Beliefs That Master Health Coaches Had to Let Go (and You May Need to as Well)

Some coaching tenets are instinctive (like being personable), whereas others are paradoxical and surprising.

Consider, for example, Motivational Interviewing, a communication method employed in coaching and counseling, which presents the idea of the “righting reflex.”

The righting reflex signifies the natural urge to help or “fix” a client, often by guiding them on how to adjust. This urge is especially pronounced in those who genuinely care.

It appears to be a praiseworthy impulse for a coach, doesn’t it?

INCORRECT.

Enter the contradictory domain.

Motivational Interviewing demonstrates how this altruistic inclination to assist can actually hinder a client’s advancement.

When we step in to correct, amend, or direct, clients often respond by becoming defensive and resistant.

When you nudge someone in the “right” direction, they may begin to defend the very behaviors they intended to alter. As a result, you find yourself advocating for change, while they argue against it. This causes mutual irritation, leaving the client feeling more trapped than previously.

Instead, adept coaches understand the importance of a curious stance as opposed to a corrective one. (They might even prompt clients to contemplate the notion of not changing!)

This exemplifies a counterintuitive skill that sets a good coach apart from an extraordinary one. Yet, it’s certainly not the only one.

Which brings us to our next topic.

We posed a simple question to some of Precision Nutrition’s most seasoned PN Level 2 Master Health Coach Certified coaches:

What’s something you were sure of early in your career that you later needed to unlearn?

Their honest and occasionally humbling insights are shared below, along with the wiser methods they adopted and are now conveying to you.

Lesson to unlearn #1: Engaging clients with a fixed structure prior to establishing rapport

The first lesson to unlearn comes from PN internal coach Jeremy Fernandes, PN2-MHC.

With over 14 years of coaching expertise, Coach Jeremy is known for his friendly, approachable, “speak to me like I’m your friend” coaching style. Ironically, he commenced his career relying heavily on a rigid framework that frequently distanced clients.

Here’s Coach Jeremy’s perspective:

“I used to think that being a coach required sharing all my knowledge with clients.”

In the initial days of my career, after a year or two as a personal trainer, a friend asked about nutrition coaching. My immediate reaction was to hand over all the documentation. And when I say “all the documentation,” I mean all of it—I probably gave this person 20 pages to fill out.

They didn’t complete them.

Three weeks later, I had to track them down, and we ultimately filled out the forms together, which took two and a half exhausting hours.

If it weren’t for those forms, we could have begun coaching much sooner.

Shortly thereafter, another friend knocked on my door with excitement: “Tell me what to do, I’m eager,” they said. I promptly extinguished their enthusiasm with those forms. It was quiet after that.

The problem was that I worked under the belief that my purpose was to draw out information and solve the puzzle, as if I had insights about them they were unaware of.

Regrettably, I continued on that misguided course for a while.

What spurred my shift was completing the Level 2 Master Health Coaching Certification.

During that course, I discovered a more effective framework—one that didn’t depend on mechanically extracting information.

I learned to allow the client to take charge, listening and posing a few thoughtful questions. This method functions significantly better—for everyone.

Now, I assume my clients know themselves best. One of my most significant questions is:

“What have you previously tried, what did you enjoy, and what didn’t you