Before you create an online course, do you take inventory of the beliefs that are going to be in your virtual classroom?
I don’t mean just your beliefs and no this isn’t about having a better mindset.
Do you sit down and take account of all the beliefs your potential students or clients are bringing to the room and how those beliefs influence how they’ll learn from you and any curriculum you create?
I am also not talking about marketing and trying to suss out someone’s desires and fears so you can speak to them so they enroll in your course.
I mean, do you know how to figure out what labels are in your virtual or physical classroom that could get in the way of learning?
When I used to teach in a classroom, we’d run a common experiential exercise at the start of every semester where you put three circles on the ground (I’d use three different ropes). There’s a small circle in the middle, a bigger circle around it, and an even bigger circle around them both. The inside circle would represent the “comfort zone.” The middle area represented the “learning or growth zone.” And the outside circle was the “danger zone.” (I go into a full lesson on how to use the learning zones to determine your ideal client HERE)
My students would stand around the circle and listen to a series of questions and then go stand in the part of the circle that represented how they felt about it.
For example, I’d ask “What if I asked you to write a 5 paragraph essay today?”
(We were a small class of kids pretty comfortable with each other. For more privacy, you can have someone do this on a sheet of paper or just share with you later)
They’d go stand in whatever zone showed how they felt about that activity.
Now, I was teaching a leadership course to teenagers who came from different educational backgrounds, who had also been labeled “at-risk,” and who had experienced most of their school years being disrupted by various intense stressors. There were a lot of “labels” in that classroom that had to be named in order to create an environment where everyone could feel safer to take certain risks.
Writing was one of the biggest obstacles and I’d say it comes up with most of my adult clients as well.
I might ask “how would you feel if I asked you to write a full page bio about yourself and share it with everyone in class?” My teenage students and adult coaching clients often move closer to their danger zone with this question when we first start working together.
It’s important for me, as the teacher, to know this. If I went off of the “standards” or what I assumed everyone should be able to do, I’d end up creating a course that misses the whole point of teaching and learning: we have to meet our clients where they are, not where we want them to be.
For my teenage students in their danger zone with writing, it was often because they’d missed so much school and they were told by teachers they were a “problem” student in the class. They started to view writing as the enemy and almost rebelled against learning how to do it because of how it was forced on them.
The biggest barrier wasn’t teaching writing skills. That’s a matter of taking a different approach and trying different things.
The biggest obstacle was internalized belief based on how the system and society had labeled so many of these kids.
If you were told over and over that you were a problem student, that you weren’t capable of learning certain things, that you were way behind over and over as though it was all your doing, that label is going to block what it takes to see your own possibilities.
And this applies to us as adults.
How many times do you get down on yourself for certain things? How often have you heard your clients put themselves down for what they can’t do?
It starts early!
We carry these internalized labels with us even when we didn’t choose them.
So when you create your course, whether it be about leadership, or writing a book, or creating a website, or how to dance, or nutrition, or mindful eating, you still have to take time to determine the labels your clients are bringing with them into your virtual classroom.
Until they’re named, they’re the loudest voice obstructing the belief in possibility – the possibility to learn and excel in your program and create real and lasting results in their lives.
Where can you start?
- What do you teach and who is it for? Write out as thorough of an answer as possible. For example, if you teach a cooking class, be specific. Is it an advanced class or for complete beginners?
- Why do your ideal students want to take your specific course or program? What is motivating them? With the cooking class for example, are they learning to cook professionally? Or, are they wanting the skills to create better and healthier meals at home?
- What prevents them from taking your course, aside from cost or timing? In other words, what are some of the thoughts and beliefs that come up when they consider taking part? For example, in a cooking course, they might feel insecure about their skill level. They might be worried they won’t stick with it. Someone might have told them they’re a terrible cook and they’re having a hard time getting past that.
- Account for those beliefs so you can directly address them in your curriculum and also on your enrollment page! For example “If you’re concerned that you don’t have what it takes to cook, don’t worry. I got you. I cover everything from the basics of seasoning to how to create delicious meals with minimal ingredients!”
- Bonus: Survey your existing clients and students to find out what some of their beliefs were or are.
