My coaching clients come to me with all types of situations that they want to figure out: how to find success at work, improve relationships, manage stress, change their communication, etc. The most common reason that people (or their organizations) hire me is to help them figure out why they are stuck in some aspect of their lives. They know they are stuck and they are having trouble figuring out why and how to get unstuck. We’ve all been there.

When I first started coaching, I felt compassion, maybe even sympathy, for the struggle of my clients. I wanted to fix it for them, find the answers for them, and make everything all better quickly and easily. That, however, isn’t what coaching is, and ultimately, it’s not very helpful. Coaching is holding space for people to come up with their own answers and their own behavior changes that move them out of the stuck space that they’ve been in. It’s incredibly empowering to solve your own problems, particularly with someone cheering you on without judgment.

The Struggle Leads to Breakthrough and Progress

Recently, one of my clients, who was feeling quite stuck, put her head down on her hands (we were on Zoom) with frustration that she wasn’t moving forward in a way that she really wanted to. We sat in silence while she clearly struggled emotionally to come up with answers. What I ended up seeing while observing her was absolute beauty in her struggle. Not that I wanted her to suffer in any way, but rather watching this brilliant, courageous woman struggle to find answers was so moving and powerful. I got a lump in my throat as I held the space for her to find her way through it all.

Suddenly, she lifted her head up with a huge smile on her face and said, “I know why I’ve been holding myself back.” She proceeded to share some incredible insight about herself, her fears, and why she’s been playing smaller than she really wants to in life. It was an amazing moment for her and such a gift for me to be there with her while she had this epiphany. The struggle led to the solution and isn’t that so often the case if we let it happen?

What are you avoiding because you are afraid of the struggle? #fear #struggle #progress Click To Tweet

How frequently do we fight the struggle because we want to avoid the pain of it? What if we saw the struggle as part of the adventure? What if that struggle was what made our success so sweet? What if we didn’t beat ourselves up for the struggle, but rather embraced it as part of the human experience? What if every time we got stuck, we reminded ourselves that we are about to head into a beautiful struggle?

What are you avoiding because you are afraid of the struggle? What if that struggle is where the beauty lies? What will it take for you to walk into that beauty? I have complete faith in you that you can walk through it and it will be worth every last ounce of that struggle.

Love,

Lisa Kaplin Psy. D. PCC