Resistance means coaching is working
People don’t hire coaches when everything is going perfectly.
People hire coaches when something is off.
This can come in the form of subtle whispers from your intuition, letting you know something in your life needs to shift. Or it can be a flashing neon sign telling you to make change now.
People hire coaches to help them overcome or achieve something that they haven’t been able to on their own.
That being the case, coaching by definition brings out resistance.
Coaching doesn’t cause resistance. It was already there—that’s why you hired a coach! But coaching makes it hard to ignore or hide from whatever you’re resisting.
This is a great thing.
Your personal growth—getting unstuck—hinges on your ability to identify your areas of resistance and work through them.
If you don’t, the conditions you say you don’t want will continue. What you resist persists.
Facing your own resistance is challenging.
It can put you in a defensive posture, cause you to push back on new ideas, shut down new perspectives, and dismiss or procrastinate on recommendations.
If you feel those things happen when you’re working with a coach, know it’s the point. You’re doing it right!
The ultimate point of coaching is to help you push through those reactions. But initially, just notice and acknowledge that you’re experiencing exactly what coaching is designed to do.
You are coming face-to-face with something you have resistance around—the reason you’re getting coached in the first place.
You’re no longer ignoring it.
You’re no longer numbing it.
You’re no longer dismissing it.
You’re facing it. And that’s brave.
Tip: After your coaching sessions, ask yourself, “What was most useful about that?”
In his great book The Coaching Habit, author Michael Bungay Stanier says, “People don’t really learn when you tell them something. They don’t even really learn when they do something. They start learning, start creating new neural pathways, only when they have a chance to recall and reflect on what just happened.”
When resistance kicks in, it can be easy to forget or abandon the things you heard in a coaching session.
Reflecting on key takeaways is a great way to extend the value of coaching, regardless of how resistant you feel in the moment.
