Full Episode Transcript
Hey, wonderful you. This week on the podcast, I’m gonna talk about the lessons I learned launching my very first online group coaching program. Now I’ve run many courses and programs in the past, the majority of them have been in person. Love the in-person group work, and I’ve done a few shorter courses online, which I’ve loved so much.
And this year I knew it was time to launch a longer online group coaching program that had the intention to dive deep into what’s holding us back as female business owners and to help women shift through those blocks, engage some incredible strategy accompanied with powerful mindset and create changes for themselves in their business. And so we did. And that program is called Impactful Women. I co-coach that with my wonderful colleague, Amy Lutrell. And I’m gonna talk about the things that have been personal to me around what surprised me, what lessons I learned along the way. We are two thirds through the group coaching program as I record this.
So I’ve got a really good feel for how it’s going and what I’ve learned, and I think it’s gonna be really interesting for you if you are thinking of bringing an offer out into the world, your business, a program, something you want to bring through, that you wanna offer to your clients or potential clients.
I think you’re gonna find this so interesting to see and hear the dynamics of what goes on for us when we think about launching something like this, when we actually do launch something like this, the pros and cons, the benefits, what I maybe found hard and what surprised me, and there were lots of surprises.
So let’s go. Kia ora I’m Meegan, Care mindset coach and meditation teacher. This podcast is here to help you unwind self-doubt, people pleasing, imposter syndrome, and overwhelm. So you can step into the confident leader you were born to be women. It is time to bring your purpose into the world in an impactful way without sacrificing your wellbeing.
Are you ready? Let’s begin. Personally, I’ve been in many online group coaching programs and I found them really useful. Some have been quite heavy on recorded teaching modules and some of them have been entirely live coaching on Zoom. And some of what I came for, I got in these programs and others not so much, but then there were others where I didn’t get what I came for, but I got something so much more useful and I wanted to bring a course to my clients, our community that surprised them, that helped women really get into a feeling and an attitude of powerful momentum for themselves and their business.
Cause I just see so many women around me, amazing, amazing women who have got these incredible ideas that are actually very purpose driven, will help many people. But they’re holding themselves back from bringing them out into their communities, or they are becoming really overwhelmed with the nuts and bolts, the cogs of running a business and they’re really struggling.
And so I wanted to bring through a coaching group that was gonna help women to find that confidence and courage. Let go of the overwhelm and really step into momentum. And that coaching group is called Impactful Women. And as I said, we’ve already started it. We’re partway through. And so I wanted to share some of the lessons that I’ve learned from running this course.
And it’s really the first time I’ve run a program online like this in this way, because I wanted there to be depth connection and it all had to happen on zoom. So as I said I’ve taught short group courses before. Done that for a number of years, really enjoyed it. And this was the year that I wanted to deepen into that and offer something that was really gonna create change for women.
Now, I wanted to run this coaching program as a group because I’ve seen how group coaching containers can lead to faster and bigger breakthroughs.
Obviously, for that to happen, the container needs to be set up with a lot of safety, and so I wanted to bring that into this program as. And I was also hearing the same fears, the same doubts, the same thoughts from many different women that I was talking to and coaching with individually. So really I was repeating very similar coaching and advice to them time and time again, and I wanted to create a container where women feel safe, heard, acknowledged, so important, and yet also held up to being their best and highest potential to really stepping into that.
And I wanted to offer that program with the same spaciousness and awareness that I was trained with through my Psychosynthesis Counseling diploma. One thing that really lights me up when I’m talking to my friends and to clients is the mindset stuff that being in business brings up for all of us.
So we can get the strategy, we get taught the strategy, or we get guided through the strategy, how to do something, the planning. But if your mindset, isnt tuned up to where it needs to be. Then any actions that you’re taking will not have the effects that you’re looking for. And I just wasn’t seeing this taught in the way that I’ve been taught around me.
So from a really mindful perspective, taking into account our subconscious belief system, our self-concepts, I wasn’t seeing it taught in that way. So I was seeing a lot of coaching around strategy and actually seeing friends and colleagues, women, sometimes becoming overwhelmed by it because their mindset wasn’t where it needed to be.
And when that happens, and you’ve got the strategy that you’ve decided to do, but your mindset isn’t where it needs to be, then you have a battle inside of yourself. You have conflict because one part of you wants to move forward with it, and the other part of you is like, whoa, whoa, nope, it’s not safe.
