You are not a project to fix

For a significant part of my professional life, I worked in environments where the existence of a problem meant something very specific: find the solution. A system is failing? Fix it. A process is inefficient? Optimise it. A model returns the wrong result? Find the error. Capacity is overloaded? Analyse consumption. Problem → analysis → solution. It is an excellent model. Until we automatically apply it to human beings.

The human as an IT ticket

It is surprisingly easy to start thinking: “What is wrong with me?” I cannot make this decision. I am not assertive enough. I do not know how to rest. I keep returning to the same problem. I should know by now. I should be further ahead. I should be able to handle this. It almost sounds like a ticket:

Issue: person does not behave as expected. Severity: high. Expected behaviour: complete clarity and confidence at all times. Except a person is not a product that needs to be brought into compliance with a specification.

What if nothing is broken?

That does not mean everything is wonderful. You may be in a situation you genuinely want to leave. You may have a behaviour that hurts you. You may want to learn to set boundaries. Communicate differently. Make a decision. Change something. But there is an enormous difference between: “I want to change something” and: “I need to fix myself.” The first leaves you with agency. The second quickly turns you into the problem.

Coaching does not need to begin with deficiency

One of the things I value most about coaching is the assumption that the client does not arrive as an empty container waiting to be filled with the coach’s knowledge. They arrive with experience. Values. Skills. Intuition. History. Contradictions. Resources. And many things they may simply have difficulty accessing at that particular moment. Sometimes we do not need a new capability. We need to remember one we already had. Sometimes we do not need another answer. We need to hear our own opinion without five other people’s opinions layered on top. Sometimes we do not need “more motivation”. We need to understand why we are trying so hard to force ourselves toward something we do not actually want.

“But isn’t the coach supposed to help?”

Yes. But help does not always mean adding something. Sometimes it means removing. Pressure. Assumptions. Someone else’s “you should”. Someone else’s “if I were you”. Someone else’s script for what a successful life is supposed to look like. Good coaching should not become another person telling you who you ought to be. It should strengthen your ability to consciously choose who you want to be.

Your job is not to be a good coaching client

You do not need to arrive prepared. You do not need a perfectly formulated goal. You do not need to know exactly “what you want to work on”. You can say:

“I don’t know. Something just doesn’t feel right.” You can change your mind. You can have no dramatic breakthrough. You can discover that the topic you brought is not actually the important one. You can decide not to change anything. Coaching is not an exam in personal development.

You are not a project to fix

You can be a person moving through change. A person in conflict. A person who does not know. A person who needs a boundary. A person who wants more. Or less. A person with a good life and one question worth exploring. We do not need to first declare you broken for a conversation to have value. Quite the opposite. Perhaps a much more interesting question is: What becomes possible when you stop treating yourself as the problem to solve?

Read more about what coaching is — and what it is not →