Are You Being Coachable? (And Is Your Coach Making It Possible?)
This week… I WAS STOPPED DEAD IN MY TRACKS.
I received a message from a very successful client. She has worked incredibly hard, made tremendous progress, and is now focused on getting just a little further before a personal milestone she has been working toward.
By every measure I have as a coach… she is doing the thing.
She is showing up, she is communicating, she is putting in the work.
And in that message… she asked if she was coachable.
UGH… I was not expecting that from her of all people!
And honestly the fact that it came from someone at her level of success and self-awareness told me everything. This question lives in so many of us whether we are just starting out or well into our journey. And the weight of it… the worry that maybe we are somehow getting in our own way or making our coach’s job harder than it needs to be… that is something I want to address head on.
Because when I looked at everything she had shared with me in that message… when I held up a mirror and walked her through every single way she was showing up, communicating, trusting the process, and doing the work… it became so clear that she was not just coachable.
She was one of the most coachable clients I have.
And she couldn’t see it.
That conversation is what prompted me to write this. Because I don’t think she is alone in asking that question. And I don’t think the answer is ever as simple as yes or no.
So let’s dig into this together. Because this conversation belongs to both sides of the coaching relationship.
What Does Coachable Even Mean?
Before we can talk about whether someone is coachable or not, we need to get clear on what we actually mean by that word. Because I think it gets thrown around a lot without much examination.
In my experience, both as a coach and as someone who has sat in the client seat myself, coachability is not a fixed character trait. It is not something you either have or you don’t. It is actually a dynamic… something that gets built or broken depending on what is happening on both sides of the relationship.
It’s like a dance. A partnership. Only one person can genuinely lead at one time and the other person must follow that lead. But who’s taking the lead does change. If you want my full mental picture… Hozier – Movement. So good.
That said, there are some things that tend to show up consistently in people who are getting the most out of their coaching experience.
- Things like a willingness to be honest, even when honesty is uncomfortable.
- A genuine openness to feedback, not just the feedback that confirms what you already believed.
- A commitment to showing up and staying in the conversation even when things get hard.
- And a willingness to try things even when you’re not entirely convinced they’re going to work.
I’ve heard clients describe it in so many different ways over the years. Some say it’s about communication and keeping their coach in the loop rather than going silent when life gets messy. Some say it’s about not lying to themselves in their tracking, because the only person that hurts is them. Some say it’s about being willing to hear things they don’t necessarily want to hear. And some say it’s simply about giving their coach’s suggestions a real shot even when part of them wants to resist.
All of those things are true. And all of them matter. But here is what I want you to notice… every single one of those descriptions assumes that the client is the one responsible for creating the conditions for coachability. And I don’t think that’s the full picture. Not even close.
My Own Experience on the Other Side
I don’t talk about this often, but I have been coached by a few different coaches. And there have been seasons where I was genuinely coachable… open, receptive, willing to be led. And there have been seasons where I absolutely was not. Where I was going through the motions but holding back, doing things my own way, not fully letting anyone in.
And for a long time I chalked that up to just being who I am. Stubborn. Independent. Opinionated. Someone who needs to understand the why before she commits to anything. And while all of those things are true about me… I have come to understand that my resistance to being coached had much deeper roots than just personality.
I grew up in an environment with high expectations and a fair amount of rigidity. Not wrong necessarily… but the cumulative effect of those dynamics left me with some beliefs that didn’t exactly set me up to trust freely or follow direction without question.
I learned early that relying on yourself was safer than relying on others.
I learned that asking for something more than once meant you were probably not going to get it… and so you might as well just figure it out on your own and move on.
I learned to be skeptical of guidance because I had been guided in the wrong direction more times than I can count… which is actually part of why I am in this industry at all. Misinformation sent me down a painful road, and that experience left me with a cost-analysis mind when it comes to taking direction from anyone. If you want me to invest my time and my trust in something… I need to understand the reasoning behind it. I need the why. Because my time feels incredibly precious to me and I am not willing to spend it on something I can’t make sense of.
