Do you need information or transformation?

“I know what I need to do, but I can’t get myself to do it.”

Does that sound familiar? Recognizing that you’re in this situation is frustrating, but also incredibly important. It can save you years of wasting time and feeling like a failure. That’s because this sentence tells you that you don’t need more information; you need to undergo a transformation.

Our default setting in this culture is “Fix it with information.” Made a bad meal? You need a new recipe. Make bad meals every night? You need a cooking class. Eat badly all the time? You need a diet plan. Name a problem, and someone will sell you information to fix it. 

And so, when you know what you need to do, but can’t get yourself to do it, you might be tempted to look for information. You might keep searching for tips on how to do it, even though you already know what’s needed. You might start searching for tips on how to make yourself do stuff you don’t wanna do. But there’s actually an option besides a “how-to.”

Information works great, except when it doesn’t

When information is the solution to your problem, it works beautifully, because information is very easy to pass around. You can download a pdf and you get a problem solved in minutes! Businesses love using information as a solution too, because they can sell information to thousands of people all at the same time.

The trouble is that information is not always what you’re missing. If you try to fill a transformation-shaped hole with information, you get:

• “I tried that already, and it didn’t work.” Even the best ideas aren’t working for you, because you don’t need ideas. When you get all excited that someone is finally going to help you and they just give the same old ideas, you can feel disappointed and unseen.
• “My mentor taught me an exercise to help with this…but I don’t do the exercise, so it didn’t help.” You can start to blame yourself for not using the information, instead of realizing that the problem is a mismatch between what you need and what you’re getting.
• “My therapist helped me understand why I do this…but I still do it.” You might even feel stupid for not being automatically transformed by the information, instead of realizing that transformation is a separate process.
• “I read that self-help book, but I haven’t changed.” Sometimes we get so addicted to seeking information that we just read book after book about transformation without actually undergoing the transformation.

Trying to solve a problem with information when you need transformation keeps you stuck. So let’s see how to discern what’s needed!

Inner Resources Are Not Skills

The key to knowing whether you need information or transformation is knowing whether you’re missing a skill or an inner resource.

Skills are things you learn from the outside world. You can meditate on Python programming all you want, but you probably won’t guess all the syntax rules and function names without reading the docs.

If you’re missing a skill, you need:

• Information about how to do the skill
• Lots of practice doing it
• If you want help: a teacher or mentor who has a) the skill you want and b) the skill of teaching

Inner resources, on the other hand, are things you have inside you just because you’re human. They’re not missing, and they don’t have to be built. Rather, they get hidden by layers of emotions and defenses, and have to be uncovered.

Inner resources include:

• Confidence 
• Self-compassion 
• Self-worth
• Inner peace
• Curiosity
• Passion
• Inner strength
• And many more

This means you don’t really “build” confidence or “learn” self-compassion. You uncover them. You don’t even have to “generate” motivation — when you uncover confidence and curiosity, motivation flows naturally.

If you seem to be missing an inner resource, you need:

• Transformation to uncover it
• If you want help: a coach or therapist with the skill to guide people to uncover that resource.

How to decide

Besides noticing that you know what to do, but can’t get yourself to do it, how can you tell whether you need information or transformation?

Does it feel personal?

When you need information, you have a practical problem. You’re missing something, but it’s like missing an ingredient for dinner: “Whoops, I’m all out of paprika. Better go to the store!” It can be important, but it’s not personal.

When you seem to be missing an inner resource, it’s like a part of you is missing. You might feel this lack directly, which feels like “I’m not enough,” or “I don’t have what it takes,” or like having a void inside you. Or, you might feel anxiety instead of feeling the void itself. In that case, whenever you think about an issue that calls for this resource, you’ll feel signs of anxiety, like tension, jitteriness, nausea, distractibility, lethargy, or brain fog. Either way, it hits a lot closer to home than just “I’m out of paprika.”

Is it a pattern?

When you start a new job and need to learn a new skill, it’s a problem until you learn the skill, and then you’re all set.

But when you start a new job and your confidence is buried, and you feel like you don’t deserve the job, learning a new skill doesn’t fix your lack of confidence. You might learn the skill, and then find a new reason to feel underconfident. If you look back on your life, you’ll start to see that you’ve been here before. Maybe you quit your last job so you could get one that you would feel better at, but now you’re feeling underconfident again.

This repeating pattern often makes people conclude that this is just “who they are” or “how life is,” and it can’t change. But this repetition doesn’t mean you’re doomed! It’s a cry for transformation.

Uncovering a resource

There are two ways to uncover an inner resource: 

Bring the resource forward

For instance, you could be in a bad mood and annoyed with everyone, and then see a really cute animal in need of help, and suddenly become the most compassionate person in the world. You didn’t have to “develop” compassion. Your inborn compassion just got evoked and drawn forward.

Clear away the stuff that’s covering your resource

Instead of pulling your compassion in front of your annoyance, you could also work with the annoyance until it cleared up. This is what happens when you’re hopping mad and, to your surprise, someone validates you instead of arguing with you. The validation softens your anger and it dissolves, revealing the next layer inside you — perhaps sadness or fear.

Many people are aware of this possibility with anger in particular, and say “anger is a secondary emotion.” What they may not realize is that even the emotion under the anger isn’t the deepest layer. If you keep working through the layers, you get to an inner resource.

For instance, say you made a mistake at work, and that made you feel stupid, and that made you angry. Underneath the anger, you’ll probably find shame. If you then work with the shame, underneath it you’ll find the inner resource of unconditional self-worth, that allows you to feel like a worthwhile person even if you fail at a task.

When to seek coaching

These inner resources are your birthright, and the ways of uncovering them are natural processes. You’ve probably experienced them both, maybe without even realizing it. So can you just let nature take its course, or should you work with a coach to help you do it more systematically? Here are the reasons you might consider coaching:

It’s more reliable

Almost any experience – watching a beautiful sunset, having a great conversation with a friend, you name it – can evoke an inner resource. And yet, I can’t tell you “just watch a lot of sunsets and you’ll be fine!” It’s impossible to know what will work when, and some layers of emotions and defenses are very stubborn.

Fortunately, you don’t have to wait around for luck to strike. A good coach knows a bunch of techniques that are likely to work and understands the principles of what helps uncover resources, and what gets in the way.

We all have blind spots

One of the most important reasons to get coaching – one that applies to us coaches, too! – is that it’s really hard to notice your own stuff that’s covering up your resources. A good coach can spot what’s blocking your transformation without making you feel bad about it.

Integration is not automatic

Even though we all drop into resource states from time to time, we don’t all learn from those states or integrate them more fully into our lives. It’s kind of like going on vacation, feeling refreshed and upbeat, and then snapping right back to “ugh” when you go back to work.

A good coach can help you make the most of your resource states. First, they can take advantage of your increased wisdom and creativity while you’re in that state by asking you to use that time to make decisions and plan next steps. Second, they can help you integrate the resource into your identity, body, and lifestyle. Over time, coaching should make it easier for these resources to come to the surface when you need them – even outside of sessions.

The next step

Want to consider transformational coaching for your issue? Don’t worry, you don’t have to decide all at once. You can book a free consultation with me and we’ll just chat about whether it makes sense for you.