Behind-the-scenes thinking from an executive coach’s practice. These posts share what I’m learning, questioning, and discovering through my work with senior leaders—the patterns, surprises, and quiet transformations that happen in the space between sessions.

Stepping Out of the Drama Triangle: What Actually Happens

Most coaches I supervise arrive with a version of the same story. They recognized the Drama Triangle in a session. They saw themselves in the Rescuer role. They understood, intellectually, what was happening.

And then they tried to step out.

What actually happens when a coach steps out of the Drama Triangle?

What they expect is clarity. What they get is a vacuum.

I know this because I’ve been there myself. In a recent supervision session, my supervisor named something I’d been sensing for a long time but hadn’t had language for. The somatic signals I track in my coaching sessions, the heat in my neck, the tightness in my chest, the sudden urgency to say something useful, she called them an internal risk management device. It was as if my body was running its own threat assessment, separate from my thinking mind, and it had been doing this long before I learned to notice it.

The problem isn’t having the device. The problem is what happens when you try to override it. You can’t shut it down. You can’t ignore it and coach cleanly. You have to come to terms with it, and that negotiation is messier and slower than any model of the Drama Triangle prepares you for.

This is what I want to talk about: what actually happens when you step out of the triangle. Not the theory. The experience.

The hidden payoff

Karpman’s Drama Triangle gets taught as a trap. Three roles, all dysfunctional, and the goal is to recognize them and get out. But that framing skips over a question that matters more than the model itself: why do smart, well-trained coaches keep stepping back in?

Because the triangle pays.

The Rescuer role, in particular, offers coaches something we rarely name out loud. When you are actively helping, when you are asking the incisive question, offering the reframe, steering the client toward their breakthrough, you feel competent. You feel needed. You feel the session moving. That feeling is not trivial. For many of us, it is the reason we became coaches in the first place.

I hear it in supervision constantly. A coach arrives with a question that sounds clinical: “How can I help my client get more motivated?” or “What approach should I take to move her forward?” The language is professional. The undertone is not. What I’m often hearing underneath is: my client isn’t progressing, and I feel responsible. I need to do more. I need to try harder.

That’s the triangle talking. Not because wanting your client to progress is wrong, but because the urgency to make it happen has shifted from their agenda to yours. The coach is now working harder than the client, and calling it dedication.

The payoff is invisible from the inside. It feels like care. It feels like professionalism. It feels like the thing that separates a good coach from a mediocre one. And when you try to let go of it, you don’t feel liberated. You feel empty. You feel like you’ve stopped doing your job.

That emptiness is what most coaches aren’t prepared for. Most trainings don’t warn you that stepping out of the Rescuer role will feel, at first, like becoming a worse coach.

The identity question

Here is what I watch happen next. A coach recognizes the Rescuer pattern. They’ve read the literature, maybe discussed it in training or supervision. They understand, conceptually, that they need to step back. So they do.

And they land in a place that feels like nowhere.

One coach I work with described it precisely: “When I’m working my hand in the topic, I feel that it’s wrong. When I lean back, I lose control and movement.” She wasn’t describing two options. She was describing a trap with no visible exit. Both positions felt like failure.

This is the identity crisis that follows the payoff vacuum. The Rescuer role didn’t just give you something to do. It told you who you were. The coach who helps. The coach who moves things forward. The coach whose clients make progress. When you release that, you’re not just changing a behavior. You’re standing in a room without the thing that made you feel like you belonged there.

What often fills the gap first is a phrase: “I’m here to hold space.” I hear it frequently, and I’ve come to listen carefully when I do. Sometimes it reflects a genuine presence. Sometimes it’s a placeholder for the panic of not knowing what else to offer. The coach has left the Rescuer role but hasn’t arrived anywhere yet, and “holding space” becomes the language of being lost while sounding grounded.

Underneath it, the questions are raw. Am I good enough? Am I a good coach? What am I doing wrong? Am I working harder than my client? These are not signs of incompetence. They are signs that the coach has done something difficult: given up the certainty that came with the role, before finding what replaces it.

