Key takeaways
- When a client is overthinking, more solutions won’t help. They’ve already tried thinking their way out.
- Overthinking is usually a fear of some outcome in disguise. That fear is what keeps the mind running.
- Don’t push a solution, a positive thought, or an action. In this demo I do all three on purpose, so you can watch them backfire.
- What works instead is different. You look at the worst case and the best case with the client, and find what stays true either way. I call that being Equal To the outcome.
When a client is overthinking, most of what we’re trained to do makes it worse. We reach for a solution-focused question. We challenge the belief. We ask what small action they’ll take. I’ve watched good coaches do this, and I’ve done it myself. In this demonstration I coach a client I’ll call Sarah, who can take one small decision and turn it into twenty. First I get it wrong on purpose, three ways. Then I show you the approach I use, one I’ve leaned on for more than thirty years.
What was the client bringing to the session?
Sarah came in wanting to stop overthinking. Her head is always running through everything that could go wrong. One simple choice becomes twenty scenarios. It’s tiring, and she doesn’t trust herself to decide and let it rest.
Notice that she’s telling me what she doesn’t want. She hasn’t said yet what she wants instead. That comes later, and it matters.
Picture that we’ve already built some trust, and we’ve already talked about the bigger direction she wants. Now we’re working with what she wants from this one session.
Why don’t solution-focused questions work when a client is overthinking?
Most coach training points us at solution-focused questions, challenging limiting beliefs, goals and actions. That’s useful for plenty of things. It’s a poor fit when someone is stuck on something like overthinking. If they could think their way out, they’d have done it already.
The overthinking is the visible part. There’s almost always a fear of some outcome sitting behind it. New coaches often rush the solution-focused questions out, then feel thrown when the client doesn’t take to “so how will you fix this?”
What 3 mistakes make an overthinking client worse?
In the first run of the session I make three mistakes on purpose. See if you catch them.
Forcing a solution
I ask, “so what solutions come to mind?” She’s just told me thinking about it doesn’t help. Asking for the fix puts the weight straight back on the part of her that’s stuck.
Forcing positive thinking
I suggest affirmations. She says they feel fake when she doesn’t believe them. Suggesting the tool is me leading her. It’s slipped from coaching into teaching.
Forcing action
I say, “surely there’s one small action you could take.” Same as forcing a solution, different word. She’s tried walks and distraction before, and the thoughts came back.
Even a blended coach, someone who coaches and mentors, will feel this. When you hand the client water from your own well, they don’t drink. They haven’t found it themselves, so it doesn’t hold.
The fix for all three is the same. Stop feeding her answers, and help her find her own.
How do you find out what an overthinking client wants instead?
It’s hard to coach what someone doesn’t want. Think of a waiter asking what you’d like. “I don’t want salad” doesn’t help them. They still don’t know what to bring you.
So when a client tells you what they want to stop, ask what they’d like in its place. No coaching jargon, no “please reframe that.” Just a plain question.
COACH: If you weren’t overthinking, what would you like to be experiencing instead?
CLIENT: Calmer. More trusting of myself. Like I could make a decision and let it be enough, instead of going over it again and again.
There it is. “Trusting herself” runs through the rest of the session.
Should a coach let a client face their worst-case scenario?
This part bends a rule most of us are taught. Coaching usually spirals up. We stay with the present and the future, and we don’t go digging into old pain. Here I invite Sarah toward the worst case she’s already scaring herself with.
I do it gently. It doesn’t go near trauma. It stays with an everyday fear, in this case a fear about her career and about feeling foolish for trying.
She pictures it. She leaves something secure, tries to build a coaching career, and it doesn’t work. She thinks she should have known better. I ask her to let it play out and notice where it sits in her body. Chest. Tight and heavy.
The fear of the outcome is what’s taking her power. Looking straight at it, then moving through it, takes the charge out.
What is the untouchable self in coaching?
