Why You Should Fire Your Coach
There comes a time where you just need to do it. You need to fire your coach. Whether it's a health coach or life coach or business coach or athletic coach. Or lactating coach. Or...I'll stop there.
If you have ever hired someone to support you in changing, improving or shifting some aspect of your life, it's important to know when it's time to end that relationship.
Ready means different things to different people, as I've learned from both being a health coach and also hiring different coaches or other practitioners to support my own health and my business.
Readiness determines action which determines success.
And it's usually time to fire your coach if you're really not ready to do the work involved in that relationship. If you DO feel ready, however, another reason it's important to know when to fire your coach (or other support person) is if you can tell it's not a good fit. You want to change but you need the right person to help you.
So, how do you know which it is and what to do?
1) You'd rather complain than take action. Hey, we're human. When we aren't ready to change, we make excuses in the form of complaints. The excuses are a defensive mechanism to avoid the pain and truth of taking responsibility for our lives and our health. "You mean I have to actually cook for myself if I want to eat better--my partner/friend/parent/boss doesn't count?" I say this as someone who has personally fought tooth-and-nail to understand and overcome this, and witnessed hundreds of others do the same. BEWARE! Your excuses can often be highly-credited and widely-agreed upon amongst your circle of friends, family and colleagues--why else would you hang around those people if not to have the feeling of being "right" most of the time?? We could complain our lives away and probably surround ourselves with people who listen and do it too, as long as we want to stay the way we are. If you find you're complaining about the tasks or assignments you're being given by your coach, it's time to fire that person.
2) You keep rescheduling appointments. My gosh, your life is busy. You have SO MANY things to get done and the hour needed to catch up with your coach is just...the straw that will break your back. It's nothing personal, you are just too busy.
3) You find yourself resenting the support or recommendations. Your coach asks good questions or makes recommendations and you find yourself instantly coming up with rebuttals or reasons why it wouldn't work for you. If you hear from your coach between scheduled sessions, it annoys you. The questions the person asks make you think and/or feel things you'd just rather not deal with. Or maybe you've clearly asked what you need and the person seems to miss it. They talk over you. They aren't really listening to you, they are talking to hear themselves talk. They are bringing an agenda, consciously or not. Either way, the "support" isn't occurring like support at all for you.
4) You dread appointments instead of count the hours between them. Similar to the above, you find yourself trying to find ways to get out of your scheduled sessions and you spend time crafting perfectly-worded emails or planning to call when you're pretty sure the person won't answer the phone. And then you put off calling because now you're not sure if they will answer or not ...
5) You don't trust the person. Something just doesn't feel right. You can't put your finger on it but it's there. You've done all the right things and you sincerely crave a change but this person doesn't seem to get you or hear you. Or for some other reason, you just don't trust this person really gets what you're going through or can be the person to help you through it.
6) You just aren't getting the results you hoped for. You've stuck with it. You've done everything you can think of . You gave it the old college try but, nope. You feel little to no progress and things aren't shifting despite your best efforts.
Maybe it's timing. Maybe it's chemistry. Maybe it's your readiness for change. Maybe it's the person's limitations. Whatever the reason, get clear on your part and decide if things aren't working because of something you're doing or not doing or because you just need to fire your coach. Do you need to take time away from whatever change you're trying to make or find a new person who might be a better fit?
If you're not sure, don't keep doing something that isn't making you a better, healthier, happier version of yourself. Only invest in a relationship that helps you do this.