That in-between space is where most people turn back.

What negotiation looks like in practice

The somatic signal doesn’t stop when you recognize the triangle. Your chest still tightens. The heat still rises. The urgency to say something useful still arrives, right on schedule. Recognition doesn’t turn the signal off. It gives you a fraction of a second between feeling it and acting on it.

And that fraction is all I need.

What I’ve learned, slowly and imperfectly, is that the signal isn’t the enemy. My nervous system is doing its job. It’s scanning for risk, flagging something it thinks I need to respond to. The mistake isn’t having the response. It’s letting it make the decision. The practice is learning to read it as information rather than instruction. What is this tightness telling me? Is it about my client, or is it about me? Is this a signal I need to act on, or one I need to sit with long enough to understand?

Sometimes that takes more than a fraction of a second. Sometimes I need a real pause, not a metaphorical one. I will tell my client, “I need a moment. Something is coming up for me, and I want to give it attention before we continue.” This used to feel like a disruption. Now I understand it as an act of partnership. I believe coaching is a relationship between two whole people. Claiming my own processing time isn’t a weakness in that relationship. It’s a demonstration of what I’m asking my client to do.

But the path to that pause is different for every coach. What I’ve just described is my version. Yours will look different because your signals show up differently, your patterns have their own architecture, and your relationship to the triangle has its own history.

What has helped me most is supervision: a structured, dedicated reflection practice where I can examine these patterns with someone whose job is not to reassure me but to help me see clearly. I don’t say this to sell a service. I say it because I’ve watched what happens to coaches who try to do this work alone, and I’ve watched what happens when they don’t have to. Devoted professionals in any field benefit from a place where the performance stops and the honest examination begins.

The practice, not the exit

I want to be honest about something. I don’t step out of the Drama Triangle once and stay out. I haven’t met a coach who does. The triangle shows up in my coaching, in my supervision, in relationships I care about. Some days I catch it early, and some days I don’t.

What has changed is not the frequency. It’s the distance between stepping in and noticing I’m there.

In a companion piece for the leaders we work with, The Triangle You Didn’t Know You Were In, I explore the version of this pattern that runs inside a single person: the inner critic, the collapsed self, and the soothing reflex that ends the spiral by taking over. The interpersonal triangle a leader navigates with their team is often a downstream effect of the internal one. Part of what we offer as coaches is the capacity to see that distinction, and it’s easier to offer when we’ve learned to see it in ourselves.

If you recognize yourself anywhere in this piece, that recognition is the practice already working.

Join the conversation

If this stirred something for you, I’m hosting two free live discussions this month: Stepping Out of the Drama Triangle: The Messy Middle.

We’ll go beyond the model and into the experience: the payoff vacuum, the identity wobble, how your nervous system pulls you back into familiar roles, and what it actually looks like to exit the triangle in the middle of real relationships, not just on paper.

Both sessions have the same structure and agenda. Choose the time that works for your schedule. At least a few participants will leave with a small gift from me, as a thank-you for being willing to sit in the messy middle together.

This space is for executive coaches and corporate leaders who are ready for the honest version of the conversation.

Warmly,

Maria Wade

If you’d like to stay connected, subscribe to my newsletter for reflections on coaching, leadership, and thinking with clarity. You can also join my WhatsApp community channel to hear about upcoming community events.

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The Coaching Behind the Crisis: What Happened in the Room

I wrote recently about a senior vice president who lost his succession plan one month before his transition. That post walks through the framework: how the four questions helped him find his footing when everything collapsed.

What it doesn’t show is what happened on my side of the conversation.

I want to share some of that here, because I think it matters. Not because my experience is the point, but because coaching through a crisis like this one sharpened something for me: the moments that look like emergencies for our clients are often invitations for us as coaches to notice what we’re doing with our own uncertainty.

When he called me, two days after the news broke, I could hear the speed in his voice before he said a word. He was already in motion. Already solving. And my first instinct, if I’m honest, was to match his pace. To be useful. To help him think through the options.

