When Is the Right Time to Start Coaching?
The Question Everyone Asks
Almost every physician I talk to for the first time says some version of the same thing. "I have been thinking about coaching for a while. I just was not sure it was the right time."
I get it. You are busy. You have grants to write, committees to sit on, residents to supervise, and maybe a tenure clock ticking in the background. Adding one more thing to the calendar feels irresponsible.
But here is what I have learned after years of coaching faculty in academic medicine. The right time is almost always sooner than you think.
The Cost of Waiting
Most people do not reach out to a coach when things are going well. They reach out when something has been off for a while. Sometimes months. Sometimes years.
By then, patterns have calcified. The committee you should have said no to three semesters ago is now "your thing." The leadership role you wanted went to someone else because you never said it out loud. The resentment you feel toward your department has started showing up in your tone at meetings.
None of this is irreversible. But all of it is harder to unwind than it would have been to address early.
The Inflection Points
I cannot tell you the exact right moment for your situation. But I can tell you the moments when coaching tends to have the highest return.
When you are new to a role. The first year in a new position is when your habits form. It is also when you have the most permission to ask questions and set boundaries. A coach during this window helps you build the right foundation instead of spending years fixing the wrong one.
When you feel stuck but cannot explain why. This is one of the most common things I hear. Everything looks fine on paper. You are publishing, getting good evaluations, checking boxes. But something is off. That feeling is data. A coach can help you figure out what it is pointing to.
When a decision is approaching. Promotion cases. Leadership opportunities. Whether to stay or leave. These are the moments when clear thinking matters most and when it is hardest to come by. You are too close to the situation. A coach gives you distance without detachment.
When you are burning out. I want to be careful here. Coaching is not therapy. If you are in a clinical depression, you need a clinician. But if you are in that gray zone where the work has lost its meaning and you are running on obligation alone, coaching can help you find what got buried.
When things are actually going well. This is the one nobody expects. But some of my most productive coaching relationships have been with physicians who were not in crisis. They were performing well and wanted to be more intentional about what came next. Peak performance research supports this. The best time to invest in growth is when you have the capacity for it.
Why We Wait Too Long
There are a few reasons academic physicians delay coaching. Some of them are practical. Cost. Calendar. Not knowing where to start.
But the deeper reason is usually this: asking for help feels like an admission that you cannot figure it out on your own. And in a culture that rewards self-sufficiency and intellectual rigor, that admission carries weight.
I want to push back on that. The most successful leaders I have worked with are not the ones who figured everything out alone. They are the ones who were honest about what they could not see and found someone to help them see it.
Marshall Goldsmith puts it well in What Got You Here Won't Get You Here: the skills that earned you your current success are not always the skills that will carry you to the next level. Recognizing that is not weakness. It is strategy.
You Do Not Need to Be in Crisis
If I could change one thing about how people think about coaching, it would be this. You do not need to be in crisis to benefit from it. You do not need to have a problem to solve.
Sometimes the right time for coaching is when you want to think more clearly about your career. That is enough.
If you are wondering whether now is the right time, it probably is. Individual coaching is a good place to start the conversation. No pressure, no commitment. Just an honest look at where you are and where you want to go.
