Ep #178: The Result Audit

You are listening to The Life Coach Business Podcast with Amanda Karlstad episode number 178.

Welcome to The Life Coach Business Podcast, a show for coaches who are ready to up-level their business and take their impact, leadership, and results to a whole new level. If you’re ready to start taking powerful action and become the leader your business needs in order to grow and thrive, this show is for you. I’m your host, Amanda Karlstad, certified life and business coach, and entrepreneurial leadership expert. Now, let’s get down to business.

Hello, and welcome everyone. Welcome to today’s show. I have an exciting topic for all of you today. This is a new concept that I developed recently and took some of my clients through that I think you’re going to find a lot of value in. 

Before we dive into today’s topic, one of the things that I’ve also been thinking about recently is the importance of honoring the process. I did a podcast episode on this a while back. It was titled Honoring the Struggle. It was actually episode number eight. We’ll link that podcast up in the show notes. 

One of the lessons that I’ve learned in my journey and something that I coach so many of my clients on is the importance of honoring the struggle, of honoring the process, of honoring the process of who you’re becoming in this journey and what you’re building. Being that I help my clients grow and scale their businesses to that six, multiple six, seven figures and beyond level, I have a front row seat every single day as to what that process is like and what that experience is like not only for myself, but also for my clients. 

As I was thinking about this recently, I started to think about how important it really is to what I call honoring the struggle, to honoring the journey, whatever that looks like for you. Again, I highly recommend you go back and listen to that episode. I talk about why that’s so important. So I’m not going to get into that here. 

But it hit me last week after I had wrapped up a few very powerful coaching sessions. What hit me was that it was very clear just how powerful the process and the journey truly is, and how powerful it can be when we acknowledge it, when we really can see it and really honor it. 

So I wanted to share all of this with you because as I was reflecting on the week, and the coaching sessions in particular that I was reflecting on, one of the things that really came up was just how powerful that one conversation, that one coaching session can really be. Because sometimes the truth is that it only takes that one coaching session, that one distinction, that one new awareness, that one sentence that can change everything and can shift everything. I observed this happening a lot in the last couple of weeks. 

So I spent some time reflecting on that. I wanted to offer that to all of you no matter where you are in your journey right now. I want you to know that the potential for everything to change for you is there. I want you to know that whatever you want is 100% possible for you. It can be unlocked in an instant. 

When I look at this for my clients, we had a few clients that just in the past week have unlocked such bigger levels for their businesses, that have reached such deeper levels of clarity in their business, that are way more in alignment, that are operating from a place of full alignment to their work, to their message. It’s been my experience that when powerful shifts like this are happening, the results are on the other side of these shifts. 

So, for example, I had a client last week who through our coaching session was able to I believe unlock her million dollar brand. Who was able to in a matter of minutes unlock her million dollar program, was able to put messaging around all of that. We had another client who through the coaching process committed to her program and committed to offering it on a whole new level that is going to allow her to move forward in such a more confident and convicted way. 

We had another client who made a huge personal shift and let go of an old identity that for their entire life had been holding them back. So I share this with you because not only is it important to hear about the successes, but it’s also just as important to celebrate and acknowledge the process itself and the growth that happens in the process, the new levels of awareness, the new levels of clarity that all happen in this pursuit of the result. It’s something that I really love being able to facilitate and help my clients with every single day. 

So if this resonates with you, I want to invite you to join us whether you’re working to take your business to that six, multiple six, seven figures and beyond. I want to invite you to join us in the mastermind for coaches who are growing their business to that six figure mark. Or if you’re at that point already, and you’re ready to scale, I want to invite you to join the High Level Mastermind. This is my High Level Mastermind that helps clients scale to seven figures and beyond. 

There are so many amazing things happening inside of these programs. Not only the results that are being created and the success that is being created, but also the level of growth and the level of transformation. So if you’re a coach and you are ready to go to the next level, I highly recommend you apply and join us because this work, it is powerful. With that, this actually ties in perfectly to today’s topic. 

As I mentioned before, today’s topic is a concept that I developed recently. It’s what I call the result audit. It was a concept that really came to me as I was doing some of my own inner work recently. It was something that I was inspired to create. I’ve tested it now several times with both myself and also with clients. I really think this is a useful process. I delivered this training to my mastermind members. It was a very powerful exercise. So I decided I wanted to let you all in on that today and bring you a version of that today. I think you’re gonna find a lot of value here. 

So to start with, the idea of the result audit is to first identify and to look at either one or more results that you’re currently experiencing that for whatever reason you’re not happy with. I will tell you this is a process that you can use for your business. This is a process you can use for your life. Whatever result you want to look at, this is a process that you can use to do what I call a result audit on it. 

So if you think about the result or the results that you have, and you consider the results that you want, there’s going to be a difference between where you are right now versus where you want to be. So it could be that you want to be, let’s just say, at seven figures in your business, and maybe you’re at six. Or maybe you want to be at six figures, and maybe you’re at $50,000 in your business. 

So whatever that result is that you currently have, I want you to consider what that is, and I want you to consider where it is that you want to be. So first consider the result that you have and the result that you want. 