I caught myself. Not because matching his pace would have been the wrong thing to do, but because something in my body was telling me this wasn’t a thinking problem yet. It was a grounding problem. He needed to land before he could lead.

The pull to rescue

That instinct to be useful is one I’ve learned to watch in myself. It shows up most when a client is in real distress. They’re activated, the situation is urgent, and there’s a pull to meet that urgency with solutions. To step in. To rescue. It feels like helping. Sometimes it is. But I’ve been a coach long enough to recognize when that pull is about managing my own discomfort with their pain, not serving their actual need. (There’s a name for this pattern, and I’ll write about it soon. For now, I’ll just say: if you’ve ever felt the urge to fix someone’s problem before they’ve finished feeling it, you know exactly what I mean.)

With this leader, the actual need was simpler and harder than problem-solving. He needed someone to sit still while he figured out who he was in this new situation. Not who the board expected him to be. Not who his team needed him to be. Who he actually was, now that the plan he’d built his identity around had just collapsed.

I asked him one question in that first session: “Before we get to what you’re going to do, can we stay with what just happened?”

He resisted. Politely, the way senior leaders do. He pivoted to logistics, to timelines, to the names of two people who might be interim candidates. I let him go for a few minutes. Then I said, “I notice you haven’t taken a breath since we started.”

He paused. And in the pause, something loosened, and what surfaced wasn’t the strategy session he’d been bracing for. It was grief. He’d spent four months letting go of this role, psychologically handing it over. Our coaching had been intentionally focused on staying present while preparing for what came next, holding both timelines at once. And now he was being asked to step back into something he’d already released. That disorientation was real, and it needed to be acknowledged before any useful thinking could happen. This is the part of coaching that normally doesn’t make it into frameworks or blog posts. The willingness to not be helpful yet. To trust that the client’s system is processing something important, and that my job is to protect the space for that processing, not fill it with questions or models.

The moment that surprised me

Two weeks later, at our regular session, something unexpected happened. He’d done the work: reconnected with his values, slowed down his pace, brought his team into the conversation. All the things I’d written about in the framework post. But in our session, he said something that caught me off guard.

“I’m glad I lost my successor. Not glad it happened, but glad it happened while we were working together.”

I wanted to hear more.

He explained: the four months of transition planning had been comfortable. He was passing the baton, wrapping things up. Even though our work together had been focused on staying present during the transition, he admitted he’d been mentally drifting toward the next role. The crisis forced him to look at things he’d been avoiding: a role that was poorly designed, a team that had been holding back concerns, a leadership pipeline that had no depth. None of that would have surfaced if the handoff had gone smoothly.

What struck me in that moment wasn’t the insight itself. It was the quality of his voice. Two weeks earlier, he’d been running on adrenaline. Now he was speaking from a settled place. Not calm, exactly. Present. I notice that difference in my body before I notice it in the words. His breathing had slowed. His sentences were longer. He was thinking in the conversation, not performing for it. That settling is what I listen for as a coach. Not the breakthrough moment, not the dramatic shift, but the point where a client stops managing the crisis and starts actually being in their own leadership again.

What I took from this

Every coaching engagement teaches me something, but this one clarified a pattern I’d been sensing for a while. The leaders who come through crisis most whole aren’t the ones who solve it fastest. They’re the ones who allow themselves to be disoriented by it first. The disorientation is the data. It’s telling them that their old way of understanding the situation no longer fits, and something new needs to form.

My job in those moments is to resist the pull toward premature coherence. To let the not-knowing sit long enough for genuine clarity to replace the manufactured kind.

It’s harder than it sounds. I have my own relationship with uncertainty, my own instinct to organize and make sense. Sometimes the best coaching I do is simply catching myself before I impose structure on a client who isn’t ready for it yet. If you want to see how this leader’s crisis played out through the lens of the framework, that post is here. This one was about what happened behind it.

A Note from the Author

If this case stirred something in you—curiosity, recognition, maybe even a little unease—you’re exactly the kind of person I had in mind when I decided to open it up for live conversation.

