The Work IN to move out of stress, tension & anxiety

Mental fitness and mastering your saboteurs with Life Coach Jenny Toh

September 20, 2021 Ericka Thomas Season 1 Episode 43
Mental fitness and mastering your saboteurs with Life Coach Jenny Toh
The Work IN to move out of stress, tension & anxiety
More Info
The Work IN to move out of stress, tension & anxiety
Mental fitness and mastering your saboteurs with Life Coach Jenny Toh
Sep 20, 2021 Season 1 Episode 43
Ericka Thomas

today we are speaking with Jenny Toh. Jenny is an ICF ACC coach, who is the director of river life coaching her life coaching practice where she coaches individuals to align their career and life goals with their values and strengths, she's currently working on our certification as a PQ coach, under the Positive Intelligence program run by Dr Shirzad Chamine. Jenny is also a trained lawyer, as her earlier career, she's passionate about helping introverted Christian women find the right balance between the marketplace, and the homefront, and she's also a strong proponent of mental fitness for her clients to achieve their highest level of success with sustained happiness. So let's start our work in today with Jenny Toh. Welcome, Jenny, thank you so much for joining me today.


https://www.riverlifecoaching.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jenny-toh-cpc-acc/
https://www.facebook.com/riverlifecoaching
https://www.instagram.com/riverlifecoaching/

https://www.positiveintelligence.com/assessments/


As a part of my mission to bring a legacy of resilience through movement, each month you can join me for a hike on the bike trail followed by a free trauma informed vinyasa class back at the studio on Main Street. Go to savagegracecoaching.com to see the calendar and join my newsletter, Yoga Life on Main Street, to stay up to date on all the latest studio news, events and gossip. And now… on to this week’s episode.



It’s time to stop working out and start working IN. You found the Work IN podcast for fit-preneurs and their health conscious clients. This podcast is for resilient wellness professionals who want to expand their professional credibility, shake off stress and thrive in a burnout-proof career with conversations on the fitness industry, movement, nutrition, sleep, mindset, nervous system health, yoga, business and so much more.

I’m your host Ericka Thomas. I'm a resilience coach and fit-preneur offering an authentic, actionable realistic approach to personal and professional balance for coaches in any format.

The Work IN is brought to you by savage grace coaching, bringing resilience through movement, action and accountability. Private sessions, small groups and corporate presentations are open now. Visit savagegracecoaching.com to schedule a call and get all the details.

Website & free guide
Follow me on Instagram
Follow me on Facebook
Follow me on Linked IN

Show Notes Transcript

today we are speaking with Jenny Toh. Jenny is an ICF ACC coach, who is the director of river life coaching her life coaching practice where she coaches individuals to align their career and life goals with their values and strengths, she's currently working on our certification as a PQ coach, under the Positive Intelligence program run by Dr Shirzad Chamine. Jenny is also a trained lawyer, as her earlier career, she's passionate about helping introverted Christian women find the right balance between the marketplace, and the homefront, and she's also a strong proponent of mental fitness for her clients to achieve their highest level of success with sustained happiness. So let's start our work in today with Jenny Toh. Welcome, Jenny, thank you so much for joining me today.


https://www.riverlifecoaching.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jenny-toh-cpc-acc/
https://www.facebook.com/riverlifecoaching
https://www.instagram.com/riverlifecoaching/

https://www.positiveintelligence.com/assessments/


As a part of my mission to bring a legacy of resilience through movement, each month you can join me for a hike on the bike trail followed by a free trauma informed vinyasa class back at the studio on Main Street. Go to savagegracecoaching.com to see the calendar and join my newsletter, Yoga Life on Main Street, to stay up to date on all the latest studio news, events and gossip. And now… on to this week’s episode.



It’s time to stop working out and start working IN. You found the Work IN podcast for fit-preneurs and their health conscious clients. This podcast is for resilient wellness professionals who want to expand their professional credibility, shake off stress and thrive in a burnout-proof career with conversations on the fitness industry, movement, nutrition, sleep, mindset, nervous system health, yoga, business and so much more.

I’m your host Ericka Thomas. I'm a resilience coach and fit-preneur offering an authentic, actionable realistic approach to personal and professional balance for coaches in any format.

The Work IN is brought to you by savage grace coaching, bringing resilience through movement, action and accountability. Private sessions, small groups and corporate presentations are open now. Visit savagegracecoaching.com to schedule a call and get all the details.

