The Three Levels of Coaching
When people come for coaching, it’s generally because something isn’t working - the wheels are coming off in some area of life, and we get to a pain point that motivates us make a genuine change.
Basically, we get sick and tired of being sick and tired…
The good news is that at this point, we’re really primed for change. We can only get so far alone, so when we’re trying to turn the ship, speaking honestly with someone we trust - whether that’s a friend, partner, or professional - is the place to start.
So what happens next?
3 Levels of Behaviour
If you come to me for coaching, we’ll be looking at any behaviour on three separate levels. And in my experience, only two of these levels are worthwhile.
Level 1: The Surface.
“You get what you repeat”
The first level is surface level. This is where our everyday surface behaviours play out, the vast majority of which are ingrained, repeated, and largely unconscious. If you think about this for a moment - what percentage of each day is repeated? Probably the vast majority. Dr Joe Dispenza says that by our 30s, around 95% of our behaviour is driven by our subconscious - meaning that we’re effectively running on autopilot most of the time.
Now this makes sense. The brain is ravenous, using 20% of the body’s energy - more than any other organ - and for that reason it’s ruled by the ‘law of least effort’. Each decision we make - however small - burns mental energy. This means that it make sense to opt for the familiar - such as re-wearing the same outfits, repeating the same meals, and taking the same routes to work - to avoid wasting mental calories.
However, if you’re coming for coaching, chances are something in your day-to-day life isn’t feeling good right now, and it is actually time to disrupt the daily patterns, or at least to take stock. Maybe a core relationship is strained, work doesn't seem fulfilling, or your stress levels are not cute anymore.
If we’re struggling with health, we’ll be trying (and often failing) to change daily habits. If we’re stressed, we'll definitely be seeing the effects in everyday habits - how we treat the people close to us, how we blow off steam, and how we numb ourselves in habits like scrolling, watching Netflix, comfort eating or taking the edge off with alcohol.
Ultimately, the little things are the big things. As James Clear writes:
“Your outcomes are a lagging measure of your habits. Your net worth is a lagging measure of your financial habits. Your weight is a lagging measure of your eating habits. Your knowledge is a lagging measure of your learning habits. Your clutter is a lagging measure of your cleaning habits. You get what you repeat.
What kind of habits are we forming in our daily lives? If we snap at the people closest to us because we’re tired & restless from stress, and we do it over and over again because we’re ignoring the source of that stress, at what point does that define our relationship? Our habits, over time, become our personalities.
This is why we’ll start at the surface level. What are your everyday habits? How well do you treat yourself, and others, every day?
The little things are the big things.
Level 2: The Middle
So close…
This is where things get interesting…
I’ve observed in working with clients, and (unfortunately) in myself, that there’s a middle level in the explanations we give for our behaviour.
In the middle is where we find the socially sanctioned justifications for behaviour, along with clichés, rationalisations, and the occasional official-sounding diagnosis.
In the middle, we also find excuses, defenses and resistance. Resistance increases in direct proportion to how important something is for our evolution. And the more important the goal, the sneakier, stronger, and more inventive the voice of resistance becomes. As Steven Pressfield puts it in one of the most powerful, shouty little books ever written on the subject,
“Resistance is always lying and always full of shit.”
Unfortunately, most of the explanations that come from this level of awareness are indeed full of shit. This is where we draw on unbendable clichés such as ‘blood is thicker than water’ to sidestep the awkward process of learning to set boundaries with family members who need them. We’ll run scripts like ‘all men are bastards’ rather than face the excruciating risk of trying to start a new relationship. We’ll diagnose ourselves or others with all kinds of disorders rather than face up to deeper fears or risk pressing on the bruised parts of our souls that we’d rather just avoid.
So there’s not much for us in the middle. Often, the work here is simply to identify the stories that we, others, or society have invented that keep us stuck in familiar but limiting beliefs and patterns. Our job is simply to see these stories for what they are, sense-check them, and toss the ones that don’t fit anymore, if they ever really did.
Then, from a more clear-eyed place, we can wade into deeper waters.
Level 3: The Swamp
There be monsters
At the deepest level, so much of our behaviour is driven by profound fears, needs, and beliefs, many of which we’re either blissfully or purposefully unaware of. However, this is the dank basement we need to go into in order to create any real, lasting change in our day-to-day lives, which is the ultimate goal of coaching.
If we take an earlier example, we can see how it’s much easier to stick to an automated ‘family first’ message than it is to face up to the bare-faced reality of any serious harm by a parent. We’re not supposed to have to. We’re biologically designed to love and depend upon our parents unconditionally, and if for some reason that wasn’t safe for us to do, the reality of that is almost too painful to face, and often requires professional counselling. Equally, if we’ve been deeply hurt, betrayed or disappointed at an existential level by a past partner, it’s easier to write off the entire species than it is to open ourselves up risking a relationship again.
Even when we’ve been fortunate enough to have had a secure upbringing and avoided serious trauma, in some area or other we’re all damaged goods. Dr Brené Brown calls it the price of admission to being human. We’re all carrying a bit of baggage, and it’s having more of an impact than we think.
Carl Jung pointed out this brutal truth in his observation that
“Until you make the unconscious conscious it will direct your life and you will call it fate”.
This is what is at the deepest level. Our unconscious fears, drives and wounds, waiting to be made conscious. Even an authentic diagnosis made at this level of consciousness - one that strikes us as deeply true, and sheds light on something we know about ourselves but didn’t have language for - can be profoundly helpful and also liberating. So this is where to start.
Why bother?
Well… it’s in facing up to these deepest truths that we are liberated from them. And when we do that, the energy we’ve spent on avoidance or denial is released, and can be used to create new, conscious patterns that will actually translate into new, powerful, aligned surface-level behaviours, and suddenly we’re off…
The bald truth is that while we could start a 6-week bootcamp, we’ll never genuinely succeed in building the kind of body we’ve always dreamed of if we’re carrying unconscious baggage that we’re inherently ugly or flawed in some way. We can have a half-assed go at Tinder but we’ll never find a genuinely game-changing relationship if we’re running a script that all women are manipulative, or all men are liars. We’ll never pursue genuinely purposeful work if we remain stuck in a paradigm that all work is essentially some kind of refinery where our time or happiness is mined in return for money.
Then what?
Our surface-level behaviours are an exact and perfect match of our deepest fears and beliefs. Our middle-level explanations are usually nothing more than acceptable-sounding justifications.
I don’t believe it’s a coincidence that the most meaningful areas for growth in our lives will set us on a direct collision course with our deepest fears. As Jung said, “The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek”. Until we get into the deepest level with a flashlight we can’t expect much to change. Once we do however, all kinds of transformation is possible. Last word is going to someone who put this much more eloquent than me:
Now that my ladder's gone
I must lie down where all the ladders start
In the foul rag and bone shop of the heart.
— W. B. Yeats