In March, I’m hosting two free Case Study Debriefs on this same crisis:

We’ll walk through what happened, what was at stake, and how the Leadership Integrity Framework™ shaped both the leader’s choices and my own as a coach. You’re welcome to bring your questions, your own parallel cases, or simply your curiosity. This space is for executive coaches and corporate leaders who are committed to supporting others when things are not neat, not tidy, and not theoretical.

If you’d like to stay informed about future case discussions, workshops, and new resources, you’re also invited to join my WhatsApp community for short, thoughtful updates (no more than one or two a week):

I’d be glad to have you in the room.

Warmly,

Maria Wade

How a Transformational Coaching Program Transforms Leadership: A Simple Technique with Big Impact

There’s a special kind of joy in seeing your ideas take flight. Recently, I had the honor of contributing to a collaborative article where I shared how a simple executive coaching technique created a profound shift in a client’s leadership skills.

It’s a reminder of how leadership coaching—whether part of a transformational coaching program or tailored as executive leadership coaching—can lead to significant results. In this case, the focus was on helping a senior executive cultivate emotional intelligence and resilience, which transformed their leadership style and team dynamics.

Below is my contribution to the article. I hope it inspires you to consider subtle shifts in your own leadership style. For more insights from other premium coaching professionals, feel free to explore the full article here.

Transformational Coaching Program: Cultivating Emotional Intelligence

One of the most transformative coaching experiences I’ve had involved guiding a senior executive in cultivating emotional intelligence and resilience—key attributes of effective leadership. This executive, while highly skilled and knowledgeable, struggled with managing stress and maintaining composure during critical situations. These challenges impacted his ability to lead with confidence and inspire trust within his team.

To address these issues, I employed a combination of mindfulness practices and cognitive restructuring techniques, grounded in principles of neuroscience. These methods were carefully chosen to help the executive rewire his responses to stress and develop a more reflective and adaptive leadership style.

The first step was to enhance his self-awareness. Through guided reflection, he became more attuned to his emotional triggers and learned to recognize the underlying patterns that led to reactive behaviors. This increased awareness allowed him to pause and choose more constructive responses in high-pressure situations.

Next, we focused on building emotional resilience. By incorporating regular mindfulness practices, the executive learned to recognize the emotion and stay grounded and calm, even in the face of adversity. These practices not only helped him manage his stress more effectively but also improved his overall emotional regulation, enabling him to lead with greater empathy and clarity.

In parallel, cognitive restructuring exercises were introduced to shift his mindset from a reactive to a proactive one. We worked on reframing negative perceptions, which had previously fueled his stress responses, into opportunities for growth and learning. This shift empowered him to approach challenges with a solution-oriented mindset, fostering a more positive and resilient leadership style.

The impact of these techniques was profound. Over time, the executive reported a significant improvement in his ability to handle stressful situations with poise and confidence. His team reported on his newfound ability to lead with calm authority and to inspire a supportive team environment.

This experience underscored the power of combining mindfulness and cognitive restructuring within a coaching framework. By addressing both the internal and external aspects of leadership, we were able to effect lasting change, enabling the executive to not only improve his own leadership skills but also to elevate the performance and morale of his entire team.

P.S. With this case study, I wanted to demonstrate how executive coaching can go beyond addressing immediate challenges to foster deep, lasting transformation. By focusing on emotional intelligence and resilience, leaders not only enhance their own capabilities but also create a more positive, empowered environment for those they lead.

If you’re seeking to elevate your leadership or inspire similar growth within your team, these insights may offer valuable steps forward. Don’t hesitate to reach out to me to discuss your ideas with me.

Warmly,

Maria W.

The Journey to Mastery: My Path from Boardrooms to the Heart of Coaching

Nine years ago, I stepped onto American soil, a land so vast and different from where I’d come from, carrying a suitcase, a wealth of experience in various high-stakes industries, and a heart full of dreams. My past roles—navigating the complexities of mergers and acquisitions, leading a nationwide customs operation, managing a billion-dollar company—suddenly felt like chapters from another lifetime. Here I was, ready for a new chapter but unsure where to start.

