We tend to think of creativity as producing something artistic and external: a painting, a book, a performance. But moving through change is also a creative process.
And if you’re lucky, there is a coach sitting right there with you. Not to teach you “the five ways coaching rewires your brain.” Please no. The coach supports you through the process of creation or, rather, re-creation, where the creative material is you.
Your own mind. Habits. Memories. Associations. Assumptions. Imagination. Identity.
A new connection between two thoughts can be as generative as placing two unexpected materials together in making art. A new behavior has to be rehearsed before it becomes natural. A future has to be imagined before it can be inhabited.
Change is a creative process because it asks us to see beyond what already exists. And a coach, at their best, helps make that possible for you.
Just keep in mind that the direction comes from you.
Your values. Your desires. Your reasons for wanting something different. Otherwise, change can easily become another form of compliance, shaped by a coach or therapist, a friend or family member, an employer, a culture, or society at large.
The coach is there to question, reflect, challenge, connect, and hold up a mirror. So you can see more clearly what no longer fits, what you want to carry forward, or what you want to create next.
And speaking of the coach, there’s another creative process happening at the same time that’s worth mentioning. Life doesn’t stop unfolding because someone has learned how change works.
The coach is in their own process of creation too. Still being asked to imagine what comes next. Still rehearsing new behaviors. Still questioning old assumptions. Still discovering that something they thought was settled has started moving again.
That’s the truth about coaching. Two people meet in a conversation about change, but neither of them stands outside change. One may be helping the other see possibilities more clearly, but both are living inside the same unfinished process.
Both the client and the coach are in the process of creating change. Different lives. Different questions. Different material. But the same fundamental goal.