So when you look at your current results, there’s a lot of power in getting very clear on where you are currently. Because our brain likes to tell us all sorts of things as it relates to the results that we have, which we’re going to talk about in a minute. But I find even just getting very clear on this alone is a very empowering process. Because in order to change, we have to first become aware. 

One of the things that I have experienced in coaching so many coaches and entrepreneurs and leaders over the years is that when we don’t have the results that we want, when there is a gap between where we are and where we want to be, so often we start to do things in an effort to avoid something. This is something that’s called buffering. When we take action to avoid feeling something. 

So, for example, this might look like scrolling mindlessly on social media. It might be doing busy work versus doing work that truly matters. It might even be something that on the surface appears to be productive, for instance, exercise or cleaning the house, but it could also be things like overeating, or over drinking, or even overspending. It will look a little different for everyone. 

But the point is, when you get really aware as to what your pattern is, and I found this to be very true that when clients use a form of buffering to delay the feeling of something that they typically don’t want to do. So there’s buffering happening to avoid feeling a certain way, what also ends up happening is that we then allow ourselves to start indulging and to start indulging in unproductive emotions. 

This is what I call emotional indulgence. It’s when we allow things like doubt or fear or worry or anxiety or stress to overcome us, in which case, we tend to start spinning. We create a cycle where we start to indulge in certain emotions. We start to beat ourselves up so often then because of it. 

So when we allow ourselves to indulge in certain emotions, this is what I call emotional indulgence. I share this with you because these are all things that are very human. These are all things that we tend to do when we don’t have the results that we want. What ends up happening is we start to perpetuate the buffering, we start to perpetuate the indulgence, and we create these cycles that become very difficult to break out of. 

So this is why I developed this process. This is why the result audit is a very powerful process because it’s a way to help ourselves move through and to grow through these unproductive cycles. So once you’ve identified the result that you have versus the result that you want then it’s important to start to identify where is your focus going? Where is your energy as it relates to this result? What are your dominant thoughts about this particular result? 

So the next step is to get really present to where your focus is going, to where your energy is going. What I have found is that so often we get stuck in the subconscious patterns that we don’t even realize we’re in, and they come up in so many different ways. 

I have a recent example of this. I was recently coaching a client who over the last several weeks had been getting coached on some different things. Over the course of the last several weeks, one of the things that I noticed was that there was a very distinct pattern that was coming up for her, that was coming up for her both in her business and also in her life that was really related to what she had been bringing to the coaching, but it was coming up in slightly different ways. 

Because I could see this pattern happening and see how this pattern was presenting in these different ways for her, I could see that it was actually becoming a protective mechanism. It was a way that she had been keeping herself safe. It was all tied back to when she was actually little, to when she had made certain things mean certain things about her. 

We were in one coaching session in particular where she had a huge breakthrough and was really able to see the pattern and to see the pattern that was created very early on in an effort to keep her safe. What was so fascinating was to see that today, decades later, where she found herself still repeating that pattern. Again, in that effort to keep her safe. 

Once she finally got that, what happened was it was almost like an instant relief where there wasn’t any more attachment to it, where there was real freedom in that. This has been something that has been a pattern for her for years that was impacting her today. 

So I share this because this is a great example of the power of awareness. Because once you’re aware of your predominant thoughts, once you’re aware of where you’re putting your focus, where you’re putting your energy predominantly, then you can start to also identify, which is step number two, how you feel in that predominant energy. 

So when you are in that predominant area of focus, what is it that you actually feel? So when you consider how you are feeling in that space, in that energy, it’s important to understand where you are emotionally. What emotions do come up for you? How do you actually feel? 

So the next step is to then ask yourself what am I actually doing when I’m in this space? So when I’m feeling this way, when I’m choosing to focus my energy in this way, when I’m thinking these things, what am I actually doing? What is it that I’m doing when I’m operating from this energy? Am I doing the things that will lead to the result that I want, or am I not doing the things that will lead to the result that I want? What is actually happening? My friends, this is really important. 

Then lastly, I want you to get honest about what this is producing in your business, what this is producing in your life. What result or what results has this produced for you? What is the product of everything that you’ve identified up until this point? Because here’s the thing, everything we do or everything we don’t experience in our business, in our life is because of cause and effect. 

What this means is that in order to experience, for example, the million dollar business, we must first be the type of business owner that does what is required to produce those levels of results. That starts with first becoming aware of the patterns, becoming aware of where we’re putting our energy, becoming aware of where our emotional state is. We have to learn how to regulate ourselves emotionally when we need to. We have to learn to do what is needed in order to serve on a higher level. 

So that ultimately that experience of having that result can happen. It starts by first being willing to take ownership and to do a result audit and to see the correlation between what I just laid out for you here. I’m telling you, this is a very powerful process. I hope this episode serves you an amazing week. I’ll talk to you all again soon. Take care. Bye, bye.

Thank you for listening to this episode of The Life Coach Business Podcast. If you want to learn more about how to build, grow, and scale your business and accelerate your results visit amandakarlstadcoaching.com.