Even if you have a coach or mentor helping you achieve success you still have to coach yourself as well. Coaching yourself can be difficult because it is much harder to stand outside yourself and look on impartially, than it is to coach another person.

Here is a simple technique that can help you get around that difficulty.

The technique has two parts. First imagine that you are coaching someone else. Second ask yourself if what you are doing is setting a good example to that imaginary other person.

Let's look at those two parts in more detail.

It is important to do the first part of the process on paper.

Give your imaginary person a name.

Then under their name write down some details about that person. Make sure that you are actually writing your details but from the point of view of them being the details of the imaginary person.

Include age, goals, past attempts at success, current strategy being used to achieve the goal, personality, strengths and weaknesses. It helps to ask someone who knows you well about your personality, strengths and weaknesses and write down what they say.

If you find yourself arguing with them over what you strengths and weaknesses are then make sure you write down "argues for his own limitations" and "unwillingness to honestly assess himself" under the weaknesses.

Once you have done this imagine that this person you are coaching is a very dear friend of yours and you want to help them as much as you possibly can.

Now write a nice long letter to this person advising them the best way to go about being successful. Work only from the information on the page. During this part of the strategy it is important to totally forget that the description on the page is in any way a description of you.

The second part of the strategy involves assessing what you are doing and asking yourself if you are setting a good example to the imaginary person.

You might think that this all sounds a bit foolish but believe me it is totally in line with the way your subconscious mind operates and if you just give it a try then you will find that you will enjoy good results.

Now you need to develop the habit of observing yourself and the things that you are doing. Look at the goals you have set and the actions that you are taking or not taking.

When you notice that you are not taking goal directed action then, rather than judging that as good or bad simply ask yourself if that behavior is setting a good example or a bad example to the person that you are coaching.

Each morning when you first awake, or while you are taking your morning shower, ask yourself what you could do today to set the best example.

Before you go to bed at night review your day and ask yourself what sort of examples you have been setting and if there was anything that you could have done differently in order to set a better example.

Regardless of whether you think this strategy is great or crazy I challenge you to give it a try. I think you will be pleased with the results that you get.