I’ve been coaching for 18 years.
And I can say without a doubt, coaching through change to results is 10% insight and 90% of figuring out how to apply that in people's life’s context, consistently changing their behavior.
When I first started, I thought because I “knew so much,” I could change the world.
And then I started working with people and very clearly realized,
“If knowledge was the answer - we’d all be billionaires with six-pack abs”
When I read books about behavior change, written by behavioral scientists, they often warn you, that no matter what, an off-the-shelf solution, aka theory, needs to be rigorously tested before scaling to have a chance to work.
Testing. Testing. Testing.
And THAT is the work.
As a coach, you learn quickly that helping a client reach a complex goal requires a few things:
- A wide toolbox of strategies you can try.
- The humility to know most attempts might flop - so each step is more like a pilot experiment than a foolproof plan.
- Flexibility, because what worked yesterday might stop working tomorrow - people change, things change, life changes.
- Anchoring your tools more in fundamental truths about how the brain works. (For example: the brain craves saving energy. That’s why making new habits easier, through smart context design, gives them a better chance to stick.)
- e) And most importantly: progress. According to research in The Progress Principle, analyzing over 12,000 workplace journals, the single most reliable motivator is seeing movement toward something meaningful. Our brains need to know the effort isn’t wasted.
I feel lucky to have come into applied behavioral science from coaching. Whether you’re changing the life of one person, or shifting an entire company, you’re still working with the same brain.
As Steven Kotler says - biology scales, personality doesn't.
So I’ll leave you with this, dear reader,
If you’re trying to change what people do, are you designing your change to be brain-friendly?