Website & free guide
Follow me on Instagram
Follow me on Facebook
Follow me on Linked IN

Jenny Toh Transcript


Jenny Toh  0:03  

So you just have to ask yourself, does it have to be perfect before it goes out and impacts or what, depending on what you're putting out there does it have to be perfect? And a lot of times if you're really honest with yourself and I ask my clients, you know, just to keep asking, is it really does it really need to be perfect. And, you know, once you get to a calmer way of looking at it. No, it doesn't, because no one really needs it to be perfect. You just hold yourself back when because of this trait that you want it to be perfect your message doesn't go out there, so you're not helping people, the longer you delay, you're not helping people so for entrepreneurs who are putting out a product or service, you know, just feel free to put it out and see what it has what it does and take the feedback that you get as lessons I know we also feel like we don't like feedback, we just take it as lessons of growth, what can you learn that to improve, to better serve your audience's as well.


Ericka Thomas  1:01  

Welcome to the work in your guide to natural ways out of stress, tension and trauma. My name is Ericka Thomas. I'm a certified trauma release exercise provider, health coach, and yoga instructor. Throughout this podcast, you'll find tools, resources, practices, people, and perspectives that will help you add to your own resilience arsenal and shake off the effects of all sources of chronic physical, mental, and emotional stress, my intention is solely to bring you information and empower you with permission to stop working out and start working in.

The work IN is brought to you by kinetic Grace resilience, kinetic grace is an online program designed to teach safe self regulation of the stress response through the body. Using trauma release exercise, guided body awareness, and the breath. The program includes private instruction, exclusive access to certify providers and 30 days of group classes. And because it's online, kinetic grace is available anywhere you are. Enrollment is open now. Visit elemental kinetics.com to learn more. 

Welcome back to The Work IN, where we bring new perspectives on health and wellness that go beyond what the eyes can see. I'm Ericka and today we are speaking with Jenny Toh. Jenny is an ICF ACC coach, who is the director of river life coaching her life coaching practice where she coaches individuals to align their career and life goals with their values and strengths, she's currently working on our certification as a PQ coach, under the Positive Intelligence program run by Dr Shirzad Chamine. Jenny is also a trained lawyer, as her earlier career, she's passionate about helping introverted Christian women find the right balance between the marketplace, and the homefront, and she's also a strong proponent of mental fitness for her clients to achieve their highest level of success with sustained happiness. So let's start our work in today with Jenny Toh. Welcome, Jenny, thank you so much for joining me today.


Jenny Toh  3:23  

Hey, Ericka Hi, thanks for the very generous introduction. I feel like I don't have to say anything else.


Ericka Thomas  3:30  

No, no, there's so many questions that are kind of gotten out of that for sure. Definitely.


I really really want to talk to you about this idea of mental fitness and exactly what this is, and, and really mental strength but first I'm curious about you personally because you used to be a lawyer. And that seems to me like a big leap. Being a lawyer takes a lot of effort, it takes a lot of drive. It seems like it's very successful, you would have, you would have reached a very successful point to just even to become a lawyer, you know what you do with that afterwards is, is another thing. And I see so many female entrepreneurs come to a point, and they're very successful lives very successful careers and be really not satisfied with that success, as if they, you know, really kind of missed their calling and and doing something very similar to that trying to just switch completely to something new, something maybe very very opposite from where they start. So, it seems to me like that's something that you did, you actually did that so can you tell us more about what that journey was like for you and how you came to that point.


Jenny Toh  4:59  

Yeah, thanks, Ericka for the nice question. It's not an easy journey, and like I said my first career is being a lawyer and I've been in it for more than 25 years now, so you can guess roughly how aged I am. So I received the seed of coaching was first planted in me maybe back in 2015, when I was a mid level manager working in an organization and they taught managers help to coach their direct reports, but as a full time job in a bank as a legal counsel and senior legal counsel. So there were a lot of responsibilities, and I have three kids at home. 

So this idea of coaching. Okay, is it a whim and fancy so I liked it and it's, it resonates with me personally because all along I've been a very good listener. And in, even in my young days friends come to me because they think I am grounded and rational and very level headed so maybe that's one aspect of me that drove me into law because I'm very rational and I always think of solutions for people here. 

