Psychologist Phillippa Lally's research, published in the European Journal of Social Psychology, found that forming a new habit takes an average of 66 days, with the real range across participants stretching from 18 days to 254 days depending on the habit and the person. There is no version of that research that supports the idea coaching should show dramatic results by week three. Yet that is exactly when most business owners quietly start wondering whether coaching is working, and it is exactly when a meaningful number of them quit, right before the results the data says are still due.

The named enemy is the expectation of a straight line. Business owners are used to seeing cause and effect quickly in every other part of running a business: spend on ads, see clicks; discount a product, see sales. Coaching does not work on that timeline, because it is changing decision-making patterns, not running a campaign, and decision-making patterns take weeks of repetition before they become automatic enough to produce visible results. The dip in the middle, where old habits feel effortful to break and new ones do not feel natural yet, is not a sign coaching has failed. It is the most predictable part of the entire process.

Every owner who has ever hired and then quietly stopped working with a coach after six or seven weeks tells almost the identical story afterward: it felt like nothing was changing, so they went back to what was familiar, and the old problems came back with it within a month. That is not evidence coaching does not work. It is evidence the dip was mistaken for the destination.

The Commitment Corridor gives owners a way to judge coaching honestly instead of emotionally, in four steps.

1. Set a minimum commitment period before starting. Ideally 90 days, and agree it covers the full dip, not just the exciting first few sessions.

2. Name the specific behaviours changing. Not just the outcomes hoped for. Fewer interruptions accepted, one fewer meeting attended personally, one decision delegated per week.

3. Track the behaviour weekly, not the revenue monthly. Revenue lags behaviour change by months. Behaviour change is visible within days if you are honestly tracking it.

4. Review only at the agreed date. Resist the urge to relitigate the decision to work with a coach every time a hard week happens. That is what the 90-day commitment is for.

“Keeping me sane and focused during uncertain times.”

— Rachel Williams, Icehouse Coaching Programme

The execution gap is emotional, not logical. Every owner who has ever quit a coaching engagement early knew, rationally, that change takes time. What they could not tolerate was the discomfort of the dip itself, the week where old habits feel more efficient again and the new approach feels clumsy and slow. That is precisely the week a good coach earns their fee, not by making the discomfort disappear, but by being the person who tells you plainly that the dip is on schedule, not a warning sign.

Nobody can talk themselves through that week alone with the same conviction someone outside the situation can offer them, because the owner in the dip is the least objective person in the room about their own progress.

If you are in the dip right now and wondering whether coaching is working, that conversation is easier with someone who has seen exactly where you are before.