There’s a dilemma in being a coach. Or should I say in being a coach who offers true change. I define true change as being committed to setting the conditions for clients to help themselves to achieve the things they say they would like to achieve.
The paradox is this: At every critical moment of truth, a true coach risks losing the client when asking the client to make the moves to help the client help themselves.
Many years ago, when I was on a quest to learn to run the water ski course, I regularly visited Matt Rini in Florida. I first had the chance to meet Matt after I had been skiing for a couple of years. The thing that most intrigued me was how much he cared that the skier improved. We were at the Water Ski Magazine Fantasy Camp, where all the pros of that time were there to coach amateurs like me. Of all the coaches I experienced at the Camp, Matt’s way of communicating felt like it contained a useful balance of support and challenge.
He both helped me see that I COULD do it and he pushed me to and through my comfort zone so that I WOULD do it.
Still, I was scared and slow to take chances. During my coaching visits, I could get a few buoys, but not the whole course. It was on my third or fourth trip to ski with Matt one day when the scales tipped in my favor. (Although in the moment it felt like a kick in the pants.) We were at the far end of the lake, and as he brought the boat around, he said “Lynn, if you ever want to run the course, you are going to have to get OUT OF YOUR COMFORT ZONE!” Both his tone and his words hit me between the eyes. A part of me felt like crying because I wondered where the friendly guy who had been so encouraging and supportive went. Another part of me felt relief because I needed that kick in the pants to convince me to tolerate the discomfort it would require for me to do the thing I said I wanted to do.
Matt believed me when I said I wanted to run the course, so he offered both challenge and support. In that moment, Matt showed up as a True Coach.
In my limited experience working with ski coaches, I had already noted that they seem to fall in the same camps true for coaches in other domains: The Enforcer, The Protector and the True Coach.
The Enforcers offer only challenge, without many encouraging words. They set high standards, which is laudable, but taken to the extreme, can be discouraging at best and abusive at worst. One coach I remember never once told me anything that I was doing well. But oh, he had a huge laundry list of all the ways I could be better as he coached me at each end of the lake. From my vantage point, this coach seemed to believe that he was only doing his job if he was offering a solid critique. Feeling constantly discouraged was no way for me to get better.
The Protectors are on the opposite end of the spectrum. They are quick with support and offer lots of encouragement, which is necessary, but can also be debilitating. They offer practical coaching; however, when it comes to pushing me past my self-limiting beliefs and out of my comfort zone, they aren’t willing to risk it. It’s almost as if they don’t believe I can do it, which undermines confidence. While these coaches might be fine to hang out with, they don’t really help move the needle on my skiing.
Make no mistake - pushing someone through their comfort zone is risky business. It’s at our edges that all our beliefs, assumptions and triggers about who we are and how the world works have taken up occupancy. Growth is a funny thing. Real growth always required discomfort. It tends to kick us into Survival Mode, and when we find the edge of our comfort zone, we can be a little like the folks in Columbus’s era of flat Earth. We are sure we are going over the edge.
The True Coaches are like Matt. They do offer support and encouragement. They also take the risk of angering their clients, which makes it difficult to do.
That’s why it’s a paradox. Challenge and support feel like opposite energies that must exist separately. Yet they can both be true at the same time.
As a coach, I’ve found myself in the paradox more times that I can count. In the moments when I ask the tough question, hold up the mirror or dive into a client’s limiting beliefs, I’m aware that we are on the edge. It can be a dangerous place. People bounce off the walls of their comfort zone like a WWE wrestler coming off the ropes in the ring, coming in for the attack. If I start taking such things personally, we could end up in a fight, and instead of helping the client take their own walls down, the client armors up even more.
There’s a saying that we don’t see the world as it is, we see the world as we are.
I don’t want this statement to be true. There’s a recent story I’m not ready to tell yet that bears this out. I’ll just say this. Something that was driving me crazy in another person turned out to be all about me. It was never about the other person. This is both good news and bad news. Good news, because if it’s about me, then I can do something about it. Bad news because…it’s about me.
When I’m at the edge of my comfort zone, I sometimes need a coach or mentor to usher me across the dangerous territory of my own mind and its self-made limitations.
Any way you cut it, ushering someone into the territory of infinite possibilities is dangerous territory.
Stevie Delahunt and I spoke about this at length in my recent podcast, following her completion of The Tevis Cup, a grueling 100 mile endurance ride in California. In June, I was in Oregon with Stevie for an endurance boot camp, where she helped usher me out of my own comfort zone. Not only did we talk about her side of this story, where she had to decide just how hard she could push me, but we also talked about other times where she has almost lost friendships over raising the pressure on someone to help them see what is truly possible.
Just this last week, I was working with my reining trainer Christi Baldree. After a few lessons, she’s been able to see the perpetual habit (a stiff arm) that keeps me from being able to ride in a relaxed canter. Of course, the problem doesn’t start at the canter. This week, she believed in my goals enough to push me through whatever mental block was keeping my arm stiff. She had me exaggerate bending my arm at the walk. When she said “I want you to push through the discomfort,” it took me back all those years ago to skiing with Matt. Now we were getting somewhere! In this case, I realized that I was afraid of being clear on my direction with the horse, which was causing me to be overly protective.
In my effort to be “nice” I was being confusing.
When I made the change, the horse instantly relaxed, as if to say “Yes! Now I understand. Let’s go have some fun.” Ironically, the horse had more trust with me when I quit trying to take care of him, and offered clear direction. The difference once we went back to the canter was night and day. But who knew that being clear could be so uncomfortable! I was so grateful that Christi took the risk to push me through it.
Being a True Coach requires dancing the tightrope between challenge and support. We all have a tendency to lean one way or the other, depending on the situation. Simply being aware of the dichotomy can help us navigate the paradox.
And truthfully, this paradox isn’t just about coaching. It’s about any relationship that matters. We may forget to set appropriate boundaries in favor of caring too much. We may start holding those close to us to ridiculous standards and forget that they need our love and support.
Where do you find yourself in the Coach's Paradox – more Enforcer or Protector or True Coach? How do you feel your way through difficult conversations involving changing behavior? What can you do to cultivate the trust – in yourself and in others – to effectively navigate the paradox?