When Coaching Works… Until It Doesn’t

For a long time, coaching worked for me. Or rather, when I worked with the right coaches, then coaching worked for me.

It helped me think more clearly, make braver decisions, and untangle patterns I couldn’t see on my own. I valued it deeply, both as a client and as a coach. I still do. And I know that when coaching with the right coach is right, then incredible things can happen.

Which is why it took me a while to recognise when something had shifted.

There wasn’t a dramatic moment where coaching suddenly failed. There was no obvious breaking point. Instead, it was a slow, quiet change, the kind that’s easy to rationalise if you’re not looking for it.

Coaching still made sense intellectually. I still understood the questions. I still agreed with the insights. I could still see the logic in the actions we discussed.

But the impact started to fade.

The gap between insight and action.

This was the part I found hardest to explain at the time, because on paper, everything looked fine. I wasn’t resistant. I wasn’t disengaged. I wasn’t avoiding responsibility or difficult conversations. I wanted change. And yet, the follow-through became harder.

Not impossible. Just heavier.

It started to feel as though each action required more effort than it should. Decisions that once felt straightforward began to drain me. Progress slowed, not because I didn’t care, but because something inside me had less to give.

At first, I assumed this was personal. Maybe I was overthinking. Maybe I needed to be more disciplined. Maybe I just had to push through a bit longer.

That assumption felt reasonable. It’s the same assumption many coaches make when progress stalls.

When the tools don’t land the way they used to.

As a coach, I later saw the same pattern in clients.

People who were thoughtful, capable, and deeply engaged in the work. People who could articulate their patterns clearly and take responsibility without defensiveness. People who weren’t avoiding the work.

And yet, coaching started to feel less effective. The tools still “worked” in theory. The conversations were still rich. But something about the impact had changed. Actions were agreed and then quietly dropped. Energy rose briefly in session and then disappeared. The same themes resurfaced again and again, and not because the client wasn’t learning, but because learning wasn’t translating into sustained change in between sessions.

This is often the moment where coaching becomes more effortful. Where we add structure, increase accountability, or push for clarity.

Again, none of that is wrong, it’s what we’re taught and trained in.

But it assumes that the client’s capacity to respond is intact.

What I hadn’t accounted for.

What I hadn’t fully understood at that point was state.

Not mindset. Not motivation. State.

When someone is operating in a chronically stressed or exhausted nervous system, their ability to convert insight into action is compromised, even if their thinking remains sharp. They can understand exactly what needs to change, while lacking the internal resources to make that change stick.

Coaching, by its nature, works heavily at a cognitive level. It relies on reflection, choice, agency, and follow-through. When capacity is there, this is incredibly powerful.

When capacity is reduced, the same tools can start to miss the mark. And not because you’re doing anything wrong, but because the context has shifted.

The moment the pattern became impossible to ignore.

For me, the realisation didn’t come from one client or one experience. It came from accumulation. More clients arriving already exhausted. More stalled progress despite good work. More conversations where insight was present but energy wasn’t. And alongside that, my own lived experience was telling me the same thing.

Coaching hadn’t stopped being valuable.

But it had stopped being sufficient on its own. That was uncomfortable to admit, because coaching is the profession I care about. It’s work I respect deeply. But ignoring the pattern felt more irresponsible than questioning the model.

Coaching doesn’t fail - but it does have limits.

This is an important distinction.

I don’t believe coaching stops working. I believe it has limits when the system it’s working with is overloaded. When Burnout is present, even in its early stages, the usual assumptions about readiness, choice, and capacity need to be revisited.

That doesn’t mean we abandon coaching.

It means we adapt it.

We slow the pace.

We pay closer attention to energy, not just intention.

We stop assuming that insight equals capacity.

And most importantly, we stop blaming either the client or the coaching when progress falters.

Why this matters for the profession.

As Burnout becomes more common, more clients are arriving in coaching already carrying significant load and if we don’t recognise when the conditions for change have shifted, we risk misinterpreting what we’re seeing. We risk pushing harder when the system needs something different.

This isn’t about lowering standards.

It’s about refining them.

Because coaching is powerful. But it works best when it’s applied in the right context, at the right time, and with a full understanding of what the client is resourced for.

When coaching works until it doesn’t, it’s usually telling us something.

The question is whether we’re trained to hear it.

Kelly

P.S Want to know how Burnout-Aware your coaching is? Find out here.