Somewhere between the pastel Instagram quotes and the $47 "Transform Your Life" PDF, coaching went off the rails.
Manifest your dream career. Visualise your way to confidence. Vibrate higher. You've seen it. You've probably clicked on it. And if you bought it, you already know the punchline: it goes nowhere. Just another circle of vague promises designed to keep you coming back and spending more.
My experience tells me that doesn't work. You can't visualise your way out of a conversation that keeps ending the same way. You can't manifest your way past the same argument with the same colleague, driving home furious for the third time this month wondering what the hell just happened.
What you actually need isn't a vision board (although we do like a good vision board when it's required). It's an honest look at what you're actually feeling, and I don't mean the obvious stuff.
The Surface Versus the Depths
When you're stuck in a pattern, your first instinct is usually to name the big emotion. I'm angry. I'm frustrated. I'm pissed off. Those are real, and they matter. But beneath that anger, there's almost always something else. Disappointment. Embarrassment. Guilt. And often, the big one sitting at the bottom, shame.
You had expectations of yourself, of the other person, of how things should have gone. When reality doesn't match, that anger is just the surface. Dig a little deeper and you'll usually find disappointment that things didn't play out the way you thought they would. Keep going and you might hit embarrassment - maybe you said something you regret, or you froze when you should have spoken up. Dig deeper still and guilt often shows up, a quiet voice asking whether you contributed to the problem. And underneath all of that, sometimes, there's shame. Not "I did something wrong" but "I am something wrong." That's the one that keeps the pattern locked in place.
Here's the thing about naming these emotions: it's not the finish line. It's the starting line.
Because once you can actually identify what's sitting underneath the frustration, once you can say "that's not anger, that's shame", something shifts. You stop reacting to the surface and start understanding the source. And that's where real change becomes possible.
So What Do You Do With That?
Once you've named what's actually going on, the questions change. Instead of "why does this always happen to me?" you can start asking "what could I have done differently here?" and more usefully, "how do I spot this earlier next time so I'm not driving home furious again?"
That's the difference between going in circles and actually moving forward.
The Real Work
This is what genuine coaching actually looks like. Not positive affirmations. Not a PDF that promises to rewire your mindset in seven days. It's someone sitting with you, asking the uncomfortable questions that get past the surface, and then holding you accountable for what you find there.
Because naming the emotion is one thing. Actually wanting to change is another. And that's where most people stop. It's easier to stay frustrated than to sit with shame. It's easier to blame the other person than to ask what role you played.
But if you genuinely want to break the pattern, not just understand it, but commit to doing something different, then there are real, actionable steps to get you there. That's the work. And that's exactly what I do.
No manifesting required.