Patience is powerful, and good things rise slowly

I've been interested in kinesthetic or tactile learning practices for some time, and know through my social work experiences working with children, and my work with adult learners, as well as some of my coaching clients, especially those who are neurodiverse, that sometimes mixing things up through physical activities, walking, touching, drawing and hands-on experiences can be and is really rewarding. 

One of the things I’ve developed is combining sourdough breadmaking, a love of mine, with coaching, which I've been doing for a couple of years now. The coaching sessions are made up of a pre-session, a day of baking and coaching, with a follow-up session after a day's baking. 

Transforming flour and water into a complex loaf through time, heat and care is a bit like coaching. It mirrors the journey of discovery, self-development, and transformation. Making sourdough is about patience, where wild yeasts are working together and towards the final nourishing loaf is a reflection on the care, time and attention invested in the process. A bit like coaching.

The starter and discovery call

It begins with the starter, where the natural yeast is developed with flour and water and followed by daily feeds of flour and water, which are small, consistent steps that develop into strong foundations.

When ready, a starter is a chaotic, sticky, airy and active network of bubbles, like a honeycomb network of pockets. It smells fruity and is at least double in volume from the last feed. It can seem uncertain, like when we find ourselves at a crossroads, feeling unsettled, sensing possibilities, and weighing up options, a quiet sense that something is ready to change as we move towards a new chapter.

The starter or discovery conversation is about making room for new growth. What old habits or mindsets are you willing to let go of? Just as a starter requires regular discarding and feeding daily to grow strong, building ourselves to be our best versions requires consistent, small efforts rather than sudden, intense action. The starter is a community of yeast and bacteria, and as with coaching, environments and relationships thrive when cared for.

There is also readiness. Is the starter active enough? What small signs show you are ready to take the next step? As with starting coaching, where you can be at a crossroads, there is a focus on identifying what you want to work on and explore and what’s needed to sustain long-term growth. 

Here, we might explore the spark or the big why behind this crossroads. We might ask as coaches, "What are you feeding your starter?" In other words, what resources, habits, relationships, or communities are you consistently investing in to grow?

Fermentation, patience and trust

This second step is all about growth and resilience. Trusting the journey. It needs time. The dough cannot be rushed; it needs time to rise. Just as personal development and growth take time. Fermentation is active yet uncontrolled. It’s letting go and trusting the process. Coaching supports and guides, and as in life, you cannot control all the variables.

Rest is productive and restorative. This represents the balance between trusting a process and performing necessary check-ins, such as building in reflection. During fermentation, the dough appears passive but transforms. You might find yourself adapting to change, such as when a change in temperature can shift the dough. Here, we can adapt rather than force, mirroring the fact that sometimes in life there is a need for flexibility.

While the rise is taking place, there is rest and reflection. It is not being lazy, but essential for growth. It is in these rest periods that we coach. The sourdough process becomes a metaphor for conversations on strengthening resilience and how you are managing setbacks or messy starts to turn them into something nourishing.

We are navigating the unknown during this stage as the dough grows and evolves. Here, we might ask how to maintain trust and patience when you cannot see every detail of the work yet. 

We are also identifying obstacles and bringing to the fore conversations about what is currently getting in the way of your progress, and what strategies can help you maintain your well-being under pressure. There is a presence instead of hovering on where questions to control the outcome too tightly. Again, we might ask, where might stepping back and letting the "natural yeasts" do their work be more effective? 

Kneading, shaping and proving our worth

This stage is about growth, patience, and resilience. Working the dough, kneading and folding strengthen the dough and its structure. It builds inner strength. The physical act of kneading and folding represents the work needed to strengthen and is a metaphor for developing and shaping one’s life, relationships, or career.

With coaching as we navigate through the work, we start to build personal resilience and strength. The physical and therapeutic process of handling dough represents taking time to shape one’s path. Coaching, like dough, needs to adapt to changing circumstances. The shaping of the dough defines the structure, like building foundations in coaching.

We might ask, where in your life or work are you being asked to “work the dough” right now – staying with the discomfort, repetition, or effort – to build strength rather than avoid it?

Or, if you were intentionally shaping this next phase of your journey, what structure, boundaries, or goals would help you grow while still allowing flexibility as conditions change?

Scoring and baking, action, and transformation

Once the dough is proved, it is ready for baking. There is a controlled release, through scoring, which allows the dough to expand. It’s intentional. In coaching, we might represent creating a healthy outlet for the pressures of life. We might ask: where can you score to let go of pressure, allowing for growth?

The oven, where the heat is intense, is the final transformation, an irreversible stage where your work, patience, and resilience, combined with heat, turn a lumpy mixture into something valuable, symbolising high-pressure situations that force change.

It’s also a leap of faith. The final bake is a moment of letting go and trusting that the work put into the dough will lead to a nourishing outcome. Similarly, a coach helps a coachee trust their work and move onward. It's also the time of letting go of control, the crossroads where growth begins, inviting us to pause, reflect and choose how to move forward with tools to navigate.

The bake is a metaphor for those high-stakes moments or catalysts for change. Where do you need to create a controlled release? How can you proactively manage tension to ensure you expand where you want to, rather than breaking under pressure? How can you make your personal or professional mark more intentional and clearer to others?

Core coaching takeaways from sourdough

Kneading for growth is a physical grounding activity that encourages thinking, mindfulness, and self-reflection. A coach doesn’t just bake the bread, like the starter; a coach helps you learn to work with what is already alive in front of you. As for the final bake, when it’s not what was expected, work out what you did and revise the process. It’s all about touch, adjusting and then creating.

Patience is powerful, and good things rise slowly. 

If you feel you would like some coaching and are at a crossroads, have a problem to solve and are unsure how to, are stuck in a place but not sure what to do next, and feel coaching might be of support to you, get in touch.