis.com. That's J -A -C -K -I -E -D -E -C -R -I -N -I -S dot com.