Over the last two decades, I’ve coached and trained a lot of incredible transformational practitioners. Practitioners who are wise. Practitioners who are incredibly skilled. Practitioners who co-create wonderful results with clients. Practitioners who are in integrity.
And yet, inevitably, at some point it comes up for many people that they fear they aren’t moving their clients along quickly enough, they aren’t solving their clients’ problems in a day, their clients aren’t transforming overnight.
In other words, even though we know better, it is still way too easy to fall into the thinking that in order for our work to be good and valuable for our clients, we must have a magic pill that will “fix” their issues or them.
It’s no wonder that so many good & caring practitioners fall into the trap of thinking their work needs to be akin to a magic pill – for one thing, modern society, in general, has transmitted the pervasive message that progress should happen quickly and seamlessly. The Myth of Perfection is rampant. For another thing, we see so many coaches in the industry promising prospects to fly them to the moon and back in a day.
These messages – whether we realize it or not – have seeped into our internal systems, and we take them as truth without questioning them.
We end up believing that if change doesn’t happen quickly, we’re not doing it right. Or we end up believing that if we just had that one magic technique, we could easily transform our clients forever. Or we end up believing that “other practitioners” have that magic pill that we can’t seem to find.
When we fall into this way of thinking, we lose and our clients lose.
We lose because we end up feeling terrible about ourselves, and we end up feeling we are not good enough. Our clients lose because they have a practitioner who buys into the belief that there is a magic pill or that anything needs to be “fixed”…and energy follows energy, so when practitioners buy into a belief, clients often follow suit.
But here’s the truth:
There is no magic pill that will somehow fix our clients or their problems.
For one thing, because our clients don’t need us to fix them (even if they think we do).
For another thing, because change often takes time. It can often be messy. It is a process.
And for another thing: the human condition is such that we cannot avoid pain completely, we cannot avoid grief completely, we each have our crosses to bear, and this is part of life. There is no practitioner or transformation method that can magic their way out of this.
Now, as someone who believes deeply in the power of coaching and as someone whose mission in life is to train transformational practitioners, I can tell you without a doubt that the fact that there are no magic pills and the fact that much of the results you will co-create with clients will take time…well, that’s not bad news, that’s actually very good news.
It’s good news because so much satisfaction in life comes from experiencing life as a learning process, not as a “this problem was solved once and done.”
It’s good news because so much meaning in life comes from having the space to intentionally and with awareness experience our pain or our grief or our anger or our patterning.
It’s good news because the more we embrace the fact that life has ups and downs, that life contains joy and grief, that progress takes time…then the less shame we carry, and the more empowered we can feel in our lives and about ourselves.
And masterful practitioners know how to do all this and more.
When we become highly skilled at holding space for others and at transformation techniques, we end up owning something way better than a magic pill for instant change; we end up owning a skillset and wisdom-set for supporting our clients to embrace their humanity, to hold themselves and others with more love and compassion, to learn how to shift their patterning, and to find authentic inspiration and motivation.
This is why I am so passionate about supporting practitioners to learn and embody not only high-level transformation skills but also wisdom that questions the status quo and the messaging that culture has taught us. We want to bring all of this to our clients and more.
When we do, our clients have the best chance of moving forward at the rate that is exactly right for them.
So, the next time you find yourself worrying or panicking because you don’t have a magic pill for your clients (or that you yourself aren’t shifting, changing or achieving quickly enough)…remember the truth:
Your job as a coach or transformational practitioner is not to fix anything or have any magic pills; your job is far deeper and more beautifully complex and layered than that.
As a point of integrity – remember this truth in your marketing promises as well.
Don’t feel like you need to mimic or keep up with the marketing gurus out there who promise prospects the sun, moon, and stars only to disappoint. Set inspiring and expansive, yet realistic expectations in your marketing promises.
This isn’t just a matter of integrity (though that’s important enough!); it’s a matter of setting your clients up for success by not having them fall into the pit of believing that change happens in an instant and there is a magic pill they’re buying.
My wish today for you is that you experience the beauty of the real, authentic and human journey – not the unrealistic, fairytale shortcut – as you walk this sacred path of life that we have all been gifted with.