I’m not doing it. And a lot of times that can happen at that subconscious level. So we are not seeing it really, really clearly. So you’re maybe trying to implement something in your business, bring out an offer, and your nervous system is shouting. No way. Not safe. We’re not doing that, and it actually sets up procrastination and seemingly sabotaging behaviors.
But what’s actually happening when sabotage is on board in any circumstance, actually, when sabotage is on board, what that means, is that you’ve got conflict of parts of the self. And so what’s created is an impasse. Right, so you can’t move past it. You get stuck. You might be taking a lot of action, but nothing’s actually happening. There’s no momentum happening.
Now, another reason I wanted to offer a group coaching program is because I’ve seen, I’ve witnessed the speed at which we can change our beliefs and how we show up in the world through group coaching. There’s something about the group energy and that group dynamic. When it’s safe and it’s spacious and it’s led very mindfully and with a therapeutic lens.
It’s not therapy, but when you have someone trained in therapy that can go deep with the subconscious beliefs and really support you to become clear on those, to resolve them and to move past them, then when that’s happening in a group , the results are accelerated immensely, and I’ve witnessed this as a participant and I’ve witnessed it when I’ve been in the role of leader and coach.
And when the group feels like that safe place to be, then so much more change is possible and much more rapidly and way less painfully can be a really joyful, playful, dynamic experience. And in our first week of the impactful Women Group coaching program, our students were already reflecting on being seen and heard, and they were telling us that they really felt seen in their wholeness.
And to me, that’s the strongest foundation we can start from. And I think that that was really set up because we did a one day retreat before we all came together on our regular weekly calls on Zoom. And so in that retreat we got to know each other better. We got to hear our dreams and our hopes as well as our blocks and our fears.
To allow ourselves to be transparent and to be seen in person. And then we took that group energy, that dynamic into the weekly Zoom coaching calls. And that’s why I think from that first week we were already seeing breakthroughs happening really quickly because when we have that experience, when we’re in a group setting and there’s this really safe container, and I was really taught how to do this through my psychosynthesis counseling training.
We were taught how to be in a group in a spacious way, in a way that really supported safety, depth and growth. And I wanted to give the women in our group an opportunity to experience that as well. And of course our group program, it’s not therapy, but there’s some magic in this container and it creates a sense of community togetherness and safety.
And from that place we can really let ourselves flourish. And we are seeing that so beautifully with the women in the group, and I’m feeling it in myself as. . And when that happens, we start to see really surprising fast changes in our belief about ourselves and who we are and how we show up in the world.
Just starts to change really naturally. We are changing the world through that ripple effect. So powerful. This for me is about creating a movement of women who are at home in themselves, whatever that means for them, and are affecting change in their communities, and that might be through a business, that might be through their career, their relationships, through their families, the avenue through which we show up,
it doesn’t matter as much as the fact that we actually do show up in the fullness of ourselves, and I wanted to be able to help women to step into who they need to be in their business rather than what And this is why I teach mindset. This is why working on the self as a foundation makes any strategy that we do, any actions that we take so much more powerful.
And for me, I really wanted to coach a group where we got to uncover. , those subconscious resistances, you know, the ones that are keeping you spinning in perfectionism. Never quite finishing your bio or never quite finishing your offer or your sales page. Actually, 90% of our work is freeing ourselves from the inner resistance and trusting then the voice, the words that come through us. When you remove and resolve those resistances, then what you say, how you say it, what you do, how you do it. Flows and it has this magnetism because what people are seeing and who you are has this congruence. And when they witness that congruence, they feel it and they’re attracted to it.
And look, the thing is resistance. It comes up over and over. If you’re expanding out on your business, if you’re offering something new, there’s gonna be some resistance. There’s going to be a part that isn’t quite where it needs to be in terms of your self-belief, and that is gonna offer some resistance, and that resistance might come in the form of overwhelm or it might come in the form of perfectionism. So expect the resistance to arise. There’s nothing wrong with it because our business is one of the greatest personal development journeys we will take. And I’ve seen it for myself and I see it for clients that when we’ve really come home to ourselves and essentially that’s what I’m teaching when we’ve really come home to ourselves and we trust ourselves and we are connected to our intuition. We are connected to an inner confidence that doesn’t rely on external validation. When we’re that person, that wholeness of who you are. Then this personal development journey that you’re on, that is our business, right? Is fun. It can be really, really fun.
I know some of you’re not gonna believe me, that business can be fun when you have alignment with your inner self. When that’s an alignment with the actions that you are taking externally, it becomes really, really fun, . And what happens with our resistance is that it likes to stay under cover. So that we don’t actually know that it’s holding us back.
