Implications for Professional Coaches

When applied to the free-will perspectives, this template yields an emphasis on the domain of intentions. If our decisions and actions are determined by internal forces, then it is critical that coaches and their clients focus on the identification of the dynamic processes occurring inside the client’s head and heart. Reality is constructed by us and the reason lying behind our construction of reality must be discovered. This means a coaching focus on what the client is thinking and feeling when making a decision. The coaching enterprise, in other words, places emphasis on and leans towards the client’s aspirations and toward the way in which they define the nature and trajectory of their life and work.

The coach encourages their client to spend considerable time exploring what they want to achieve. This often means constructing a narrative of success. The coach is also likely to help their client identify how their aspirations align with forces out in the world that are impacting on priorities being set and, subsequently, the decisions they are making and the actions they are taking. The client is not to just accept these forces (which would be a betrayal of their own aspirations).

From a free-will perspective, a client is “freely” choosing to accept or reject the outside demands. An appreciative perspective can effectively accompany this decision regarding how to regard external forces. (Bergquist, and Mura, 2011). The coach guides their client toward recognition of times in the past when they have been successful in meeting important goals – and often thwarting oppositional forces in their environment. Put quite simply, the coach helps their client “catch themselves when they are doing it right!”

A free-will perspective requires a search for purpose to accompany the appreciation. As Bertrand Russell notes, the free-will perspective is not about cause; rather it is about the reason one’s client is operating in a specific manner. Decisions are made and actions taken that influence or even determine a specific outcome. It is in the appreciative recognition of past successes that our client often discovers the underlying purpose. To return to the billiards game, the question is not how do we hit the ball; rather it is why are we playing the game of billiards and what difference does it make (if any) that balls are going in the pockets? Is the game being played for entertainment, to cement a relationship, to win some money, to teach someone else how to play the game – or simply to consume some idle time?

While the pure free-willist is focusing exclusively on the internal environment (why the game of billiards is being played), there is a “deep free-will” perspective to be derived from what that I have already identified as being engaged by the psychoanalytic community. They suggest that the coach and client focus not only on explicitly held aspirations, but also on aspirations that might be much more elusive (those that are held in the client’s unconscious). These aspirations can come from much earlier in the client’s life (even their childhood).

Most importantly, these unruly aspirations can sabotage actions taken if they are not acknowledged by the client. These embedded (tacitly held) aspirations do not have to be given priority (for they may be immature, impractical, out-of date, etc.). A critical element of free-will is the ability (and “authority”) to discern: to turn down (as did the Christian mystics of the Middle Ages) that which is not from God (or our best self) but instead from Satan (or our most immature and fearful self). However, a coaching client does have to acknowledge this critical discernment, while making decisions and taking actions in a complicated world.

With the coach’s prodding and assistance, the client attends to that which provides them with gratification and satisfaction. These motives (and even needs) are rarely acknowledged (or even recognized). Challenging questions are offered by the coach regarding unacknowledged aspirations. These are “if” questions: “what would happen if this project was successful?” “What if you were actually happy?” Most importantly, the disheartening assumption that we are rarely or never captains of our own ship is challenged. If our client is to be truly skillful when operating in our challenging 21st Century world, then they must attend to what is happening inside themselves with regard to their hopes and dreams (especially when they are anxious) as well as what is happening in the outside world (Bergquist, 2020).