So if I push that feeling aside and it was only, possibly in 2018 that I couldn’t push that feeling away. Like, I'm a Christian, so I felt that God is calling me into this, to reach out to people, to help people reach their values and in order to align their life, living with their values, like you said a lot of female entrepreneurs feel that, you know, I meant to do more something's missing, something's not quite right. So my career was really going well and my kids, you know they like mommy being at home and after work with them so why rock the boat and Ericka, but I just couldn't push it away. So much prayer and emotional discussion with my husband in 2019 I embarked on life coaching,Coach Training Program. It took about a year and I got credentialed by international coaching Federation ICF and during that time when I was working on my credentialing, getting qualified I was also thinking okay I'm going to start my business, and you know, put in place the company. 

I had all those plans intellectually, the target date was April 2020. I didn't know what was going to happen in March. When March 2020 hit everything was upside down and I was asking God, I held off so long since 2015 When you first planted the seed in me, do I hold off anymore. So like you said, is it a leap, it's a leap of faith. I felt that, okay, you know, I don't want to delay this anymore, living into my purpose, so I did it, so it wasn't easy. There were a lot of uncertainties. My business is still growing so I'm thankful for that. But like as you know and all your listeners out there know it's up, down, up, down and I would encourage your listeners to find a close support group, whether it's your family, whether it's your friends because the life of an entrepreneur is actually very lonely. So if you have a close support group that will really help.


Ericka Thomas  8:01  

Oh my gosh, that is, that is gold right there for people. I think sometimes we get caught up in this, having to do whatever, our goal is all by ourselves, and it really, it's very hard to do it that way and very slow, I think, to do it that way but if you can reach out to other people like minded individuals just for support. I think that's fantastic. Yes, absolutely. So you talk a lot about mental fitness, and I come from a world of physical fitness, and so, I was hoping that you could kind of explain what you mean by mental fitness. What that what that is for people, what exactly are we talking about?


Jenny Toh  8:51  

I loved it Ericka we seem to have this great synergy You read my mind because I was gonna use the analogy of physical fitness, mental fitness.Physical fitness, what do you need to do you need to have a goal, and you need to have commitment and discipline and it has to be regular exercise regime something you commit to daily. Then there'll be checkpoints and then you evaluate whether you've made progress and of course you have an accountability partner so all that right that's physical fitness, you can run a marathon just by saying I'm gonna practice for half an hour today and next month I'm gonna run that marathon. No, it has to be persistent and consistent. 

So similarly mental fitness, based on the training that I did with Dr Shirzad Charmine, Positive Intelligence is the, the way you look at life situation from a positive and resilient mindset, as opposed to a negative one. So it doesn't mean that you know you put on a smiley face all the time. No, it’s looking at the situation objectively and seeing what you can glean from it. Yes you have those feelings like grief, anger, anxiety, but then experience those feelings. And after that, be able to take a step back and ask yourself, what is the gift in the situation, what is the learning opportunity here. 

It's difficult, especially if you're going through a period of grief, but eventually I have spoken to quite a lot of people, they can see years down the road, what was the gift in those difficult times. And of course, based on your normal day to day events. If you're held up for something, you know, instead of getting frustrated, see how you can use that opportunity as a learning experience and a growth. So mental fitness is the way you look at situations with a positive and resilient mindset as opposed to a negative one.


Ericka Thomas  10:40  

Yeah, that word resilient that resilient mindset we talk a lot on this program about resilience about how to handle stressful situations, whether that's from childhood trauma, or a stressful lifestyle, what exactly goes into a resilient mindset. Is it just the positivity, is it the gross mindset piece, or is it something that goes a little bit deeper than that, that, that gets into resilience?


Jenny Toh  11:19  

It's a bit like no matter what happens to you you believe in yourself that you will be able to bounce back from it, and you'll come out of it stronger, you will take the lessons that you learn from it and come up from it strongly. I personally believe that whatever I go through, I can share it with people and encourage them from what I've learned so it's not so much just about you. You come on a bit, and you make an impact in other people's lives. I personally feel that when you focus on others what you can share from your life experience to others. It makes you feel one less alone and it makes you feel that you know there is something of value that I've gained from this situation.


Ericka Thomas  11:59  

When you bring up a really good point there, because I think people sometimes think resilience is just within yourself, but you're talking about the effect of connection with other people, and how important that is to connect with others as a part of your resilience.