We just know that whatever we are doing is taking a really long time to complete or that we keep pushing the date back of that next thing that we’re offering, that first course that we are putting out there, we are waiting until a better time arises. We’re waiting until the moon is just right, or Mars isn’t in retrograde.
Most of what’s going on here is the interplay of our beliefs and our fears and resistance. And I’m not saying that the moon doesn’t have an impact or we need to disregard any of that kind of stuff. Not at all. We are dancing with nature. We are dancing with life, but I very often see those things used. a reason to not step forward when actually what is causing that is your own lack of belief in yourself.
And sometimes that’s hard to hear, but we are here to get free from that stuff, right? So we can take an honest look at ourselves and the way we are holding ourselves back. Cause that is the only thing that is gonna start the ball rolling on setting yourself free because this is what’s keeping you stuck. Even though you feel like you’re really busy, you actually are super busy.
You’re noticing that you are not gaining traction, you’re not gaining any momentum. So we tidy that up, we tidy up that self-concept, those beliefs, and then what happens? We get into momentum. . People hear us. They start interacting with what we are putting out there. It starts to happen. Actually this past week in our group, one of the themes that came up really clearly was this idea of just getting it done.
Getting it done messy, getting it done imperfectly, but whatever it is, just getting it done and getting it out there, and not waiting until we feel comfortable or for the perfect time to do it. Nope. Just get it done and learn to be with those horrible, uncomfortable feelings that sometimes arise when we’re doing something new, when we’re stepping outside of our comfort zone and this learning around feeling those horrible feelings. Those uncomfortable feelings. We actually have to meet this many, many times again and again. But it’s how we meet them and the who that we are being when we meet those feelings, that makes all the difference, which is where a group is so powerful. As your coach, like I can see it and I can shine that light on it with you, the resistances, the beliefs, the self-concept that is holding you back. Because how I see it is to get shit done that is short-lived, and it will also lead to overwhelm, burnout pretty quickly. But if we’re engaging our own inner authority to hold ourselves accountable, to do the stuff that makes us uncomfortable, to step outside of our comfort zone, then our will, our willingness to do what makes us uncomfortable. But what needs to be done it’s sustainable and it comes and it generates more passion and more joy for what we do rather than depleting ourselves. So I’ve been so thrilled to see women doing that, engaging that really naturally within the group.
And the other thing that has surprised me is that coaching, this group has given me so much passion for actually my communications and my writing because, so many incredible ideas and how we see ourselves and what’s holding us back. That’s all showing up through the group, and that’s all coming into, the spotlight.
We are witnessing it, we’re working through it together, with my audience on social media with my newsletters, it’s really revived how I talk about and how I think about what I do. So as much as this has been about giving and supporting the group and supporting these incredible women to bring their work out into the world in a fuller way, to feel that support, to feel that momentum, this group has actually given back to me as well in a way that it’s really, really nourished my creativity for my work and for how I offer it, how I talk about it, and how I support women. So I cannot wait for our next round. So I’m just gonna take a minute to share about our next round of impactful women, if that’s okay with you. Because if any part of this podcast today has had you going, oh yeah, I get that.
That’s me. I see myself in that. I see myself doing. I see myself spinning in perfectionism, when actually what’s underneath is a lack of confidence in what I want to offer out in the world. If you are seeing any of that in yourself, when you are hearing what I’m saying, I want you to come and join our next round of impactful women my group coaching program, we’re gonna start in February, 2023. , I promise you it’ll change the way you feel about yourself. It’ll change the way you show up in your business and cause of that, it’ll bring you greater success and fulfillment in your business. Cause through this program, we are doing business, the feminine empowered way.
And we’re doing it without the burnout. We’re getting our nervous system, our heart and brain, all in alignment. And from that place, we are taking the action that matters and making the decisions that are aligned, and we are becoming the impactful women we were meant to be. And if that speaks to your heart, I want you to join us.
Hey, I hope you found this episode really useful. If you wanna find out more about impactful women, the easiest way to do that is to just send me a DM on Instagram. I’m at the handle, Meegan Cares on Instagram. Send me a DM and we’ll chat. I’ll let you know when the intake is, what the details are, all that kind of stuff.
You can ask me all the questions or just send me an email at info@ meegancare dot co nz and that’s Meegan with two E’s. Okay my friend. Have an amazing, amazing week. Enjoy your summer if you’re in the Southern hemisphere. Love you so much. Speak to you soon.