The world of coaching unfolded to me through a conversation with a dear friend, Yakov, a suggestion that sparked curiosity and, soon after, a passion. It was as if all my previous experiences were converging, preparing me for this moment. The skills I had honed over the years in leadership, strategy, and finance were about to take on new meaning.

The Columbia Coaching Certification Program was my gateway into this new world. As a non-native English speaker, the initial dive into coaching practices was both exhilarating and daunting. I remember the “fish bowl” sessions, where we practiced coaching under the watchful eyes of peers and mentors. It was here, in moments of vulnerability, that I found strength, supported by a community that valued diversity and personal growth.

The program wasn’t just about learning the mechanics of coaching; it was about finding my voice within the coaching space. It taught me the importance of listening, not just to respond, but to understand and empower. Coaching became more than a profession; it was a calling, a way to make a meaningful difference in people’s lives.

Achieving the Master Certified Coach (MCC) credential from the International Coach Federation was a landmark in this journey. With over 380 hours of education and training under my belt, this wasn’t just a testament to the skills acquired; it was a reflection of the deep, transformative journey I had embarked upon.

But this journey was never just about the destination. It was about the people I met along the way, the mentors who guided me, the clients who entrusted me with their stories, and the colleagues who became companions on this path. It was about the continuous cycle of learning and giving back, of growing as an individual and as a professional.

Now, as I stand on the precipice of new beginnings—writing a book on Executive Presence, leading initiatives as President of the Columbia Coaching Learning Association—I’m reminded of the essence of this journey. It’s about connection, resilience, and the never-ending pursuit of excellence.

Reflecting on the past nine years, I see a tapestry of experiences, challenges, and triumphs. From the boardrooms to the intimate spaces of coaching conversations, it’s been a journey of discovery, not just of my potential but of the profound impact we can have on each other’s lives.

This story, my journey, is a testament to the power of human connection, the beauty of embracing change, and the joy found in pursuing one’s passion. It’s a reminder that sometimes, the most unexpected paths lead us to the most rewarding destinations.

And so, to those who’ve been part of this journey, to the mentors, clients, friends, and family who’ve supported me every step of the way, thank you. Your belief in me has been the greatest gift, fueling my journey and reminding me of the impact we can make when we walk together.

I can only imagine the journey ahead, the stories yet to be written, and the lives we’ll touch. The path from boardrooms to the heart of coaching has been anything but linear, but what a beautiful journey it has been.

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Is Certainty Always a Good Thing?

My mission is to help people thrive through complexity and uncertainty. I’ve been thinking about this concept lately. The opposite of uncertainty is obvious: certainty.

But, is certainty always a good thing?

There are so many factors that lead to our sense of certainty and, we can all agree, that if nothing else, the last 2 years of a global pandemic have thrown our ability to declare anything as a “safe bet” out of the window.

So here’s the nuance. While I can’t provide certainty, what I can provide is getting you more comfortable with the unknown.

It might surprise you, but I don’t want you to become certain. I want to encourage you to stay open-minded instead. Why? Because we just never know. We never know what is truly good or bad for us. We never know what is just around the corner. We can collect information and examine many sources, but I know, for me, that the moment I am certain, I stop.

I freeze in this certainty.

I could promise you that getting more and more certain would improve your decision making process. After all, a sense of certainty calms you down. You’re certain. You’re relaxed. You’re calm.

But the key words here are “a sense of…”

Certainty can look so real. You can fool your brain and rationalize everything. By trying to create certainty, we establish our assumption as something true. This is why I believe that certainty eventually makes you a prisoner of your own illusions.

This is why I cannot help people get to certainty.

What Kind of Circus Performer Are You?

This is like working in the circus.

Just hear me out on this.

You are juggling with one ball and you believe you are so good, flawless, great, no mistakes. You can do this endlessly (in fact, you’re CERTAIN you can) but it’s so… Well, it is just so boring.

And, you look at the performer who can do this with 10, 20, 30 balls.