Jenny Toh  12:23  

So, Ericka, I mean I will share something personal with you. I normally don't do this but I feel that here that I'll share something personal with you. I don't normally do this in podcast, so I'll be in the first year of my marriage was tough. I guess we're both very independent and very headstrong so imagine bringing two very independent headstrong people together. So the first year of marriage was that I'm sure your listeners who have partners they know that you know trying to live together with someone when you're so independent is difficult so we struggled through that a lot. So I use that experience when I coach other younger women who may have issues with relationship, and it comes up, and I don't tell them what I do but because I've gone through it I have this deep sense of empathy, so I can hear what's going on I don't judge as well, and I use that experience to be a better coach when women come to me with some struggles in their relationship.


Ericka Thomas  13:20  

Yeah and relationships are, are hard, all the way across the board because we all come with our baggage, our own things that we've had to go through and sometimes that's difficult to make those connections with other people, for sure. For sure. So how does let's talk about this inner critic that comes up for people. I've heard other other coaches call that inner critic, a gremlin or, you know that negative voice that negative. That little devil that sits on your shoulder that whispers those things in your ear. How does that, let's, let's talk about how that affects our resilience to new things, new stressful situations or you know maybe taking that leap of faith.


Jenny Toh  14:19  

Sure. So, how I see it is that all of us have our inner judge and critic so the judge shows up in basically three ways, the judge of self so Jenny you're not good enough. And the judge of others you know I make a first impression on what I think of you, Ericka and it sticks. And that's not true, but you know you're judged by others it comes up. And a judge of circumstances you know your Zoom meeting doesn't come on as planned,we had a bit of a connectivity issue earlier. And then, if you are judging that circumstance you're like, oh no you know it's going to spiral downward.

And all this it shows up in three ways and that's enough to run havoc in your mind. So, the judge is your master saboteur so in positive intelligence training as what they train you they say, see the judge as your master saboteur. He is there in everyone, you might say come on like a gremlin, the devil, no matter what form the judge takes we all have the judge. 

But that's not just that the judge has accomplice saboteurs, so when he shows up, he will trigger your accomplice saboteurs just to show up. 

So, on the Positive Intelligence.com website there's a free assessment that you can do that to bring to light what your saboteurs are. So I have known all along once my top two but I the test just brought that to the forefront. I'm a perfectionist, but in the assessment is called a stickler so I saw that it came out really strong, a stickler. And also I'm hyper vigilant, that's why I think I went into law because I always think of the worst possible case scenario and I plan accordingly so I have a lot of plan A, plan B, Plan C just to keep up on my hypervigilant traits. 

So you can imagine, this this example the Zoom meeting not working well, and then my perfectionist comes in like, Oh no, you know what, what do we do, we must do something otherwise it's gonna go crazy then of course my hyper vigilant comes in and say this is going to be bad. Every call is not going to work out. So you can see, you spiral downwards. So if you have a resilient mindset you recognize that your judge is acting, your sticker hypervigilant is acting, you stop. 

And there are exercises, short exercises like deep breath and he uses the five senses of five said the five senses that we have to slow down our mind from going into autopilot mode, and to move to a quieter way of thinking. So yes, people say I can meditate but Ericka seriously, who has 30 minutes with your nice yoga outfit, music when you're running late for a meeting or jumping into a zoom call. 

So his exercises which are called PQ Reps they're very short, just 10 seconds so when you feel this, you know, tension and all that recognize that as a trigger to automatically do a few of these simple exercises, and you find yourself calming down. And that's when you're able to look at the situation, while you still know you have all these feelings, but your, your thinking is calmer and you're able to figure out like, you know what, what to do with it. So that's how I see the resilience part coming in, you're not being hijacked, or overwhelmed by your emotion you use that as a trigger to actually take a step back and, you know, see the situation in a more calm manner.


Ericka Thomas  17:35  

That is really brilliant and that's actually. It reminds me when you, when we first started this idea of comparing mental fitness and physical fitness, right. So, we are doing these repetitions to replace, maybe some of these pattern behaviors, these pattern emotional behaviors that we've had for our whole life in ways that can kind of replace them over time. So every time that Judge comes online, by practicing some of these in the moment, kinds of things to calm that reaction, we can actually start to, you know, maybe affect our nervous system in a way that it will be less reactive, is that really the goal there?


Jenny Toh  18:31  

Yes, yes, definitely, like you said, you know, our spiritual thinking we will just walk on autopilot and move towards the well trodden path. So when you do your PQ Reps. Positive Intelligence rep similar to your physical fitness reps, it stops you from walking into that well trodden path, And to form a new path. And as you do more and more of the PQ Reps you will be able to use this new path, faster, quicker, and, and it's almost like a default mode. 

