Why "I'll Get a Coach When Things Slow Down" Never Works
Many senior professionals tell themselves they will start coaching when their schedule eases up. The schedule rarely eases up. The chaos is the reason to start, not the reason to wait.
"I'll get a coach when things slow down."
No, you won't.
Things don't slow down. You just get more used to the chaos.
I started coaching a finance advisor, mother of two, juggling full-time work and a women's support group. Her first words to me: "I'm drowning, but I can't spare an hour right now."
Six sessions in, she set better boundaries with clients, got her evenings back, and her portfolio grew.
Then there is the managing director who has been "too busy" for 18 months. Still putting out the same fires. Same stress. Same stagnating career. His calendar never cleared up.
The difference was not time. It was the decision to start in the chaos.
When you feel the pressure is very real. When the decisions are piling up. When the problems won't wait. Exactly then you need a coach.
Busyness is not the obstacle. It is the excuse.
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Why busyness is the symptom, not the obstacle
In coaching senior leaders, I have noticed the people most certain they cannot spare an hour are the people who most need to. Busyness is rarely the actual obstacle. It is the surface explanation that lets the deeper pattern stay invisible.
→ The decisions are piling up because you have not had thinking time to make the harder ones cleanly. Coaching creates that thinking time.
→ The fires keep recurring because you have not stepped back to look at the pattern. Coaching gives you the perspective the chaos is hiding.
→ The career feels stagnant because you are spending all your energy on the urgent. Coaching is one of the few interventions that breaks that cycle deliberately.
The senior leaders I work with who get the most out of coaching are not the ones with the lightest schedules. They are the ones who decided that the current pace was not sustainable and chose to make space for the conversation that changes it.
This connects directly to the work I do with senior leaders on identifying the habits that quietly undermine their effectiveness. Most of these habits are invisible to the person doing them. Marshall Goldsmith's research is clear that what got you to your current senior level is rarely what will get you to the next.
If you want to look at your own version of this, my free 20 Habits to Stop Doing Now list, inspired by Marshall Goldsmith's work, is a one-page guide to the habits that quietly undermine confidence, impact and relationships at senior level. Leave your email here to download it: https://www.thechangerepublic.com/free-resources
Working with senior leaders inside the chaos is what my executive coaching is built for. Learn more here.
https://www.thechangerepublic.com/executivecoaching