Why most coaching doesn’t work and what to do about it.

Coaching not just a nice chat!

Humans are walking contradictions.

• We want to be free but cling to rules.

  We want to grow but resist discomfort.

• We want to be seen but fear exposure.

The paradox of coaching

We live in the paradox of transformation: wanting change yet resisting it.

Paradox is everywhere in coaching. People hire us to change their lives and then resist every moment of change. They say “I want transformation” but mean “I want someone else to make this easier.”

This is not weakness. It is human. But naming it matters, because without naming it, you stay in the loop.

Reflection: Where are you asking for change while secretly hoping nothing shifts?

The data we don’t want to admit

This isn’t just a feeling. Human behaviour is measured, and the numbers are brutal.

• Online learning: Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) attract millions of people each year. Completion rates average only 7 to 15 percent, with some as low as 3 percent. Most learners quit in the first or second week.

• Training transfer: Studies show that only 10 to 20 percent of professional training is ever applied in the workplace. The rest is forgotten, ignored, or actively resisted.

• Coaching ROI: The International Coaching Federation reports around 70 percent of clients improve their performance, communication, or relationships through coaching. That sounds impressive until you realise 30 percent don’t, even after paying for it. The difference? Application.

• Knowing is not enough. Most people know exactly what to do. They just don’t.

Reflection: What have you already “learned” that you’ve never acted on?

Neuroscience: Your brain is designed for efficiency, not truth. It repeats what you rehearse. If you keep practising avoidance, you get better at avoiding. If you practise action, the brain rewires toward momentum.

Why humans resist

This is where respectful candour matters. Let’s call it what it is. People are often crap at owning their own stuff. Not because they’re weak, but because fear runs deep.

Fear

Fear of failure. Fear of judgment. Fear of exposure. Fear that if we drop the mask, the world will see what we’ve been hiding.

Comfort in pain

Sometimes it feels safer to stay in discomfort you know than risk discomfort you don’t. Familiar pain beats unknown possibility.

Groupthink

Workplaces, industries, and cultures reward sameness. It’s easier to conform than to challenge the system. So you keep quiet, even when you know things must change.

Analysis paralysis

You already know ten things you could do differently. So you do none of them. Knowledge overload becomes inertia.

Algorithmic brains

Your brain is not a neutral space. It functions like an algorithm. It learns from repetition. Keep feeding it excuses, it will optimise for excuses. Keep feeding it avoidance, it will serve you more avoidance.

This is why people sabotage the very changes they say they want. You want a new map. But you keep rehearsing the old one.

And that algorithm in your head. Just like ChatGPT spits back patterns based on what you type in, your brain spits back behaviours based on what you repeat. Keep repeating avoidance, you’ll get better at avoiding. (read more here about your human Ai)

Reflection: What patterns are you rehearsing that you’ve mistaken for personality?

Our stories of resistance

Debbie
At 25, I became a widow. My husband died by suicide. I had a three-year-old, an eight-month-old, and a life that felt shattered. On the outside, I looked like I was holding it together. I worked high-profile jobs. I showed up for my children. I performed strength.

Inside, I resisted everything.
I resisted love.
I resisted vulnerability.
I resisted letting anyone close enough to hurt me again.

Coaching myself through that was not a linear journey. It was messy. There were relapses, mistakes, and mornings when the weight felt unbearable. But every time I leaned into the work instead of hiding from it, I found a sliver of change. That is the paradox. I wanted connection, yet I avoided being seen.

Dave (written by Dave!)
I have spent decades in leadership, strategy, and growth. Seeing the bigger picture comes naturally to me. But conflict? That is where I freeze. Silence felt safer than saying what needed to be said. I thought strategy could protect me from discomfort. It didn’t.

I had to coach myself into conversations I wanted to avoid. I had to admit the pattern, call it out, and take a different step. Every time I dodged it, the avoidance grew stronger. Every time I acted, the resistance lost some of its grip.

We are coaches. We are also humans who resist and relapse like everyone else. The difference is we don’t let resistance rule.

We don’t write about this from the outside. We live it. We coach because we’ve had to coach ourselves.

Reflection: What is the one conversation you know you need to have but are avoiding?

What real coaching looks like

Coaching is not therapy.
It is not advice.
It is not entertainment.

