Welcome to where I am here and now in Autumn 2026

As a coach who has been practicing and delivering coaching and coach services independently for nearly ten years, I am experiencing one of life’s transitions where I really need coaching and need to coach more often.

Over the last year I have used my personal boardroom of supporters, mentors and notably my peers in the profession to help my mindset for keeping going and for working on the many small adjustments in the business to make it sustainable. I focused on my coaching goals and purpose and stopped several activities to support my family in their transitions and that has thankfully gone well. That explains why I have been quiet despite seeing so many new people connect with my 2^nd edition of the Coaching Solopreneur book and its free resources!

The transition that I am in now is the strangest to handle because it is about handling the quiet. I have clients but for the first time I need more! This week I was assigned a new coach and client using the ICF Reciprocal model of peer-to-peer coaching and I am planning to max that out because they are a stranger at this point and that will be useful in the quiet.

As part of the Coaching Solopreneur work the solo part is a challenge when you have a transition in life and must adjust in work terms to fill the void. I have an ‘empty nest’ for the first time in my coaching life and suddenly more time than I need and no excuse of a school run or other people to cater for in its widest sense. More time could be joyous if there were more clients and more workstream offers than the average September but on the contrary the market seems very flat and already many steady sources of income are explaining how they are struggling to stay profitable.

Using my regular housekeeping for the business methods I have reached out and don’t think I am alone in hearing more issues in the coaching profession affecting trade. For those of you who work with coaching training providers, platforms and contracts it seems that the key topics causing a downturn are:

-          AI augmented coaching services are showing corporate clients that they don’t need to pay independents what they are historically worth. If platforms with the latest technology can’t sell the service without slashing the rates for the coach, then how will we prove the human side of the service. I plan to work on finding a ROI return on investment approach to support future work.

-          Leadership programmes for C Suite and aspiring future leaders are less in demand due to cost and time away from the business. This is reducing the opportunity deploy coaching services alongside leadership development. I plan to align with those who are already providing smaller group programmes that are filling up and use coaches to embed the work.

-          New ICF certification rules for Coach Development services are costly and effecting the profitability of offering Supervision and Mentor Coaching and Coach Training services. The overheads for every revenue stream that came with PCC attainment are now becoming a barrier that will only see professional standards fall as coaches walk away from accreditation and renewals. I will gain certificates to compete but not deliver at hourly rates that don’t suit.

-          UK Budget uncertainty for HR leaders and for small business owners is reducing the % of budget that is available for individuals to receive coaching and reducing the income from coaching in our business. I will be patient to see what the budget brings in as risk or opportunity.

-          Supply and demand have never been this out of line for generalist coaches and niche coaching offers becomes survival of the fittest by having assets that cannot be sourced easily through AI unless you become a subject matter expert which opposes ICF nondirective standards. I will continue to work on ICF work and EMCC work as separate items and will review my ethics to align to the contract’s requirements in my delivery.

What a mess to try and tackle in the quiet – good luck to my coach in helping me to find a way forward! When I re-read my last blog post in January, I noticed how I predicted the quiet and spent a good chunk of time networking and reaching out to contacts and reigniting enough work to get to here. Now I am here and it is proving tough to have more time to fill, but I have a few more choices to work through with my coach and the boldest will be to enjoy the quiet whilst building something new.

I am thinking this may take some time, and, in the meantime, I need to stay connected whilst on the pathway to the Mastery level of our profession. I really didn’t think going for my ICF MCC was the right decision until the Marker changes to evoke awareness in January. I am still not 100% sure I will be able to pass but I have this as a goal to stay coaching and want to retire with the highest badges with the ICF and EMCC. By staying focused on coaching delivery helps me help other coaches with supervision and mentoring and I love this work and I am not ready to walk away from a messy profession yet however testing the landscape.

I have ended up here with an ending in mind and wonder if you would like to help – do you need a coach to help you with a transition or challenge and would like to help me create some coaching hours? Get in touch if you can spare three hours of your time and I will heavily discount the cost if you are prepared to be recorded/transcribed with a tool use so I can experiment with MCC expectations! Now we will see if we can both move forward from now to next. Kate