Maria looked to be the easiest client in the world. She provided plenty of information before our first session; she announced the clear goal of creating and running a retreat for women writers; she arrived at our first session enthusiastic, open, and apparently ready to work. What more could a coach ask for?
But I knew better than to suppose that we were going to have smooth sailing. I had many wonders as we began. She explained in her introductory email that she was a writer who currently wasn’t writing. Well, that sounded like an issue. She shared that money was tight for organizing her projected retreat. Well, that sounded like an issue. And she wasn’t sure that her partner was on board with the idea, as they spent a lot of time apart already. Well, that sounded important.
And it turned out that she was indeed easy. She was friendly, forthcoming, present—everything you might want from a client. That was lovely, of course—but also not really the point. Easy isn’t what matters. What mattered more were the answers to the following two questions. Had we, in our first session, gotten beneath the surface to that place where Maria’s “real issues” resided? And, between our first session and our second, would Maria commence the work that we had agreed upon?
That first question, as to whether we had gone deep, could be answered by the end of the first session. A practiced coach acquires a good sense of whether or not a session has gone deep enough. And we had, in my estimation. We had tackled the painful “not writing” issue, arriving at a place of renewed commitment to her abandoned novel. We had looked at the reality of money and the possibility of her presenting her retreat under the auspices of a sponsor, rather than delivering it out-of-pocket. And we faced the hard issue of her current relationship, which presented many question marks.
The second question, as to whether Maria would do the work, could only be answered over time: partly in Maria’s check-ins between our first session and our second, partly at our next session, and partly only over the longer haul.
At first, and as is quite often the case, the answer was no, or not quite. She couldn’t quite return to her novel. She couldn’t quite investigate workshop centers. She couldn’t quite chat with her partner about what was on her mind. To all three, the answer was not quite.
But there was also no sense that Maria had thrown in the towel. She hadn’t accomplished what she had hoped to accomplish, but she also hadn’t changed her mind about what she wanted. She wanted to resume her novel. She wanted to create and run a successful retreat for women writers. And she wanted her relationship with her partner to improve. Her agenda remained the same, which was encouraging.
Over time, movement on all three happened—though, with regard to her partner, the result was separation. That wasn’t “easy”—but it was what was needed. Remember: “easy” isn’t the goal. We may wish that our clients were easy and that client sessions were easy, but “real” is more important than “easy.”
It is lovely to have clients you enjoy seeing. It is lovely to have easy sessions. But that isn’t the measure of the work. What we are after is genuinely being of help. We want to be of real help to our clients, whether they are easy or whether they are testing us, whether they are cheerful or morose, whether they are forthcoming or reserved.
Yes, who wouldn’t enjoy having the easiest clients in world? But I would much prefer working with a troubled client who gets a great deal out of the coaching than with a cheerful client who gets too little.
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