But we are all not there yet. Practice I still get hijacked with stress. So I want to I know this is just an audio but let's do a short PQ rep. S

o this is based on touch so I encourage your listeners to try it out. I'll give the instructions and Ericka just join along as well. So take your thumb and index finger, and then you gently rub them together. Okay. Feel the sensation of touch. The ridges of your fingertip and yes Ericka we can do this with our eyes open, I love it. You don't have to close even if you're driving, you can feel the sensation of your steering wheel so just really leveraging your touch. And as you do this, you're not thinking about how late you are for the meeting, or whether your child is having problems at school. If you're really focused you feel the sensation of touch, and that's just it. So I love this. When I'm stressed I quickly rub both palms together. I touch my fingertips together, and you find that you've quieted yourself. And then after that, you'll be able to assess the situation clearer so it's like stopping that emotion from hijacking you.


Ericka Thomas  20:00  

That is, that is really really great because that particular exercise actually puts you really mindfully back into your body, instead of ... way up here and your head somewhere, or somewhere in the past or wherever, just brings you right back to the moment. And so, is,are a lot of those exercises that we can do, or are a lot of them very, like, kind of a physical connection, a mind body physical connection that we're trying to reestablish.


Jenny Toh  20:33  

Yeah, definitely. So there are deeper exercises when you. He takes you. He has a phone app a Positive Intelligence app and if you do a coaching program with me, you get rights and access to that app, and there are a lot of exercises there. So when you feel stress, you know, reflect on where the stress is showing up. 

For me, it shows up on my shoulders and I know okay you know that's the trigger. Some people might get a client that says my head feels really hot when I'm angry, it feels like it's burning. So I said the next time you feel this hot head what you need to do is I need to walk away. And so she's using that hot head literally hot head instead of taking it out on anyone near she walks off with it. So you use that as a trigger is a very physical connection with your thoughts, and how you feel in your body.


Ericka Thomas  21:24  

Yes, yes, I love that I love that. So, can you give me some examples of what those saboteurs can do to people ? I've heard of self sabotage before I know I've done self sabotage before but let's talk about some examples of what that might look like for someone.


Jenny Toh  21:48  

Okay, I may share a personal example. So I have three kids, so I have a son and two daughters. So, apart from stickler hyper vigilant, I also had the controller trait so the controller trait, together with a perfectionist trait that's really, really not good. So my youngest was doing chores and in a moment when I realized that I was also not as full myself as them you know my self care was no that day so I was stressed I was tired. And she was helping me clear the dining table, and I saw that she didn't do as well a job as Mommy would.  I swept in you know, I did it for her because I was running late for another call. And I did all that, and then when I finished and I turned around and looked at her, I noticed that her face dropped and her expression was really very sad. 

And I realized what did. I let my perfectionist and controller traits gotten the better of me and as a result I made my daughter feel less of herself. She was wanting to help mommy with the chores. Because I thought, Oh, that's not perfect, I need to control the way the table is cleaned. So that shows up, and I felt really bad after that. That you know so the sabotaging affects yourself. In this example, me as a parent, but it also affects the people around you. It made my daughter feel very low about herself. So we had a conversation. After that I apologized to her. And now that serves a very strong reminder each time I see my kids doing chores in the not perfect way. I hold myself back. What do I do, either I walk away or I take deep breaths, or you know I do the sensation of touch. And I just let them do it by the time they're finished, you can see, they're so happy because what they want to do is just help mom around the house, and I, you know, when I take over. It just creates that tension in the family relationship so that's it happened once and I'm happy to say it hasn't happened since so that's a great reminder so saboteurs, yes they sabotage us, but they also sabotage the relationships in our lives.


Ericka Thomas  23:55  

Yeah, yeah, I can see that I can see that now that, with that example because in my mind I was thinking self sabotage, something that just stops, you know me from achieving whatever it is that I want to have done but actually it's robbing, it's robbing me of more than that, more than just that one effect, it's that effect again with other people as well,that's interesting.


Jenny Toh  24:23  

And you can put that example in the workplace. If you’re a boss, your employer and your team and you're controlling and you're hyper achiever means everything has to be other circumstances, you don't empower your team members, and you yourself run tired and stressed because you think, oh my team is incompetent. I can’t trust them with anything, and then as a result, they feel that, oh okay my manager or my boss doesn't believe in me, so what's the point, so you can see that ripple effect, it starts with your own saboteur thinking it drags everyone around you, you down as well.


