How to Create Your Own Coaching Business Planning Retreat

“I can’t do my coaching right now… my life is too full.”

That’s what a coach said to me the other day, just weeks after they signed up for our advanced program.

They were inches away from living their dream…

…and they bailed out at the last minute.

Have you ever thought that your dream of a coaching business…

…is impossible at this stage of your life?

That your life is so busy…

…there is no way you can add coaching to your plate?

…and you can’t see a way out?

The truth is…

YOU’RE TRAPPED.

And the better your life is…

…the stronger the trap.

And worse… you can’t see the trap…

…because you’re INSIDE the trap.

In the New York Times Best-Seller, “Untamed”, Glennon Doyle writes about a cheetah at a wildlife park…

…and how it was trained to run after a prop attached to a car…

…for the enjoyment of the visitors.

That cheetah wasn’t wild and free…

…but merely a tamed version of who she was truly created to be.

Glennon uses this analogy to describe how she felt for most of her life…

TRAPPED

TAMED

CAGED

I totally relate because I felt trapped when I started my coaching business journey.

Life had TAMED me…

…and I was chasing fake ‘meat’ to please the people around me.

I told my coach I was stuck.

I told him I felt helpless.

I told him I couldn’t see the way out.

I asked “How do I get out of this trap?”

He said “First you have to recognize the trap.”

So, I asked “How do I ‘see the trap’?”

My coach suggested…

“Get out of town.”

“Go away for an overnight trip…”

“…by yourself.”

“No family. No friends. No ‘teachers’ or ‘gurus’.”

“Just YOU.”

So I left town…

…to discover myself…

…who I wanted to become…

…and what I wanted to accomplish in my coaching business.

It was such a powerful experience…

…that I still give myself this gift every year or two.

I came home with…

• New clarity for where I was going.
• New confidence in my ability to get there.
• New commitment to follow through.

I had finally taken ownership of my dream.

In fact, it was no longer just a dream, it was a goal with a realistic plan to achieve it.

Want to create your own coaching business mini-retreat?

Schedule a time when you can disappear for at least 22 hours.

If it sounds impossible, it’s all the more important that you do it.

The more challenging putting the time aside appears…

…the stronger your self-created cage has become.

You’ll have to break out of that cage long enough to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Go somewhere new.

Check into a hotel or an airbnb, ideally one you seldom (or never) visit.

You need new views and experiences, so you’re not confined by your current comfort zone. Think of this as “wandering outside of your cage”.

No phone contact with anyone you know.

Tell close friends and family that you’ll be out of pocket so they don’t worry (and so YOU don’t keep worrying about THEM).

By getting away from familiar conversations with people who know you, you allow yourself the freedom to become whoever you want to become.

A quick note on friends and loved ones:

• They aren’t the enemy, but you still need to ‘get away’ from them.
• They are PART OF YOUR CAGE.
• Even if it’s a nice, loving, friendly, comfortable cage… it’s still acting as a cage for you.
• Don’t use your family and close friends as an excuse not to get away… otherwise, you make the people close to you into your JAILERS.

Bring a journal, laptop, or other method to document your plan.

Personally, I use an ‘old school’ hard-bound journal so I am not tempted to surf the internet, check emails, or watch movies.

Jim Rohn’s old saying around hard-bound journals was “Purchase a journal that’s expensive. It’ll challenge you to find something valuable enough to put in there. If you ever saw one of my expensive journals, you wouldn’t have to look very far to discover that it’s now worth way more than what I originally paid for it.”

When you arrive at your retreat… relax.

Allow yourself time to reflect and think.

Allow yourself to dream.

The next morning, your work begins.

Clarify your vision and goals, then create a plan.

I’ve worked with a lot of coaches that felt trapped in their lives, too…

…and NONE of them had gone on their own strategic vision retreat.

They say…

“Colette, you don’t understand.

I have young children…

…a spouse…

…a business.”

I know…

…that’s the reason you need to unplug…

…if you want to create something new in your life.

Most people merely create the same life…

…year after year.

Even if they achieve goals…

…they don’t grow outside of their current reality.

If you want to achieve something you’ve never achieved…

…you’ll have to become someone you’ve never become.

When I came home after my first retreat…

…my kids were drinking homemade smoothies in the backyard.

They were fine.

But when I saw my home…

…my kids…

…my life…

I FREAKED OUT!

I wondered…

…how can I achieve any of the coaching goals and plans I just created?

It seemed like my goals…

…that seemed so REAL while I was away on my retreat…

…were actually IMPOSSIBLE.

The discrepancy was as sharp as a slap in the face…

…I cried out in anguish…

“I’ll never be able to do this!”

This drama was all the proof I needed to realize…

…that getting away was essential to creating my plan.

But I felt like I had walked out onto a ledge of fear and terror…

…seeing my dream crumble upon returning to the reality of my life at home.

Thankfully, my coach talked me down off that ledge in my next session with him.

He assured me that this ‘slap in face’ happens to everyone when they get home from their first retreat.

”You can’t make a big jump in your life…

…while you’re trapped inside the context of your already existing life.”

You can’t make a big jump in your life…while you’re trapped inside the context of your already existing life.”

“You can’t make a quantum leap from the constraints that you’ve become accustomed to…

…not from your existing comfort zone.”

I realized going on this retreat allowed me to leave my cage and venture into the wild…

…even though it was only 40 minutes away from my home in San Diego.

But I followed the retreat rules…

…I allowed myself to be free…

…free to create my own destiny.

Eventually I achieved all the goals I set during my retreat…

…even though they seemed impossible when I got home.

Sure, I had a lot of help from my coach…

…but I used the time outside ‘my cage’ to create something more powerful…

…than I could have ever created in the constraints of my life.

And who benefitted?…

You can’t make a quantum leap from the constraints that you’ve become accustomed to…not from your existing comfort zone.”

…Besides myself?

My kids…

…my spouse…

…my coaching clients…

…and, hopefully, you as you read this right now.

At some point you need to decide…

…will you play it safe……and stay in the cage of the constraints you’ve created thus far in your life?

Or will you be brave enough to explore the deepest parts of your soul…

…the parts that yearn to be set free…

…and to express your life in a way that sets others free as well?

No one can do this for you…

…you must decide to unlock the cage.

Colette “Uncaged” Coiner

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