Feeling trapped vs seeing choices.
One of the most challenging but rewarding parts of coaching is to make the coachee see that they always have choices.
Typical narratives that coachees come up with –
a) Founder is anxious – “My startup is neither scaling nor can I shut it down. I feel trapped”
b) “The job market is terrible and I won’t get another job. I am stuck in a job I hate”
c) “AI is taking over and it will finish my career very soon”
d) “I have EMIs, bills to pay. I see no choices.”
Some of them are even logical. But once we dig deeper, it is not difficult to notice that all of these narratives carry emotional weight.
Sometimes they act as a protective mechanism to avoid harder emotions.
The founder above is trying to avoid uncertainty while also avoiding shame and ‘feeling like a failure’.
The person complaining about the job market wants to avoid the uncomfortable feeling of multiple rejections or not hearing back.
Once emotions run high, choices disappear.
The mind often connects unrelated things to make the narrative sound very reasonable.
Take the “bad job market” example
Yes, the market may genuinely be hard. But even inside a difficult market, there are still many choices –
- You can reach out to old colleagues and friends.
- You can look for smaller pockets where hiring is still active.
- You can rethink how you position your skills and experience.
- You can identify what strengths actually make you valuable in this market instead of applying blindly everywhere.
- You can treat the whole thing like a problem to solve or a game to play rather than a judgment on your worth.
- You can decide to stay patient for a few months instead of panicking every day.
- You can choose to take a break and recover if you’ve been emotionally drained for years.
And interestingly, when people are emotionally stuck, even hearing these options feels unrealistic or even irritating.
There will be trade-offs for sure. But choices do exist and can be seen only after the emotions are processed.
The founder in the first narrative realized that he has been avoiding the shame and judgement that comes with failure. He processed those emotions carefully. After that he started seeing many more options.
He narrowed them down to two options – “Either I run my company with fear and anxiety or give 100% of myself like there is no tomorrow”. He chose the latter.
