Practice, Practice, Practice

(or, the conversation is the classroom)

One of the things I've noticed over the years, both as a coach and as someone who teaches coaching, is that there comes a point in almost every coach's development where they start looking for the next thing.

• next model

• next framework

• next assessment

• next list of powerful questions

• next book that promises to unlock something they haven't quite figured out yet

I understand the impulse because I had it too.

When you're new to coaching, (and if I'm honest even when you're not so new to coaching,) there is something reassuring about finding a structure that appears to make sense of the complexity.

You see coaching can feel wonderfully messy. Clients rarely arrive with neat problems and tidy solutions. Conversations go off on tangents or emotions appear unexpectedly and clients say things you (and they) weren't expecting. Sometimes they say nothing at all.

In those moments, a model can feel like a life raft.

And to be clear, I have nothing against models. I've spent years studying them, teaching them, experimenting with them, and occasionally discarding them. Frameworks are useful. Assessments are useful. Books are useful. Training programmes are useful.

The problem starts when we begin to believe that the next tool is what will make us a better coach.

A few years ago I came across a quote from Arnold Schwarzenegger that has stayed with me ever since. He said, "Nobody gets muscles by watching me lift weights."

It's such an obvious statement that it almost sounds ridiculous.

Of course nobody develops strength by watching somebody else lift weights. Of course nobody becomes fit by reading books about exercise. At some point, regardless of how much theory you've absorbed, you have to walk into the gym, pick up something heavy, and start doing the work, and coaching isn't all that different.

Because even if you read about listening, study curiosity and go to workshops on powerful questions. Or learn GROW, CLEAR, OSKAR, Solution Focused Coaching, Narrative Coaching, Somatic Coaching, Appreciative Inquiry, and a dozen other approaches besides.

You will only understand the theory.

In theory there is no difference between theory and practice, in practice there's a big difference

Coaching is not primarily an intellectual activity. It's a practice-based profession.

The ability to hold silence is not developed by reading about silence. It's developed by sitting in a conversation, feeling slightly uncomfortable, resisting the temptation to rescue the client, and discovering that something useful often emerges if you simply wait a little longer.

The ability to listen deeply isn't developed by memorising the definition of active listening. It's developed through hundreds of conversations where you notice your own internal chatter, your assumptions, your urge to solve the problem, and gradually learn how to set those things aside. And listening isn't just done with the ears either!

The ability to ask useful questions doesn't come from collecting clever questions in a notebook. It comes from becoming genuinely interested in another human being and staying curious long enough for something important to emerge.

Those are performance not knowledge skills.

And performance skills only really improve through practice.

Over the years I've coached hundreds of people and accumulated thousands of coaching hours.

Looking back, I can honestly say that most of my growth did not happen while reading books, attending programmes, or collecting certifications. Those things helped, sometimes enormously, but they were rarely where the real learning happened. The real learning happened afterwards.

• in the coaching conversation where I got stuck

• in the session where I realised I had been talking far too much

• when I gave advice too early and watched the client's thinking narrow rather than expand.

• when a question landed beautifully and I wasn't entirely sure why

• when a session ended and I found myself replaying the conversation in my head, wondering what I had missed and what I might do differently next time

Those moments became the raw material for learning

That, I think, is one of the reasons reflective practice and supervision are so important.

Practice alone is not enough. Twenty years of repeating the same habits does not automatically create expertise. Experience only becomes wisdom when we take the time to examine it.

The cycle is less about doing more and more about doing, reflecting, learning, adjusting, and then doing again.

Every coaching conversation becomes a source of information.

Every difficult client becomes a teacher.

Every awkward moment contains a lesson.

Every mistake becomes data.

When I work with newer coaches, I often notice a tendency to underestimate the value of simple repetition. There can be a belief that somewhere out there is a missing technique, a missing framework, or a missing insight that will suddenly make coaching feel easier.

What I've observed instead is that many experienced coaches are not carrying around dramatically better tools. They are carrying around thousands of previous conversations.

Conversations filled with error, success, silence and skill, over and over. And the judgement they demonstrate is often less about knowing something and more about having practised something repeatedly.

This isn't an argument against learning. Far from it.

Read the books.

Attend the workshops.

Learn the models.

Experiment with assessments.

Build your toolkit.

Just remember that the toolkit exists to support the practice, not replace it.

The conversation with the client is where the learning happens. The reflection afterwards is where the learning happens.

So if you're wondering how to become a better coach, my answer is probably less exciting than you were hoping for.

Coach. Coach whenever you can. Coach people who are easy to coach and people who are difficult to coach. Coach under supervision. Reflect on what happened by talking with other coaches. And notice: what worked and what didn't, then do it again.

Because the truth is there isn't a shortcut hiding in the next book, the next certification, or the next framework, the path to becoming a better coach is hiding in the next conversation you're brave enough to have.

Flourish forward to better worlds, within and without.