How to Make the Most of Coaching Support

My first experience with a personal/professional development coach was in 2016.

I had just gotten laid off (well, let’s call a spade a spade and say I was fired) and I had absolutely no sense of direction for what was next. What I did know was that I didn’t want to rush into the next job just to calm my fear. I’d done that before. Too many times.

I wanted to be intentional.

I wanted my next chapter to align with my deepest desires as well as my values because I had already worked at one too many places that didn’t meet the bar.

At the time, getting fired felt like failure. Like I’d hit rock bottom. But coaching helped me see something I couldn’t see on my own: I wasn’t as far off-track as I thought. In fact, I was closer to my dreams than I realized.

What I needed wasn’t someone to tell me what to do. I needed someone to help me slow down, reflect honestly, and reconnect with my why. That clarity didn’t just ground me. It accelerated me.

That experience changed my life.

Since then, I’ve worked with a coach nearly every year of my life — while at jobs I hated, while building my business, during once-in-a-lifetime career opportunities, and during deeply personal healing seasons. Coaching has supported me through growth, uncertainty, ambition, and reinvention.

And that’s why I value being EXTRA clear about what coaching is and what it is not.

Coaching Is a Partnership, Not a Way to Bypass Responsibility

Most people don’t come to coaching because everything is broken, even if it feels that way on the surface. They come because clarity or a decision feels close, but there’s resistance to fully committing to the next step. That resistance is often “gift-wrapped” in a tough life moment that makes it unappealing to address — especially alone.

Coaching can be a shortcut in the best way: it shortens the distance between awareness and action by helping you see what’s already there more clearly. It doesn’t remove responsibility. It helps you work with the discomfort, uncertainty, and resistance that show up — and build confidence through small, meaningful moments of empowerment along the way.

So let’s make sure we’re clear: A coach doesn’t make choices for you, guarantee outcomes, or ensure success.

What a coach does do is hold up a mirror, ask better questions, and offer potential pathways worth exploring. You decide which path to take and whether to take one at all.

Self-direction is not optional in coaching. It’s the whole damn point.

Come With What’s Real (Not What Sounds Impressive)

You don’t need perfectly articulated goals or polished narratives for coaching to be effective. Some of the most meaningful sessions start with uncertainty.

Bring the thing you keep circling.
The tension you haven’t named yet.
The script of the self-doubt monologue your inner critic keeps performing.
The decision that feels heavier than it should.
The never ending frustration and fear.

Clarity doesn’t require certainty. It requires honesty.
However messy it might be.

Use Coaching as a Thinking Space

One of the most valuable things coaching offers is protected space to think without interruption, urgency, or pressure to perform.

Not every session needs to end with a perfectly packaged action plan. Sometimes progress looks like slowing down long enough to see what’s actually happening beneath the surface and then deciding on one thing to do with that new insight.

Clarity earned through self-discovery and reflection leads to better decisions, and those soul-aligned decisions create momentum that lasts.

Treat Insights as Experiments

Coaching will often surface insights, practices, or next steps. These aren’t rule books: they’re experiments.

Try what resonates. Pay attention to what shifts. Notice what supports you and what doesn’t. Bring that learning back like data into the next conversation.

Growth comes from that sweet mix of self-intimacy, creative play and truly listening to yourself not forceful “compliance.”

Ask for the Support That Serves You

Coaching can be strategic, reflective, intuitive, somatic, or directive depending on what’s most useful in the moment.

If you want challenge, name it.
If you want a sounding board, say so.
If you want encouragement, cue the hype.
If something isn’t landing, that feedback matters.

The more honest and willing you are to advocate for what you need, the more effective the partnership becomes.

A Truth Worth Naming

No coach can ensure your success, growth, or outcomes.

What coaching can do is help you build clearer awareness, stronger decision-making, and deeper trust in how you lead yourself. The results come from your choices, your follow-through, and your willingness to stay engaged… especially when things feel uncomfortable.

Discomfort doesn’t mean something is wrong. Often, it means something important is shifting.

A Final Thought

You don’t need to approach coaching with perfection or urgency.

Use it in a way that supports your priorities, pace, and goals. Stay curious. Stay honest. Lead your own process.

That’s where coaching does its best work.