Three Reasons You Resist Coaching

There aren’t many things that will improve your results as quickly and as certainly as will coaching. I’ve noticed three common, recurring reasons people resist coaching.

You are unwilling to face change

Some people fear being coached because they know it is going to bring up areas in their lives where they need to make changes. Whether that coaching is personal or professional, the goal of coaching is improved performance, and that means you have to be willing to change your beliefs and change your actions in some area of your life.

If you don’t believe that change is necessary, you might think that no coaching is required. You would be wrong. The very best performers in every human endeavor work with coaches. Their core belief is that, if they change something, they can perform at an even higher level.

You are afraid it means you aren’t capable

Coaching doesn’t mean that you aren’t a good, capable person. It doesn’t mean that you don’t have the ability or the resources to achieve your performance goals. Coaching isn’t an indictment of you personally (although there are some executives who are recommended coaching because their people skills are lacking).

Coaching is an indication that you are capable. It’s evidence that someone (maybe you) believes that with some insight and ideas from a professional coach, you can perform better. No one invests in coaching when they believe that they are hopeless. And no company invests in coaching for their people who they believe those people aren’t capable of turning in their best performance.

You are afraid of being held accountable

This one is a biggie. It’s the deep-seated issue that prevents a lot of people from embracing coaching.

Some people don’t want to be held accountable for changing. They want to avoid being asked about their performance. They don’t like anyone shining a light on the difference between what they say and what they do. More than anything, they don’t want to have to answer to someone; they’d rather hide from their problems, their challenges.

But the best performers embrace accountability. They fearlessly look at the gaps in their performance so they can close those gaps. They look at a coach as an accountability partner. They expect their coach to ask them the tough questions, and they anticipate their coach asking them tough questions to help them expand what they believe is possible, what they are capable of.

Coaching isn’t something negative. It’s positive.