Ericka Thomas  24:56  

And I could see how that would also lead to kind of a buildup of resentment within yourself, to kind of resentful feelings towards other people who are somehow not living up to your standard or maybe you feel like you have to be the one to do everything. After a while, it can be exhausting.


Jenny Toh  25:17  

Exactly. We, it takes courage for us to realize, especially I think women a lot of women. But we cannot do everything else. And the fact that we know we cannot do everything ourselves is not a sign of weakness. I believe it's a sign of courage because you know what your strengths are, and you know what you need help in. And then you go out and ask help and that's how business from a professional front, that's how you build a strong team. If I am good at, you know, thinking high level strategy but not very good with meticulous details and your team member is, why not let your team member do that, leverage on that strength of hers, and then you focus on this and together you can see it's such, it's more powerful, rather than I take on everything myself because I cannot let go, yeah,


Ericka Thomas  26:00  

yeah, yeah, but I could see how, how someone might have a really tough time doing that, of letting go of that control and trusting other people to hold up their end of the bargain, really, you know how. So how does someone get to the point where they're, you know, where they can trust not only other people but themselves too, you know let other people help them.


Jenny Toh  26:29  

It's a long journey and through coaching you know I take my clients first through to develop self awareness because a lot of us don't even know that this shows up. So, if I asked them to do the saboteur assessment and it comes out what their top saboteurs are and they get so overwhelmed. They're like, Oh no, this is a bit like you want to buy a purple dress when you go to the shop. Then once you come out every other woman who passes you wears a purple dress. Just as when you discover that I'm a hyper achiever, That hyper achiever comes up everywhere so you get overwhelmed. 

So I coach my clients who say, No, see that, as you know, now you know who your saboteur is, and you know the saboteur is not who you are it's it's how you've been conditioned to life experiences, you know, what you felt and it's come up in a guise of trying to protect you but it's not actually who you are. So with that self awareness you recognize it and then you, you're able to do those exercises to move away from it, and then the situation comes up again we can evaluate what could have been done better, and what she did well and what she didn't do well and then learn from it. 

Always with empathy because when you start criticizing yourself like oh no you know my controller came up you know I screwed that up again. So then, that's actually saboteur thinking, because you're not thinking karma is just building on so judge coming in. Right. Beating yourself up like, oh, you can't even do a simple PQ rep to get out of it. So I coach my clients to practice empathy women have difficulty practice empathy on themselves, they do it very well with others, but when it comes to themselves, we are really hard on ourselves so that one key way to look at the situation is, firstly have empathy on yourself, to recognize that, by knowing your Saboteurs, you can now identify them, use them as like the signals or the alert to move away from that. And then, how do you view the situation more objectively, calmly?


Ericka Thomas  28:32  

With so when you're coaching female entrepreneurs, or, you know, just maybe just business women. What are some of the most common obstacles that come up for them?


Jenny Toh  28:49  

I have to do everything myself. As One common thing, and it needs to be perfect, I'm not comfortable with this going out as it is because it's not good enough. But then you tend to hold yourself back because in your mind, it will never be good enough. I know that when I was building my website I was like, I was thinking oh it's never gonna be good enough that I had to take a deep breath and this was before I did my positive intelligence training that was, you know, early last year. And then I had to let it go out and you know, the fear and trepidation again what's happening and it's been great. 

I mean, people love my website and they find that it's got a very calm feel to it because I put my heart and soul in it but at the same time I feel that it's not good enough. So you just have to ask yourself, does it have to be perfect before it goes out and impacts or what, depending on what you're putting out there doesn't have to be perfect. And a lot of times if you're really honest with yourself and I asked my clients, you know, just to keep asking, is it really does it really need to be perfect?

And, you know, once you get to a common way of looking at it. No, it is because no one really needs it to be perfect. You just hold yourself back when because of this trait that you want it to be perfect your message doesn't go out there, so you're not helping people, the longer you delay, you're not helping people. So for entrepreneurs who are putting out a product or service, you know, just feel free to put it out and see what it has. When it goes and take the feedback that you get as lessons I know, we also feel like, oh, you know, we don't like feedback. Just take it as lessons of growth, what can you learn that to improve, to better serve your audience as well.


Ericka Thomas  30:34  

Yes, and I felt the same things about websites but the nice thing about them is that you can always go back in there and tweak it later, like as long as you start something, you have something to build on. Right. You don't have anything to build on if you don't start.