Real coaching is respectful candour.It is what we call positive agitation.

It is care expressed through challenge. It is about helping you in the only way that actually matters by calling you into action.

Its calling in the story lies we tell ourselves

If it only feels comfortable, you are not being coached.

Real coaching is not about breaking you down. It is about holding you with respectful candour.

It is not shouting. It is not “tough love.” It is the friction of being confronted by your own patterns and being invited to act differently.

It looks like:

• The question that lands so heavy you cannot answer straight away

• The silence where you face the truth you’ve been skipping

• The mirror that shows you how your values and actions are misaligned

• The nudge into discomfort you keep avoiding

• The accountability to not just talk, but do

• Seeing the part of your story you skipped

• Asking the question you hope no one ever asks

• Holding you accountable when your behaviour contradicts your values

• Listening for the line you never dare to say out loud

• Pointing to the ladder out of your bubble and asking why you keep ignoring it

Reflection: If you worked with us, what is the one thing you’d hope we never asked you? That’s the thing we’ll ask.

The cost of staying the same

People imagine that “not changing” is neutral. It isn’t. It compounds.

• Financial cost: Wasted money on books, courses, or coaching sessions you never apply.

• Emotional cost: Stacked guilt and shame each time you break your own promise.

• Mental cost: Reinforcing the brain’s default of not acting, making change harder next time.

• Relational cost: Repeating the same conflicts until other people stop trusting your words.

• Existential cost: The ache of knowing you could be more and choosing not to be.

Avoidance isn’t free. It is expensive.

Reflection: What is staying the same already costing you right now?

The paradox of human transformation

Here’s the heart of it.

• You want growth but you want safety

• You want outcomes but you resist effort

• You want to be seen but you fear exposure

• You want transformation but you avoid transformation

That is the paradox. That is the oxymoron of being human.

At some point, you must choose. Comfort or change. Familiarity or growth.

Coaching will always bring you to that edge. The question is not whether coaching works. The question is whether you will.

That is the paradox. That is the oxymoron of being human.

Victoria Song’s work shows that we can do the hard stuff, the internal work that coaching demands if we learn to stay in the space

that is both uncomfortable and safe.

The problem is, most people don’t stick at it. They swing too far. When it feels unsafe and uncomfortable, they retreat. Great coaching finds the balance.

Being uncomfortable is where the magic happens. That’s where you flex new neurons, fire up the brain, create new thinking and new actions. Of course it feels clunky. Of course it feels awkward. It’s supposed to. It’s new.

The Invitation

Coach with us now

We don’t coach industries. We coach humans. We don’t work with roles. We work with the people inside them.

Seventeen minutes. You and us. That is enough to know whether you are ready to step into the work or keep repeating the old story.

We will bring respectful candour. We will agitate with kindness. We will hold the mirror.

If you act, coaching works. If you don’t, it is just another conversation.

We are and. We coach. Humans, not titles. Choices, not slogans. Respectful candour. Positive agitation.

The paradox remains.

We coach the humans living them.
Do you want transformation?
Or do you want to keep pretending?

Twenty years of stepping into other people’s worlds and asking the questions no one else dares to.

People think they need advice.
They don’t.
They need someone who can see what they can’t.

One minute you’re running the show. The next you’re wondering why the same problem keeps repeating

Coaching is personal.
We don’t waste our time or yours. Seventeen minutes. Us. You.

The truth about what’s really going on and whether we work for each other.
No scripts.

Have 17 minutes with us for free

Give us 17 minutes. If you’re ready, you’ll know. If you’re not, it’ll just be another chat you forget by tomorrow and thats ok.

References

The ICF reports around 70% of clients see measurable improvements through coaching.

In our own work, the feedback has been higher 92% over the past three years, and in earlier years as high as 97%. I believe that’s because coaching with us is always a mutual choice. Clients choose us, and we choose them.

The ICF Global Coaching Study reports on global coaching trends, business indicators. ICF+2ICF+2

Coaching-statistics aggregators and industry overviews discuss ROI, satisfaction, market size, growth, etc. Simply.Coach+3Entrepreneurs HQ+3coachilly.com+3

A portion of training/coaching doesn’t transfer into behaviour (10-20 % transfer rates).