When Presence Slips: What Gets in the Way for Experienced Coaches (and Why It’s Not a Skill Gap)

 

There’s a moment many experienced coaches recognise, even if they don’t always talk about it.

It’s when a session feels a little different and the sense of Flow you usually trust isn’t quite there.

Your feel less grounded and your presence isn’t quite what you want it to be….

And then in the background a familiar question starts to form. What’s going on here?

For capable, well-trained coaches, that moment can be surprisingly unsettling. When you’ve invested years in developing your coaching skills, it’s easy to assume that a wobble in presence means something has gone wrong. That you’ve missed something or slipped somehow or lost a quality you once had.

In my experience, that interpretation is rarely helpful and it’s usually inaccurate.

 

Why It’s Rarely a Skill Gap

When presence slips, it’s far more likely that something personal is happening.

Experienced coaches are holding a lot. Complex client situations, emotional intensity, organisational pressure, ethical responsibility and often a genuine sense of care for the people they work with. Add to that whatever else is going on in your own life and it makes sense that attention sometimes drifts. Presence is sensitive and it responds quickly to what’s happening inside us as well as in the room.

 

How Responsibility Quietly Creeps In

One pattern I often notice with the coaches I mentor is a quiet sense of responsibility creeping in. The coach starts carrying the session, subtly tracking where it should go or how it ought to land. The intention is kind and conscientious, yet attention shifts. Instead of resting with the client, it becomes occupied with managing the process. Flow tends to ease away when attention becomes focused on the process of coaching.

 

The Impact of Internal Monitoring

Another familiar experience is internal checkingabout whether you are doing it “right”. Experienced coaches understand what skilful coaching sounds like but when part of your attention is monitoring how you’re doing, there’s simply less available for the client, and presence falters without any obvious moment of change.

 

The Role of Tiredness We Often Overlook

There’s also the influence of tiredness. It’s rarely the kind of tiredness that makes you stop but the subtler kind that shows up as a slight impatience, a tendency to move things along, or a sense that listening takes more effort than usual. This doesn’t reflect on your capability. It’s an understandable response to work that can carry a lot of emotional weight.

 

Why Trying Harder Doesn’t Help

What often follows is an understandable attempt to correct things. Coaches try to be more intentional and more deliberate. They apply more effort in the hope that presence will return. And yet presence doesn’t deepen through trying harder. It deepens when you relax and allow your attention to widen again.

 

So how do you find your way back into Flow?

During the coaching session: 

• Start by slowing yourself before you try to slow the session.

Take a breath you actually notice as you let your shoulders drop and feel your feet on the floor. Become present in the moment.

• Let your focus become simpler again.

Bring yourself back to one thing only: staying with how the client’s thinking is unfolding right now.

Don’t think about where the session should go or what would be useful later. Just focus on this moment.

• Give silence more room than feels comfortable.

If you notice the urge to fill the space, treat that as information rather than a problem.

Let the client finish their thinking. Be comfortable with not knowing what comes next

• Shift from evaluation to curiosity.

If you hear your inner commentary starting up, gently return to interest in the client. What matters most to them right now?

• Pay attention to your body.

Flow is felt before you can name it. A steadier breathing, a sense of ease, a softening in your face are often early signs that presence is returning.

 

After the session

Reflecting Without Self-Judgement

After the session, reflect without judgement. Instead of asking “What did I do wrong?” ask yourself  “What was happening in me when Flow slipped?” Look for patterns rather than answers.

 

Where Mentoring Makes the Difference

This is where Coach Mentoring offers something genuinely different. It creates space to notice those patterns with kindness and clarity, rather than trying to fix yourself in isolation. Presence drifts when conditions change. When those conditions become clearer, confidence returns and Flow often follows, without being chased.

It’s when you move away from self-judgement and back towards curiosity that you find yourself reconnecting with the ease and depth you’re familiar with and FLOW emerges.

Until next time,

Cath

x

P.S. If you’re noticing these patterns in your own coaching and would value a space to explore them without judgement, my ICF Accredited Coach Development & Mentoring Programme is designed exactly for this kind of work. It’s a place to slow down, notice what’s happening beneath the surface and settle back into the ease and depth that’s natural for you.

If you want to find out more, let’s have a chat…click here to book a call.