Coaches: don’t try to solve your client’s problems

Many professional coaches, whether new or experienced, often get caught up in solving the client’s problem, sometimes to the detriment of the coaching session.

“The paradox of coaching is that the client’s “problem” is often resolved by the coach not directly solving it.”

One of the most stressful experiences of being a professional coach is questioning whether your coaching is truly valuable for the client. Given the significant investment clients make, there is pressure to meet their expectations. When a client comes to you seeking help with a specific problem, it’s easy to feel trapped by the need to perform and deliver solutions.

However, coaching is an art form. Like any compelling work of art, a masterful coaching session embodies both symmetry and paradox. The symmetry is found in the flow of the conversation: it begins with laser-focused attention on the deeper discomfort that the client is genuinely seeking to resolve and ends with a natural drive for the client to take immediate action to transform their experience and achieve their desired results. The paradox lies in the middle.

The paradox of coaching is that the client’s “problem” is often resolved by the coach not directly solving it. Instead, the coach fully listens to the client’s concerns, helps uncover the underlying current driving these concerns, and then uses coaching intuition and physical senses to step into the client’s worldview. Together, they journey into the unknown, allowing the client to arrive at their own conclusions. By the end of the session, the conversation circles back to the client's original goals, exploring how the new insights gained have sparked awareness and what actions the client wants to take as a result. At no point is there a necessity for the coach to provide a direct solution—the client discovers it themselves.

I talk more about this and about how intuition holds the space for this process.in my short audio track below.

Intuition is one of the key elements that allows coaches to enter the realm of coach mastery. It helps us separate the idea of providing value from merely solving the client’s problem. Through intuition, we can swiftly uncover the stories, beliefs, or thought patterns underlying the client’s concerns—what they are truly seeking to resolve within themselves, often without even realizing it. This deeper awareness enables clients to become better parents, employees, professionals, and more fulfilled human beings. Intuition also guides us to gently follow the path the client needs to take, creating a powerful awareness that inspires meaningful action.

Want to know more? Check out our free introduction to the Insight Advantage Program, where you can develop your intuition into a powerful coaching tool and elevate your coaching to a new level of mastery.