I have a client. She is driving me mad. We have been working together for almost three months now. These three months have been bumpy.

She resists the coaching, and says that she doesn’t believe in the method that I’m using. She said she wants more accountability and wants me to check in daily on her. My program is a weekly one-hour call, and if someone has any questions then they can email me in between and I take 1-2 days to respond. I do not babysit.

She will email me 2-3 times a day, but doesn’t respond or do the questions I send in response. She is blaming me for her current stomach flare up as she says that she finds dealing with her emotions to be too stressful, and then says she doesn’t have time to do the work that I send. I coach her on this every single week, but it’s still the same pattern.

She doesn’t do her homework most weeks. I have spoken to her about this a few times and coached her on this. At the end of the day, she tells me she knows better and doesn’t see the relevance of the questions that I send. She tells me that this isn’t working for her, and she would do things differently if she knew at the start what coaching really entailed.

That being said, she keeps on reassuring me that she wants to continue coaching. She says coaching has taught her to put herself first.

She bought a 6-month package and we are on month three. I have never made such little progress with a client before, and am having such mind drama about her. I need to clean up my own thoughts about her, and am finding it increasingly difficult to know what to do.

I have been open and honest with her. Telling her she needs to do the work to see results and coached her on the objections. She does it here and there, but 90% of the time makes excuses as to why she can’t (One time she even said to me that I send the homework by email and that doesn’t suit her because then she needs to print it and that requires more effort on her part.)

Knowing that I have been open and honest with her, I’m not sure how to move forward! (I know that when we say I don’t know, it’s our brain’s way of shutting down) but every week I have been asking myself “If you did know what would you do?” I always tell myself to be honest with her and coach her on the mind drama she has. This cycle has continued now for three months, and now I am starting to lose faith in her. I do not feel confident that she will get the result that she wants, because of how she keeps on showing up despite how I coach her.

I am considering firing her as a client. On the one hand my brain says “what if she is on the verge of change, and what if this is what she needs” and “ this is growing you so much as a coach.” Then on the other hand my brain says “she’s not doing the work so it’s a waste of time”, “She wants me to babysit her, and that’s not what I do”, “I can give her all the tools, but if she is not willing to implement them then I can’t help her,” and “if you were a good enough coach, she wouldn’t be showing up in this way.”