Who are you? This is your choice. Whether you want to juggle with 1 ball and enjoy and be proud OR do you want to reach some mastery in accepting many things. Chances are, if you’re reading this, you’re not the complacent type. You want to improve and strive and develop.

You want to try for another.

Guess what? The minute you get certain is the minute someone comes and throws a second ball into the mix.

How do we keep ourselves from the “trap” of certainty?

It may seem straightforward, but one of the best ways I have found to avoid falling into the “trap” of certainty is welcoming variety, challenge and potential discomfort (this is all a part of growth). If we keep an arsenal of information, opinions, and learning around ourselves, we will always have something to choose.

[As an aside, this is what makes me desperate and hungry for learning as a coach. I don’t have a signature approach or a “one size fits all” for my clients. I know I can’t come to you with certainty of any one outcome so my only signature is that I will be a good partner and be able to respond to the complexity of your world and your request.]

Of course, when it comes to many decisions you need to make, it is not about throwing caution to the wind. You have prior experience and information. You will want to base your decisions on something you believe is reliable. But also, you will create Plan B and C and D, and you will always have something to experiment and try again.

Ultimately what it comes down to is resilience, but not just any resilience; this is a very well-informed (and earned) resilience.

Keep focusing on your goal and keeping your mind open. You are receiving tons of information all the time, processing it and creating multiple solutions. You are constantly asking yourself questions: what if? What if? What if? You will come back again and again.

So, is certainty a good thing?

If it wasn’t all just an illusion, maybe it would be.

As for me, I’ll take uncertainty with a side of heavy resilience any day.

Photo by Matt Bero on Unsplash

Throwing Out Old Assumptions: How to Listen Differently

Have you ever thought about the way you listen to the people in your lives? I mean, really thought about it? If you observe this, you will begin to notice that we often discount the opinions and perspectives of the ones closest to us.

Why is this?

We make assumptions. We believe we understand their behavior patterns and habits. We believe, as a result of this knowledge, that we can predict their words and their thoughts.

We hear them but we aren’t actually listening.

Not surprisingly, this has a great impact on both ourselves and on our partnerships. We miss opportunities to get insights, to learn, to make informed decisions and to strengthen and deepen our relationships.

After all, we have good reason to tune out and be easily irritated. Don’t we? These are our partners, children, parents, friends, colleagues, partners… the people we talk to day in and day out…. Right?

In reality, the words of the people closest to you have more power than we give credit. These are the individuals who know you best. They can ignite an insight inside of you that you might never imagine on your own.

How does this play out?

Are you curious what this might look like in different facets of your life?

– As a leader, you may make assumptions or hold on to some unconscious bias about the people closest to you. Are you discounting the opinions of people on your team because you have pigeon-holed them and their perspective? Or, simply because they are more “junior” than you?

– In your personal life, family/friends are what many of us ascribe as having the biggest value and impact on us, but on the other hand, our actions reflect that we don’t take time to foster and develop these relationships because they are such a “given”. Family dynamics can be complicated, and each situation is unique. Consider how you are showing up, listening actively and being present for the conversations with those in your household, immediate family and circle of friends.

– And, finally, to my fellow coaches: when we work with the same client for a long period of time, we can fall into the trap of sessions becoming too predetermined. We don’t ask enough. We stop being curious. This is a mistake. We work with our clients on their development, and this client today is not the same client as they were yesterday. This is a good reminder for all of us to interact with them in this manner.

So, what do we do?

There’re a few very simple actions you can take to check yourself when it comes to conversations with those closest to you.

  1. Think before you listen. If you are heading into a conversation with someone where you know you will be asking for advice or getting someone’s perspective, take a very brief moment to set an intention for being open to receiving what they have to say with as little expectation as possible. Remind yourself that because they are close to you, there may be a subconscious reaction to tune them out which can help you guard against that.
  2. Stay focused on this conversation. Listen as though this was a new friend or colleague sharing with you. Notice how you listen differently.
  3. If you find yourself making assumptions, take a moment to pause the conversation and ask a question (or a few).
  4. As you walk away from the conversation, take a minute to reflect without judging yourself and simply observe: How did that go? What assumptions did I bring into the conversation? Was I open to receive their input?