I am also, by nature, rebellious. If something doesn’t sit right with me and I haven’t been given a good enough reason to try it anyway… I’m probably not going to.
And if I feel like I’m not being heard, or like the support I need isn’t there… I am going to quietly go find another way. Not out of spite. Out of self-preservation.
Now… was I uncoachable in those seasons? I don’t think so. I think I was someone with a complicated history around trust who needed a specific kind of environment to actually open up. And when that environment wasn’t there… the coaching relationship couldn’t do what it was supposed to do. Some of that was on me. But not all of it.
I share this not to make you feel sorry for me or to suggest my experience is the same as yours. I share it because I know I am not the only one. I know that a meaningful number of the people reading this right now have their own version of this story. Their own reasons why letting someone else guide them feels loaded in ways that are hard to explain.
And I want you to know that those reasons are valid… and they do not make you uncoachable.
They make you human.
What I Hear From Clients
Over the course of my coaching career I have heard so many honest and self-aware reflections from clients about what coachability means to them and where they struggle with it. And what strikes me every single time is how much awareness most people actually have about their own patterns.
I have heard clients say that they struggle to know what to say in their check-ins… that they feel fine, their workout was good, their food was planned, and some days they just genuinely don’t have anything to report. And they wonder if that makes them a bad client.
I have heard clients say that they know their coach is right about something but actually implementing the change is a completely different challenge. That old habits are stubborn and the gap between knowing and doing is real and humbling.
I have heard clients say that they’ve ghosted their coach during hard seasons and they know it… and they also know it’s the thing that hurts them the most. Not because their coach is going to be upset but because silence is usually the first sign that something is off and needs to be addressed.
I have heard clients say that depression or anxiety or just a hard season of life makes them close down completely… and in those moments being coached feels almost impossible even when they genuinely want to be open.
I have heard clients say that they are honest and doing what their coach says.
…and I have heard clients say that lying to themselves in their tracking is something they have to actively fight against because the only person it hurts is them.
What all of these people have in common is that they showed up. They reflected. They stayed in the conversation even when it was uncomfortable. And to me… that is coachable. Every single one of them.
The part that breaks my heart a little is how quickly so many of these same people jump to the conclusion that if things aren’t working, it must be their fault. And sometimes it is! Consistency matters. Honesty matters. Communication matters. But sometimes what looks like a client not being coachable is actually something else entirely.
When It’s Not Actually About You
Here is the part of this conversation that almost always gets skipped over… and I think it needs to be said clearly.
Sometimes a client isn’t being coachable because their coach has not created an environment where coachability is even possible.
I have seen clients who were told what to do without ever being told why. And if you are someone who needs to understand the reasoning behind a recommendation in order to genuinely commit to it… being handed a directive without context is not going to work for you. That is not resistance. That is a completely reasonable need that wasn’t being met.
I have seen clients who tried to share something vulnerable or something that felt important to them and didn’t feel heard. And when you don’t feel heard, you stop sharing. And when you stop sharing, your coach is essentially working blind. They can’t coach what they don’t know about. And that communication breakdown gets attributed to the client not being open… when really the client learned early in the relationship that opening up didn’t feel safe or worthwhile.
I have seen clients who needed something adjusted or addressed and felt like it kept being overlooked. And eventually those clients stopped asking. They quietly disengaged or went and figured it out themselves. Not because they were difficult. Because they stopped feeling supported. And staying in something that doesn’t feel supportive is genuinely hard for a lot of people… especially people who have a history of not being heard.
Something I have come to believe strongly through years of coaching is that the style and approach a coach brings to a relationship has to actually match what the client needs in order for real progress to happen. And coaches have to be open to feedback about their own approach. If a coach is not willing to hear that something isn’t landing for a client… they are likely eroding that client’s trust without even realizing it. Coachability is not a one way street. It never has been.
When the Coaching Relationship Becomes a Container for Something Bigger
There is another layer to this conversation that I want to handle carefully because it is delicate… but it is real and it matters.
Sometimes a client’s dissatisfaction inside a coaching relationship has very little to do with the coaching itself.
