Why coaches don’t tell you what to do

Coaching is a learning curve.

Many people arrive at coaching expecting a prescription for solving their problems. It can be disorienting and initially disappointing to discover that your coach doesn’t tell you what to do.

We’re not used to this! For basically all of our lives—in school, at work, and in medical or therapeutic dynamics—we’ve been conditioned to look to outside experts for answers.

Experts are great. And coaches are experts too—just not in giving answers. Coaches are experts in asking questions that help you connect with your answers.

In a coaching environment, there’s no such thing as an objectively “right” or “wrong” answer—only insights that help you notice how your own thinking is obstructing your view of reality.

“Reality” as in the circumstances of your life. “Thinking” as in the meaning you make of those circumstances.

When your reality is clouded by your thinking, it’s hard to know what you want and how to get there because everything is viewed through a lens of beliefs, opinions, and judgements.

Through careful listening and thought-provoking questions, coaches help you distinguish your reality from your thinking so you can make decisions and take actions from a position of accuracy.

Getting accurate in this way is like wiping a thick film off a window and being able to view your life clearly. Suddenly you can see what’s been there all along.

The answers! Your answers.

Coaches don’t tell you what to do because it would reinforce the issue that brought you to coaching in the first place. It would thicken the metaphorical film on the window.

Coaches listen and ask questions. Only you can connect with the truth that lives inside you.