We were lucky to catch up with Amanda Doyle recently and have shared our conversation below.

Amanda, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Risk taking is something we’re really interested in and we’d love to hear the story of a risk you’ve taken.

I remember when someone I worked with in education policy left our organization to go out on her own and become a “coach.” I thought to myself, “It must be nice to follow your dream. But I’m going to stay here and do REAL work.”

I thought coaching was silly, and I was incredibly judgmental.

I have rolled my eyes at the idea of “life coaching” MANY times.

Following your passion? Working on internal alignment? I just could not get on board with these buzzwords.

But that’s because I hadn’t experienced the power of coaching.

The summer after having my second baby (2020, the height of covid), I found a podcast hosted by a social justice lawyer turned life coach. And it was like she was inside of my brain. The way she communicated what was going on for me internally in terms of my perfectionist thinking and anxiety just clicked.

Her podcast helped me understand the basics of how the human brain works and how I could use it to make my life more enjoyable AND effective. I no longer felt coaching was silly. I thought it was profound.

I googled where she learned her teachings, and I signed up for the certification program right then. And it was a big investment. It was a huge risk. But I had a moment of clarity that the investment would be worth it, even though I didn’t exactly know how.

Flash forward to three years later, and I have the privilege of running an incredibly successful coaching business. I’ve never felt more fulfilled or like I am adding more value to the world than I am now.

It’s all because I was willing to simultaneously question my belief (that coaching was silly) AND believe in myself enough to take a risk that I could change my entire career path.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I am a Certified Professional Life and Leadership Coach, and I specialize in helping smart women with perfectionist tendencies overcome self-doubt, feel less anxious, and get more done.

I focus on women with perfectionist tendencies because I am one! The self-critical voice in my head is loud, and despite listening to all of the podcasts and trying all of the meditations, I could never really get a grip on what to do with the voice so that I could enjoy my life. I just kept striving to achieve milestone after milestone.

I have now coached hundreds of women to learn how their brains work and apply a strategy to manage their minds and emotions. Many clients come to me either burned out, full of self-doubt, or confused about their next steps in life. They leave with increased influence at work, feeling more present at home, and committed to health and fitness routines.

My method works because my deep and intense conversational coaching method is rooted in the research base of cognitive psychology.

In addition to coaching conversations, I teach my clients my proprietary Choose Better Thoughts self-coaching method, which includes a suite of self-coaching strategies that my clients use to increase their self-awareness and transform their lives well beyond the end of our formal coaching partnership.

In addition to my coaching credentials, I have over 15 years of leadership experience in non-profit and consulting organizations. I earned my Master of Public Policy from Georgetown University and my Bachelor of Arts from the University of Virginia. I live just outside of Washington, D.C. with my husband and two daughters.

Have you ever had to pivot?

For the first three decades of my life, I worked extremely hard and produced high-quality results. I earned my degrees, I excelled in my career, I married a wonderful partner, we bought a house, and we got a dog. I felt challenged in my work, fulfilled in my relationship and clear-headed about my purpose and direction.

So what happened?

I had two babies.​

People are not joking around when they say kids change everything.

For me, becoming a mother was identity-shattering.

I could no longer wake up early or stay up late to get my work done.

I felt like a failure just trying to feed my kids.

I felt self-conscious in my postpartum body.

I felt hopeless that the version of me who had existed before kids was gone; replaced by the just-barely-getting-by-mom version.

Something had to change…

At some point during the endless hours of the night while feeding and changing diapers, I started listening to podcasts hosted by life and leadership coaches, many of whom talked about the powerful impact of increasing one’s self-awareness.

I started to realize that I didn’t have to settle for just getting by. But I wasn’t quite sure how.

So I began my coach certification training as a way to manage my own burnout.

I am now on a mission to help others learn and practice the same cognitive and emotional skills that I used to transform my own life.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

I had to unlearn a lot of unethical marketing tactics.

I started my business with no idea about marketing in general, especially when it came to social media.

So I set to work learning.

I listened to podcasts, read booked, invested in coaching.

Unfortunately, from MANY sources, I heard the message – to varying degrees – that I had to make people realize they were in pain and that they needed my service to feel better. A lot of the tactics I was offered were about creating urgency in a potential client. Helping them “overcome their objections” to make a decision to buy.

What I have since learned is that my clients are incredibly intelligent human beings capable of knowing exactly what their problem is and what they “need” to address it. (Hint: No one NEEDS me, or coaching, or anything.)

And if they have objection to making an investment, then I can hold space for that and explore that – if they WANT to – without gaslighting them or creating any pressure or urgency.

I have also learned that if I simply put the best value I can out into the world, people find me.

Creating a sales process that feels creative, light, and respectful of my clients made running the marketing side of my business SO much fun.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.choosebetterthoughts.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/choosebetterthoughts
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/choosebetterthoughts
• Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/amandahuffmandoyle