Who hit the fast-forward button? And isn't it time we paused a little?
Everyone’s in a rush. Quick wins. Instant breakthroughs. One-hour transformations. Decisions need to be instant. Growth has to be measurable. We need to grow, to change, to achieve something meaningful before the next newsletter lands. And coaching has started sounding a lot like a productivity workshop.
- Three steps to clarity.
- Five habits of success.
- A proven formula for growth.
It’s neat, tidy, and it's marketable but when has real human growth ever worked like that? This focus on speed is completely at odds with how many human beings actually grow. Because growth, real growth, isn’t linear. It doesn’t arrive in bullet points or follow a perfectly numbered checklist. It’s more like spirals, loops, pauses, regressions, and sudden shifts that appear out of nowhere after weeks of seemingly nothing.
Yet, the coaching industry, and the wider personal development world, has often borrowed heavily from productivity culture. Get clear, get moving, get results… and get them quickly. Now, there’s nothing wrong with clarity, and structure absolutely has its place. But when the focus leans too far toward speed, certainty, and output, something crucial gets lost.
Depth. Space. Reflection.
The very ingredients that actually sustain meaningful change and I see it often, clients frustrated with themselves because they haven’t had their breakthrough yet. Because they’re not 'transformed' within six sessions. Because life isn’t following the formula.
The truth is, we don’t grow the way we’re often told we should. We grow in stories and in the narratives we carry. The ones we inherited. The ones we’ve unconsciously written. The ones we get to reshape... but only if we’re willing to step out of the rush and pay attention.
When we work with story, whether that’s metaphor, archetype, or a simple invitation to reflect, something changes. The pressure eases and the nervous system settles. It stops being about forcing answers and starts being about exploring meaning. Because when you work with story, you’re no longer asking, “How do I fix this?”, you’re asking, “What is this showing me?” And that question leads somewhere very different.
This is what I think of as slow coaching. Not slow in the sense of passive or unproductive, but slow in the sense of deliberate and reflective. Willing to honour the pace that humans actually operate at, rather than the one demanded by hustle culture.
Story is the natural home for this kind of work because stories unfold and they meander. They reveal themselves bit by bit and allow space for complexity, for paradox, and for not-knowing - which is often exactly where real growth happens. So if you’ve ever felt like growth isn’t happening fast enough... maybe it’s not you. Maybe you’re just living in a world that forgot how to make space for slowness.
Growth doesn’t live in bullet points. It lives in story. And stories, the ones that really matter, take their time. This is a big part of the philosophy behind the way I work, and why so much of what I create is rooted in storytelling, reflection, and slowing things down long enough for meaning to actually surface. Because growth was never meant to be rushed. Not then, not now, not ever!