Do you notice a difference in how you think about your interactions after this reflection? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Photo by Nick Fewings on Unsplash

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Creating Your Perfect Day

I used to ask my clients where they see themselves in five to ten years. I stopped.

Not because the question is wrong, exactly. But because the answers almost never helped. People would produce something that sounded like a résumé from the future, or they’d freeze up entirely, unsure how to predict a life that keeps surprising them. And honestly? I found the same thing in my own life. A ten-year plan gives you a destination. It doesn’t give you a way of living.

What I’ve found more useful, both in my coaching practice and personally, is an exercise that has been around for years and works as well now as it ever did. I replaced “Where do you see yourself in five to ten years?” with a different question entirely:

Tell me about your perfect day.

One day. Not a career trajectory. Not a milestone. Just: what does a single day look like when it’s exactly the way you want it?

Why one day is more powerful than you think

Most people hear “perfect day” and assume it’s a lightweight exercise. A nice daydream. Something softer than real planning.

It isn’t.

When you visualize a day in rich, sensory detail, something happens in your brain that doesn’t happen when you set a five-year goal. Your brain is, at its core, a prediction machine. This is one of the central insights from neuroscientist Lisa Feldman Barrett’s research: the brain doesn’t passively wait for the world to happen and then react. It is constantly constructing predictions about what will happen next, based on everything it has learned before. Those predictions shape what you notice, how you feel, and what actions seem available to you.

This means that when you imagine your perfect day with enough specificity, you aren’t just fantasizing. You are training your brain’s predictive model. You are giving it new data about what a good life looks and feels like, so it can start filtering the world differently. Your brain doesn’t cleanly separate “real” from “vividly imagined.” The neural patterns overlap. A detailed visualization literally begins to reshape the predictions your brain makes about your own future.

This is why a five-year plan often fails to motivate: it’s too abstract to activate that predictive machinery. “Become a VP” or “Launch my own practice” doesn’t give your brain enough sensory information to work with. But “I wake up at 6:30, the house is quiet, I make coffee and sit on the porch for twenty minutes before I open my laptop” does. Your brain can simulate that. It can begin to orient toward it.

How the exercise works

You write about one perfect day. Not an exceptional day, not a vacation day, but a day in your regular life as you want it to be. You stay in the present tense. You include details: what you see, what you hear, how your body feels, who is around you, what kind of work you’re doing.

You don’t worry about “how.” You don’t try to be realistic. You focus entirely on the what.

The results often surprise people. One of my clients, a senior executive who came to coaching to “figure out her next move,” discovered through this exercise that her perfect day didn’t involve a title change at all. What she wanted was a morning where she wasn’t already in reactive mode before she finished breakfast. She wanted one meeting-free afternoon a week to think. She wanted to pick up her kids without checking her phone in the parking lot. None of this required a career overhaul. But she hadn’t been able to see it until she stopped thinking in terms of milestones and started thinking in terms of hours.

Another client noticed that her working days and her weekends represented completely different visions. She needed two versions of a perfect day, because what restored her on Saturday had nothing to do with what energized her on Monday. So we separated them. Both versions mattered.

And then there was the client who was in the middle of this exercise when she walked past a chair in a shop and had an immediate, physical recognition: this chair belongs in my perfect day. I asked her if she had a picture of it. She did. We saved it. That image became an anchor, something concrete that made the visualization feel less like an idea and more like something already beginning to exist.

That physical recognition is worth paying attention to. Barrett’s research on interoception, the brain’s capacity to read signals from the body, suggests that these gut-level responses carry real information. When your body says “yes” to a chair, or a neighborhood, or the image of yourself working in a certain way, that’s your predictive system telling you something about what it’s already learned to want. The exercise makes those signals louder.

What your perfect day reveals about you

Sometimes what shows up in a client’s perfect day tells me something they haven’t said out loud yet.

