What Even Is Transformative Coaching?

I’ve had informal coaching, mentoring and general advice giving from some pretty cool people in the past, and some pretty naff advice along the way. One conversation stands out, not that I remember the full context, but I remember where I was, behind the bar in Bath City Football Club, our gym was being temporarily housed in a bar. I was on a phone call to a mentor, and I remember it shifted a gear in my head. Like pulling a twig from some cogs, things just started moving and changing a bit afterwards. That call led me down a 4 year journey with a start up company, and taught me a lot about wins and losses, but more than that, it added a completely new texture, a slightly different and exciting direction, to my work and life. All from one conversation.

I remember a session clearly when a client came in stressed, upset, angry from work, and felt they had to train hard alongside this stress. In fact they were pretty full and ready to break. We took a walk and a talk instead of the planned session, and it was a moment they still talk about years after. Taking on some big picture thinking, with little steps, taking a vote on being the person they want to be. They will exercise, they will be active, but it’s not the only thing they do and it doesn’t determine their value. It wasn’t about quitting when it’s hard, but more about taking time out of that day and understanding they have more control than they think. Missing that one workout helped them see how they could make working out a part of who they were, not something they had to do. The walk and the talk really helped them unravel a few things, and honestly I probably added too much of my own opinion alongside listening. But we were working on thoughts then, not just muscles.

That moment is basically one of the things I’m trying to get my head around at the moment. Not fixing the thing someone came in with, but noticing there’s usually something underneath it.

For years I’d have thought coaching was about knowing all the answers, having the most experience, setting out perfect goals. Come in with a crystal clear aim, leave with a plan to hit it. Turns out that’s only half the story, and maybe not even the interesting half.

Transformative coaching (if that feels wishy washy let’s just call it coaching for now) isn’t really about the goal on the surface. It’s about how someone sees themselves and their situation in the first place. Two people can have the exact same problem and need completely different things to tackle it, because the problem isn’t really the problem. It’s what they believe about themselves that’s keeping them stuck in it.

One of my commitments is helping run a community run club (shout out to Deadleg Run Club!). I do it with a very small team, and we currently take nothing from it other than the good vibes. The trouble is, I’ve found it increasingly harder to show up authentically, well maybe I was being too authentic. Tired from work, depleted from people facing work and not ready to do it all again. I was showing up stressed, and the hours before the run I was hard to be around for others and hard on myself. So what’s changed? This may sound silly, but I had this voice in my head… “we can do this the easy way or we can do this the hard way.” The hard way was being a bit sour, anxious and grumpy, it made it harder to enjoy, and it was a pattern I was falling into. So I thought, what would it be like if I just took it as a fun thing to try each week. Try and be a bit more grateful for the experience. A little more happy to see people who want to keep the club vibe going, a little more like the person I want to be and a little less like the guy I don’t want to be.

For me it was a conversation with El, she listened, I spoke at myself… was I coaching myself a bit… maybe.

Here’s the bit that took me a while to get my head around (and if I’m honest, I’m still getting my head around it). A lot of the time people don’t go looking for this kind of coaching when life is fine. They go looking for it when something’s cracked open a bit. A job loss, a burnout, a birthday that hits different (hello big numbers, can I blow out all these candles), a “wait, is this actually my life?” moment. There’s a term for this I picked up in training with Animas, a “disorienting dilemma,” which is a fancy way of saying: something happened that doesn’t fit with how you used to see things, and now you can’t unsee it.

I had this moment when I used to compete in CrossFit, where I had just bombed out of a regional event, one I could do well in but I lost focus and fluffed it. After a couple of workouts with my head down and some reflection time back at the accommodation, I just thought, oh wait, I don’t think this is for me, I don’t want to make my life about this. I don’t want people to think this is me, it got too serious, it took too much of my time, energy, and the result was not what I wanted. I’d cringe at being called an athlete before then, and maybe that was part of it. I went on the next day to have fun, to enjoy the experience and perform really well, but something changed where I realised I didn’t want to do it anymore, certainly not the way I was doing it, it felt like a game I didn’t want to play. I reflected and realised then I just didn’t need to compare myself to the others, I was so worried about comparing myself to my peers on one hand, but on the other realised it didn’t matter, and it felt a bit silly.

In that moment, would advice have helped? I don’t think so. Would listening have helped? Probably. Would a safe, non judgemental space, held by a supportive coach and driven by a collaborative conversation with well thought through and purposeful questions, have helped me iron out some of this stuff faster? I think so.

I used to think a good coach was basically someone further along the path, handing down wisdom (I’ve talked before about nearly becoming a bit of a guru in my own head, that’s a whole other post). Turns out real coaching is more like holding a torch while someone else works out where they actually want to go, rather than pointing and saying “that way.” It’s collaborative. It’s led by them. You’re just there, present, not judging, believing they’re capable of getting there even when they don’t quite believe it yet. A neat book I’m tucking into by Claire Pedrick describes it as being a “stoker” on the back of a tandem bike, giving the person on the front power and stability but not choosing the direction. This sits well with me, as I’ve always got a lot from helping others, and I have strong legs.

The bit I find hardest, if I’m honest. Sitting with someone in the mess without jumping in to fix it for them or offer up advice. It’s a space I have fallen into in the past, and I’m realising where that’s needed and when it’s not.

I joke with El that when I do get to give advice out of coaching, it feels like a metaphorical breath of fresh air, or how I imagine it would be to puff on a cigarette back when it was cool…

So if I had to explain it simply: transformative coaching isn’t about giving someone a five step plan. It’s about creating a space where someone can look properly at what they believe about themselves and their life, question the bits that aren’t serving them anymore, and find their own way through. The coach isn’t driving. They’re creating momentum and making sure the space stays safe enough, and honest enough, for that to happen.

Let’s be honest, none of us need more information, it’s literally forced into our eyeballs and ears every second of the day. We need to decide what we think about it, about us, and about what we do.

I’m still very much in training on all this, so take what I’ve said here as “figuring it out in public,” watch this space as it may change.

Has something ever cracked open for you like that, a moment that made you see your situation completely differently? What happened?