Jenny Toh  30:53  

Yes, so I coach my clients is that, what's that small step that you're willing to take this outside your comfort zone. And just one small step, like you said, to get started. Yeah so I coach the client and the same similar issues she didn't want to put her website out as well. So I eventually she set a timeline for herself by March 31st I will put down something when it's a homepage and a bio field that's going to go out and she did it and she felt great and now the whole website is complete because she took that one small step. So whatever it is, when you're thinking about your job or your business. Think about those small steps because if you think about the perfect website is very overwhelming, but you ever think about I just want to write my own bio two paragraphs, you start with that. And then you can build on that.


Ericka Thomas  31:39  

Well, we talked a little bit about how important it is to kind of find your people to support you. Would you have any advice for someone if they were considering getting a coach, I mean I think sometimes we are really resistant to asking for help, like we touched on earlier today, but I'd love for you to talk a little bit about how important having either a life coach or business coach can be to moving forward in or closer to what your purpose is.


Jenny Toh  32:21  

I'm not in your life. And I offer you that space where of confidential this whatever the client shares with a coaching session, it won't be revealed to anyone else. It's that safe space where you can talk freely, and you can say the things that you're probably very scared of, or you probably, if you think you say to your husband. He might be judging you or your friend. So in this environment you say to your coach, and your coach will not do anything with it but perhaps just to reflect like this is what I'm hearing what you're saying, Ericka, that you find this challenging and it's because of X, Y, Zed. 

So it's that safe space where the coach actually holds up a mirror and reflects what you want to see or maybe what you don't want to see. And it's that space where you get your awareness, and you get your insight. And the coach is also an accountability partner so you know the coach will keep you accountable in between sessions there will be work that you need to do personally and then you come back to the session and you probably say, well I did this well but I know I didn't do this let's explore why helped me back in, not doing that. So it's a journey is a process.


Ericka Thomas  33:33  

I love what you said, hold up a mirror for you to see, because so often I think we get kind of stuck in who we were. So we can't step into who we really want to be, who we could be, and the people around us with as good of intentions as they have. Maybe, they may be part of our past and we might be ready to step forward into something new and different, so I love that. I love that holding up that mirror I think it's fantastic, Jenny, I have loved chatting with you. This has been a fantastic conversation, you have said some amazing things. And I would love to share some of the things that you mentioned in the show notes, the one in particular the saboteurs.


Jenny Toh  34:31  

Positive intelligence.com I can give you that you can put it in your show notes, I would love to. Yeah assessment. Oh, but I do have a word of caution for your listeners like what we're talking about. When you do it, The saboteurs will come up strong, you will see. So when I realize I already knew all along that perfectionist but that assessment brought it to the forefront. You know for weeks I was thinking, oh no, what's going on the perfectionist is showing up everywhere. 

So practice empathy, see, like, you know, it showing up, so like a mirror is showing up. So what do you do with it, you now know that you don't need to be hijacked by before this, it shows up, you don't even think about it you just say, Oh, it's just me I need to be perfect. You're so in the moment but now ensure that you can ask yourself, Do I really need to control this. Do I really need this to be A plus plus. What's more important here, you're able to evaluate it. So I encourage the listeners to do an assessment, but also remember not to get overwhelmed by it because then you're dragged back into habitual thinking.


Ericka Thomas  35:33  

Yes, absolutely, absolutely I love that so. So Jenny, if we wanted to learn a little bit more about you or get in touch with you or work with you, where would we go? Where should we send people today?


Jenny Toh  35:48  

So you can visit my beautiful website River life coaching. Which Ericka yes we're still tweaking River Life Coaching.com and then you can find Jenny Toh on Facebook, LinkedIn, also river life coaching on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, yeah whatever your type river life coaching or Jenny Toh. Something should come up and I know that it'll be in your show notes as well.


Ericka Thomas  36:10  

Absolutely, absolutely. Well, thank you so much, Jenny, I loved our talk, I cannot wait to send it out into the world. 


Jenny Toh 

Thank you, Ericka, it's been a pleasure. 


Ericka Thomas

Thank you curious listener for joining me today on this episode of the work, be sure to head over to the website, elemental kinetics.com/the-work-in  for all of the show notes, and to catch up on other fantastic episodes just like our interview today with Jenny toe. We'll see you next time.


Transcribed by https://otter.ai