When someone describes a day that’s entirely about rest, beaches, palm trees, nowhere to be, nothing required of them, I pay attention. Not because there’s anything wrong with wanting that. But because, in my experience, when an entire perfect day is built around escape, it often means the person is at the edge of burnout or already past it. What they’re describing isn’t a life they want to build. It’s the recovery they desperately need right now.

So I’ll ask: how long would you actually want to stay on that beach? A week? A month? What happens after that? And usually, the conversation opens up. The beach was the exhale. Underneath it, there’s a different day waiting, one connected to what they actually care about and want to contribute. The real exercise begins when we connect the images and desires that surface to their values, to what drives them, to their why. That’s where the perfect day stops being a pleasant fantasy and becomes a compass.

Why reading it regularly matters

Writing the perfect day is just the beginning. The real work is returning to what you’ve written, regularly. Not to admire it, but to keep feeding your brain’s prediction system with specific, sensory-rich information about the life you’re building toward.

Here is what I have noticed with clients who do this consistently: they start making small decisions differently. Not dramatic changes. Small ones. They decline a meeting they would have accepted. They rearrange a morning routine. They say no to something that looks good on paper but doesn’t match what they actually want their days to contain. The perfect day becomes a filter, a way of evaluating choices that’s more honest than any strategic framework.

And because it describes a single day rather than a distant goal, it stays flexible. Life changes. What you want from a Tuesday in March might be different from what you wanted in September. You can revise your perfect day whenever it needs revising. It grows with you. A five-year plan feels like a commitment you might fail to keep. A perfect day feels like an invitation you keep extending to yourself.

Start with what you already have

Here is something most people don’t expect: when they write their perfect day, they discover that parts of it already exist. Maybe you already have the morning coffee ritual, or the walk, or the relationship, or the kind of work. You just hadn’t noticed, because you were focused on what’s missing rather than what’s present.

That recognition matters. It changes the exercise from aspiration into honest inventory. What do you already have? What’s close? What would need to change?

You don’t have to wait five years. You don’t have to overhaul anything. You might just need to notice what’s already there and protect it, and then, slowly, add the rest.

The day I realized I was living mine

I want to tell you something that happened to me.

A few years ago, I started working with my visibility coach, Eve Voyevoda. One of the first things she asked me to do was imagine my desirable state five years out and then reverse-engineer the path back to today. It was a different exercise from the Perfect Day, more structured, and honestly, at times quite painful. Reverse engineering a five-year vision forces you to confront every gap between where you are and where you want to be. I did it. I wrote it all down, including the sensory details of that future life and, alongside them, the business metrics and revenue targets I believed I needed to get there.

About a year and a half later, a client who had just completed her own Perfect Day reflection came to our session and said, “I live my perfect day.”

And then there was silence.

I managed to say, “Tell me more.” She described the state she was in, one she recognized as what she had written about. The life she had imagined had become the life she was actually living.

Later that day, I opened my own notes from the exercise I’d done with Eve. I reread the sensory descriptions I’d written, the morning, the work, the feeling of the day. And I realized, with genuine surprise, that I was living my perfect day too.

I ran to my husband to show him my old reflections, to point at the pages and say, look, this is my life now. He read them with his habitual groundedness and asked, “What about all these numbers and business goals?”

He was right that they were there. At the time I wrote those reflections, I was certain I needed specific revenue figures and business milestones to arrive at my best life. Life proved that it wasn’t true. What I needed was clarity about my purpose and serving it, day in and day out. The numbers I’d written down hadn’t materialized the way I’d planned. The life had.

That’s what this exercise can do. Not magically deliver a future. But clarify what actually matters, so that when you arrive at it, you recognize it.

If you’re curious about how the Perfect Day exercise changed the direction of my own career, I wrote about that here.

Try your own Perfect Day exercise. I’ve created a guide with questions and prompts to walk you through the process. You can download it here and take thirty minutes to write the day you actually want to live. Then come back to it in three or four months and see what’s changed, both on the page and in your life.

What surprises you? What’s already there that you hadn’t noticed?

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