For coaches and therapists: When a client is stuck, look at three interacting areas: regulation, practical functioning, and emotional load. The difficulty may be mostly in one area, but often all three are affecting each other.
1. Regulation
What is happening with attention, activation, energy, emotion, sleep, stress, and capacity?
Look for trouble starting, shifting, stopping, overwhelm, emotional flooding, poor sleep, sensory overload, or low capacity.
2. Practical Functioning
What is actually happening in everyday life?
Look at starting, remembering, time management, following through, routines, appointments, transitions, and daily logistics.
3. Emotional Load
What feelings and beliefs have built up around the problem?
Look for shame, anxiety, fear of failure, frustration, discouragement, rejection sensitivity, or self-doubt.
1. Regulation
Ask:
- What is happening with attention?
- Is starting difficult?
- Is shifting or stopping difficult?
- Is the client tired, overloaded, stressed, or emotionally flooded?
- Are sleep, sensory load, or energy affecting capacity?
- Does the client have enough capacity to use the strategies being suggested?
Listen for
- “I know what to do, but I can't get myself to start.”
- “Once I start, I can't stop.”
- “Everything feels like too much.”
- “I can't think when I'm overwhelmed.”
- “I have the system, but I don't use it.”
Coaching direction
Consider whether the client needs fewer demands, reduced sensory load, better timing, transition support, more recovery, external structure, more realistic expectations, or medical or clinical follow-up when appropriate.
2. Practical Functioning
Ask:
- What is actually happening?
- Where does the process break down?
- Are there too many steps?
- Is too much being held in memory?
- Is the timing unrealistic?
- Are instructions clear?
- Is the environment helping or creating more friction?
- Does the client need more external support?
Listen for
- missed appointments
- forgotten tasks
- difficulty getting out the door
- unfinished projects
- medication refills being missed
- routines that repeatedly fall apart
- chronic lateness
- difficulty estimating time
- too many decisions
Coaching direction
Consider checklists, reminders, visual cues, body doubling, fewer steps, written instructions, changing the order of tasks, preparing in advance, changing the time of day, reducing decisions, or changing what “done” needs to look like.
3. Emotional Load
Ask:
- What feelings come up around this problem?
- What does the client expect will happen?
- Is there shame?
- Is there fear of failing again?
- Is there fear of criticism or disappointing someone?
- Has this difficulty developed a long emotional history?
Listen for
- “I should be able to do this.”
- “I'm going to mess it up again.”
- “I'm embarrassed that I need help.”
- “Everyone else can handle this.”
- “I feel like a failure.”
Coaching direction
Help the client separate the current practical difficulty from the meaning that has accumulated around it. The difficulty may be real, and the emotional load may also be making it harder.
The Fly-on-the-Wall Question
If I were a fly on the wall during your day, what would I actually see?
Use this when a client says something broad such as “I'm terrible with time,” “I procrastinate,” “I'm disorganized,” or “I can't get anything done.”
Ask:
- What happens first?
- What happens next?
- Where do you get stuck?
- What happens immediately before you stop?
- What interrupts the process?
- What happens when you realize you are behind?
When Coaching Gets Stuck
What you are seeing | Where to look next |
Insight is improving, but life is not changing. | Look more closely at practical supports. |
Good strategies exist, but they are not being used consistently. | Look at regulation, capacity, and friction. |
Practical functioning improves, but shame or anxiety remains high. | Address the emotional load. |
There is a lot of emotional processing, but the same logistical problems continue. | Add practical problem-solving. |
Core Coaching Question
Is the main difficulty regulation, the practical setup, the emotional load, or some combination?
Then choose support that matches the actual problem.
Kristen McClure, MSW, LCSW · Flourishing Women LLC