In today’s highly uncertain environment, wouldn’t it be nice to have a wise advisor available to you around the clock? Wouldn’t it be great to have a coach to help keep your emotions in check, and keep your team and organization on track?

That sagely guidance you seek is now much more accessible than you think, and you don’t even need to hire an expensive executive coach on retainer. You could be just the advisor you’ve been looking for.

Executive coaches perform two essential functions. First, they provide clients with sound, objective advice. Second, they help clients execute that advice. With a few simple, proven techniques you can start tapping into your inner coach.

Step 1: Give Yourself Sound Advice

Recall someone you know—a colleague, an employee, or a boss who recently made a decision that they now regret. You saw it coming, didn’t you? Even though you’re too big a person to say “I told you so,” your advice was right on the money, wasn’t it?

Now, think of a regrettable decision that you made recently. Maybe you’re thinking of those budget dollars you wasted on that unnecessary office equipment, or how you let your envy of a competitor drive you into a saturated market. Or maybe you’ve compounded a problem with your team by putting off a tough decision. In hindsight, the right choice was clear all along, but you botched it up.

We’ve all been there. Why is that we’re so good at giving advice to other people, but so often blunder when giving advice to ourselves?

When we dish out advice to others, we really don’t have anything to lose or gain, which clears our logic-clouding emotions. It enables us to give clear advice on what they should do, because we do not feel strongly about what they want to do. On the other hand, our emotions kick into overdrive when we’re the ones taking the big risk or receiving the big potential reward. These emotions prevent us from thinking clearly.

But with just a little imagination, we can overcome our lack of reason. Try picturing the situation as though you were watching it unfold in a movie. Then determine which course of action you think the lead character should take. Psychologists have discovered that when people imagine a situation as though it were happening to someone else or as though it were happening onscreen, they use a completely different mode of thought.

Katherine Milkman, a researcher at the Wharton School of Business explains that this simple trick can shift our entire mode of thinking. Pretending that we are the coach advising a client moves us from System 1 thinking—the “want” system driven by our impulses and emotions—to System 2 thinking—the more deliberate and logical “should” system.