Once the worst case has played out in her mind, I move her somewhere safe. She picks the sea. A bench. Looking at the water. From there she looks back, and it’s over.
Then the questions that matter. Even though the worst has happened, what’s still true in you that this can never take?
She finds it. She’s still capable. What she’s learned still belongs to her. Her courage. The people she loves. Then I ask if she can still know love if she chooses to. Then joy. Then beauty. Yes to each one.
Something settles. The failure gets smaller.
CLIENT: It’s still something I wouldn’t want. But it doesn’t feel like it could destroy me anymore.
I call these the untouchables. You don’t stay there long. Just long enough for the client to name them.
Why should the client face the best-case scenario too?
Some clients are frightened of the best case as well. Sarah wasn’t, but it still helps to look.
She pictures the best case fully. A practice that feels like hers, doing work that matters. Waking up glad she tried.
Then the same move. Go past it, back to the safe place, look back. What’s still true that even the best can’t take?
CLIENT: Me. My worth wouldn’t come from the success.
So the worst can’t take those things, and the best can’t either.
CLIENT: I don’t have to hold on so tight to either one. I can want it to work, really want it, without needing it to prove something about me.
What is the Equal To Outcomes method?
This is the method I call Equal To Outcomes. I’ve used it for more than thirty years. In order:
- Turn “what they don’t want” into “what they do want.” A plain question gets you there.
- Stay invitational. Offer the process, don’t push it. If it isn’t working, change direction. Don’t hold a framework so tightly that it disempowers your client.
- Invite the client to look at the worst case. Gently, and only with everyday fears.
- Move past it to a safe place, look back, and find what’s still true that the worst can’t take.
- Do the same with the best case.
- Hold the best and the worst side by side until they feel equal.
A few things I do all the way through. I write down the client’s exact words, the moments that land, and every so often I read the whole lot back to her. I don’t swap in my own words. If she says “I’ll be able to handle what comes next,” I don’t turn that into “so you’ll feel more powerful.” That breaks trust fast. And I keep checking in with the body, so the session doesn’t stay stuck in the head.
What was the overthinking trying to give her?
Milton Erickson taught that behind any feeling or behaviour, even a harmful one, there’s a valid intention from that person’s point of view. I bring that into coaching as positive intention work. The word “positive” throws people here. It points to the intention, not the mood. The overthinking was trying to do something useful for her.
COACH: Just suppose the overthinking was trying to give you something worth having. What could that be?
CLIENT: Safety. If I could think through every possibility, maybe I could keep myself from getting it wrong.
Then she ties it to what she found earlier. Safety doesn’t come from knowing what will happen. It comes from knowing she can meet whatever does.
CLIENT: Whatever happens, I can handle what comes next. That feels true now. Not an affirmation I’m talking myself into. Something I actually know.
How does facing fear give a client more energy?
Getting Equal To the worst tends to help clients create the best. Here’s the picture I use. We hold our rivers back because we’re afraid of the rocks, so the river drops to a trickle. Get Equal To the rocks, and the river runs strong enough to flow around them.
When the fear of the outcome loosens, the client gets more of her own energy back for the choice in front of her.
CLIENT: Trusting myself isn’t trusting that I’ll always get it right. It’s trusting that even when I don’t, I’ll be able to handle what comes next.
Which ICF competencies does this demo show?
If you’re on the ICF path, here’s where this session sits against the ICF Core Competencies:
- Cultivates Trust and Safety. The invitational tone, and checking she can slow me down or stop me.
- Maintains Presence. Staying with her fear instead of rushing to fix it.
- Listens Actively. Catching “trust myself” early, then carrying her exact words through the session.
- Evokes Awareness. The worst case, the best case, the untouchables, the positive intention question.
- Facilitates Client Growth. She leaves with her own reminder, in her own words: “I can handle what comes next.”
This is the kind of session we practise live, with feedback, inside our ICF certification classes. If you want to coach this way, have a look at Level 1, Global Coach ACC, or check if there’s a seat and we’re a fit.