Even Coaches Lose Confidence

READ TIME: 4 MINUTES

This week, panic set in.

My April sales were tracking below March. March has been my strongest month since launching the business in January.

I know the rational answer. It takes months to build a repeatable business. One slow week isn't a trend. I know this.

And yet.

I started questioning everything. Whether I made the right decision leaving corporate. Whether I'm actually good at this. The same spiral I've watched clients fall into when they miss quota or can't land an interview.

Here's the irony: rebuilding confidence after a setback is exactly what I coach. It's what clients come to me for. It's what I'm currently building a course around.

And on Tuesday, I needed to apply it to myself.

The question I keep hearing

A client came to me a few weeks ago and asked: "Is this normal? I've hit quota before. But I haven't been able to hit it in two quarters. Is it me? Is it the product? Is it the market?"

That question lives in a lot of people right now. Maybe it lives in you.

The answer is almost never what we think it is when we're in the middle of it.

Here's what I did when the spiral started.

I stopped focusing on the output and started with a walk.

Then I looked at the data to determine what was actually causing the dip. My lead volume had dropped. When I unpacked why, it was tied to the type of content I'd been creating — something I can control.

Then I turned my attention to March.

Multiple clients landed roles. A few made it further in the interview process than they had before. Two navigated complex situations in their current roles. That wasn't luck. There was a recipe that led to it.

I built a plan to finish April strong and set up a fast start in May.

Small steps. Specific goals. Focus on what's in front of me.

The panic didn't disappear immediately. But it got smaller once I had a plan.

Why setbacks hit harder than wins

I've recently started writing down my wins — because that feeling is not the one we easily recall.

The losses stay with us.

I can tell you exactly where I was and what I felt the day I was laid off. I remember with full clarity the stretch where I was close to a PIP as a new AE.

The wins? I had to stop and think the other day about whether President's Club was in Cancun or Scottsdale.

This is one of the reasons I tell every client to keep a brag book — not just for interviews, but for moments exactly like this one. When confidence dips, you need receipts. Evidence that you've done it before.

If you don't have one, start here.

What I've been reading

In preparation for the course I'

m building, I've been deep in The Confident Mind by Dr. Nate Zinsser. Two things have stayed with me:

"Your strengths are inherent and permanent. Your failures are situational and transient."

"Confidence has relatively little to do with what actually happens to you, and pretty much everything to do with how you think about what happens to you."

That reframe matters. Especially when you're in the middle of a hard quarter, a long job search, or a moment where you're questioning whether you're actually good at this.

Zinsser's framework for building confidence works across three time frames:

Past → Mine your wins. Reframe losses as situational, not permanent.

Future → Visualize the outcome you want. 

On Tuesday, mine looked like this: a coaching practice that has helped thousands of SaaS sales professionals navigate their career transitions — some chasing the right title, others chasing a life with more money and flexibility. That clarity didn't fix my lead volume. But it reminded me why I built this in the first place. When you're in a hard quarter or a long job search, your vision isn't a nice-to-have. It's what pulls you back to the work. The interview going well. The offer coming through. The role that actually fits.

Present → Manage your self-talk in the moment. On a call. In an interview room. In a slow week.

You don't control what happens. You control what you tell yourself about it.

The coach had a bad week.

She went for a walk, looked at the data, found the recipe that worked, and built a plan. By Friday, the pipeline was moving again.   

If you're in a low right now — missing quota, stuck in a job search that isn't moving, questioning whether you're on the right path — this is the process.

Feel it. Unpack it. Find the evidence of what you've already done.

Then take one step forward.

Hit reply and tell me: when confidence dips, what's the first thing that helps you reset? I read every response.

To clarity and confidence in your career path, 

Amanda

See you next Sunday.