We do not live our lives in separate compartments. What is happening at home, in our marriages, in our friendships, at work… all of it comes with us into every space we occupy. And sometimes when a client is feeling frustrated, unseen, or disconnected inside their coaching relationship… that feeling is actually coming from somewhere else entirely. The coaching relationship just happens to be the nearest available place for it to land.
This is called displacement and it is more common than most people realize. It doesn’t mean the client is doing something wrong. It doesn’t mean they are a difficult person. It means they are a whole human being carrying a lot of things at once and sometimes the lines between those things get blurry.
If you find yourself feeling consistently frustrated with your coach in a season where a lot of other things in your life feel hard or unsatisfying… it is worth pausing and asking yourself honestly where that feeling is actually coming from. Because your coach may genuinely not be the source of it. And addressing the wrong thing is not going to give you the relief you are looking for.
And if you are a coach who has a client who suddenly seems harder to reach, more emotionally reactive, or more difficult to satisfy regardless of what you do… it is worth considering what might be happening in that person’s life outside of your work together before drawing any conclusions about the coaching relationship itself.
The Coach’s Role in Creating Coachability
If you are a coach reading this… I want to speak directly to you for a moment.
Coachability is not something your client either brings to the table or doesn’t. It is something you participate in building. And if you are consistently finding that your clients are resistant, disengaged, uncommunicative, or not following through… it is worth asking yourself some honest questions before deciding the problem sits entirely with them.
Are you giving your clients the why behind your recommendations? Not everyone needs it. But for a significant number of people, understanding the reasoning behind something is what makes the difference between genuine buy-in and surface-level compliance that doesn’t last.
Are you creating space for your clients to be honest with you… even when what they have to say is inconvenient or uncomfortable? Do they feel safe enough to tell you when something isn’t working? Do they trust that they won’t be judged for struggling?
Are you actually hearing what your clients are telling you and adjusting accordingly? Or are you delivering the same approach to every person regardless of what they are showing you?
Are you patient enough with the process of trust? Because trust is not instant. Especially for clients who have been burned before… by bad information, by coaches who weren’t a good fit, by people in their lives who were supposed to guide them and didn’t do it well. Some clients need more time to open up. That is not a character flaw. That is a history.
Thank goodness when coaches take that seriously… because it genuinely changes everything. The goal is not to be your client’s therapist. But it is to be someone they feel safe enough with to actually be coached. And that safety is something you have a very real role in creating.
So Who Is Actually Uncoachable?
I do believe that uncoachable exists. But my definition of it is probably narrower than you might expect.
To me, uncoachable looks like someone who has completely disengaged.
Who is not showing up, not responding, not even in the conversation anymore.
Someone who reads a message and never replies.
Someone who has gone so quiet that there is no relationship left to work with.
Because here is what I know to be true… anyone who is still here and willing to have a conversation is coachable. The degree of difficulty might vary wildly. The communication might be harder. The trust might need more time to build. The approach might need to be adjusted significantly.
But if someone is showing up… there is something to work with.
Coachability is not about being the perfect client. It is not about never struggling or never resisting or never having a hard week. It is not about being easy to coach. It is about staying in the relationship even when it’s uncomfortable. It is about being willing to try even when you’re not sure. It is about keeping the line of communication open even imperfectly.
And if you are reading this right now and quietly asking yourself whether you are coachable… the fact that you are asking the question at all probably tells you everything you need to know.
A Final Thought
I hope and pray that this lands for both the clients and the coaches who needed to read it.
Because this conversation is not one-sided and it never has been.
If you are a client who has been quietly blaming yourself for a coaching relationship that isn’t working… I want you to consider the full picture before you take all of that on.
Your patterns, your history, your needs… they are valid.
And a great coach will meet you where you are rather than expect you to show up as someone you’re not yet.
And if you are a coach who has been quick to label a struggling client as uncoachable… I want to gently invite you to look at the environment you’ve created before you close that door.
Because sometimes what looks like resistance is really just someone waiting to feel safe enough to let you in.
With love, Coach Nik
