Originally Posted on The Coaching Tools Company as Beyond Sessions 5: Why Many Coaching Engagements End Without Meaningful Completion
| This article was originally published by The Guiding Matrix and is republished on The Coaching Tools Company website with their kind permission. The article was written by Dr Steve Jeffs, and all rights remain with the original author. |
When I mentor coaches who’ve moved past the early stages of practice, I see this pattern consistently.
They’ve learned to structure discovery properly. They understand that transformation unfolds across a journey, not session by session. They lead their engagements with clarity and confidence.
And yet, when the work reaches its natural end, something shifts.
The final sessions become less intentional. Conversations drift toward what’s next rather than what’s been integrated. The engagement doesn’t close — it tapers. The client moves on, you move on, and neither quite knows what happened in the space between “we’re nearly done” and “we’re done.”
This isn’t carelessness or a failure of skill. It’s the belief that completion will take care of itself if the coaching has been good enough.
If discovery is a phase, completion is also a phase. Both require intention, time, and structure.
When Endings Are Left to Chance
Most coaches understand intellectually that completion matters.
They know that transformation without integration is fragile. They’ve read about closure, reflection, and the importance of marking milestones. They don’t disagree with any of it.
But when the moment arrives, completion often feels optional — or worse, performative. The client seems ready to move on. You don’t want to manufacture significance where it feels forced. There’s a kind of professional politeness that settles in: “We don’t need to make this bigger than it is.”
So the engagement ends with a brief acknowledgment, perhaps a thank-you, and a sense that everything important has already happened.
What’s missing isn’t drama. What’s missing is structure holding the meaning-making that allows transformation to settle.
What Fades Without Completion
When completion isn’t held as a deliberate phase of the journey, several things quietly dissolve.
The client loses the thread. Without a reflective container, they may struggle to name what changed, why it mattered, or how to carry it forward. The transformation becomes diffuse rather than anchored.
Your confidence erodes. When engagements end without clear integration, you’re left wondering: Did this work? Was it enough? What actually happened here? The absence of completion makes it harder to see the arc clearly.
The journey feels incomplete. Even when the coaching itself was strong, the lack of closure leaves both you and the client with a subtle sense of something unfinished. Not dissatisfaction — but not quite resolution either.
This isn’t because the coaching failed. It’s because completion is where transformation becomes visible to the client and real to you.
Why Completion Is Often Avoided
If completion is so important, why is it so often sidestepped?
In mentoring conversations, a few patterns emerge: fear of making it awkward, uncertainty about what to say, discomfort with endings, and the belief that the work speaks for itself.
All of these concerns are understandable. And all of them rest on the same misunderstanding: Completion is about installing the transformation so it endures—ensuring the journey creates lasting change.
This isn’t about coaches avoiding responsibility. Most coaches I work with are highly responsible — sometimes over-functioning in-session. What’s happening is that responsibility is being held at the level of moments rather than continuity, often without realising the unintended effect on integration.
How Completion Actually Installs Meaning
When the coaching completion phase is held deliberately, something specific happens that doesn’t occur when engagements simply taper.
You create space for the client to reflect on where the journey began and where it has arrived. Not as a performance, but as a genuine noticing. In that reflection, what was implicit becomes explicit. What felt like a series of moments starts to reveal itself as a coherent arc.
As the client speaks — naming what shifted, what became possible, what they now understand differently — the transformation moves from experience into language. And in that movement, it becomes anchored. It becomes something they can see, hold, and carry forward.
Your role here is not to summarise or conclude. It’s to witness. To reflect back what you’ve observed across the journey. To name patterns the client may not yet see clearly. To acknowledge both the difficulty and the emergence.
This witnessing stabilises the client’s confidence in a way that good coaching alone cannot. Because you hold the full arc — from preparation through discovery through delivery — you can see what the client, living inside the journey, may still be piecing together.
When you name that arc clearly, the client doesn’t just hear it. They recognise it. And in that recognition, the transformation becomes theirs to carry, not something that happened to them.
What Happens in a Well-Held Completion
When you structure completion as a deliberate phase, certain things tend to unfold naturally.
You and the client reflect together on where the journey began — not just the presenting issue, but the underlying patterns, the questions that mattered, the territory that was actually being explored. You name what has changed, at the level of understanding, capacity, or relationship to self.
You acknowledge what was difficult. What required courage or patience or willingness to stay present with discomfort. You clarify what has been integrated and what remains in motion — because completion doesn’t mean everything is resolved, only that the client knows where they are and what they’re carrying forward.
The client is invited to voice their own understanding of the journey. Not to perform gratitude or summarise neatly, but to speak what has become clear to them. You listen, reflect, and sometimes add what you’ve witnessed that they haven’t yet named.
There’s space for closure. Not dramatic, not sentimental — just clear. The container that held the work is acknowledged. The engagement ends with both of you knowing it has ended, and why, and what it meant.
What Changes When Completion Is Held
When you begin to design completion as a deliberate phase of the journey, several things shift.
The client’s confidence solidifies. They leave with a clear sense of what changed and why. The transformation doesn’t fade — it becomes part of their self-understanding.
Your clarity increases. You can see the full arc of the engagement. Your own confidence is reinforced by witnessing the journey’s completion.
The work feels finished. Not perfect. Not permanent. But complete. Both you and the client can move forward without the subtle weight of something left unsaid.
Renewal and continuation become easier. When a journey is completed well, the client knows exactly what they gained. If they return, it’s not because the work was incomplete — it’s because the next layer is clear.
Who This Is For
This reflection is for coaches who value professionalism and want engagements to feel complete, not just concluded. If you see structure as unnecessary formality or believe completion “just happens” with good coaching, this may not be your developmental moment.
Where This Is Practised
If you’re sensing that endings are a professional responsibility — not a courtesy — you’re already thinking at the level this work supports. Beyond Sessions is where coaches practise holding the full arc: discovery, delivery, and completion. The full arc—from discovery through delivery to completion—is explored in Article 6.
This is part 5 of a 6 blog series helping coaches to elevate their professional impact.
Written by Dr Steve Jeffs & Erwin de Grave
