J Health Behav Med Hist 2025-21
Coaching in practice: the motivational interaction techniques that enhance the willingness to be coached
Robert C. van de Graaf, MD
Director, MEDTCC Institute for Health, Behaviour, Medicine and its History, The Netherlands
Abstract
This paper introduces the fourth cluster of Interaction Techniques (ITs) in coaching: the motivational techniques that enhance a client’s willingness to be coached. Whereas cognitive ITs prepare the mind to understand, motivational ITs prepare the relationship to engage. They do not target behaviour change directly, but optimize the client’s openness, curiosity, and trust toward the coaching process itself. By aligning the process with personal meaning and psychological safety, these techniques make it possible for Behaviour Change Techniques (BCTs) to work. The willingness to be coached is the bridge between relational connection and behavioural influence — the condition that allows change to begin.
Coaching begins where willingness starts
Before any technique can be applied, a more basic question must be answered: Is the client willing to be coached — by you, in this way, at this moment?
This form of willingness is often mistaken for motivation to change. Yet the two are distinct. A person may want to change but resist being guided, just as another may not yet know what they want to change but feel deeply open to reflection. The first will struggle to follow through; the second may progress rapidly once a trusting coaching relationship is in place.
Motivational interaction techniques [Dijkstra, et al., 2025] work in this space between intention and cooperation. They enhance the coachable state: a mental and emotional readiness to enter the coaching process, to listen, to explore, and to temporarily share control with another person.
The coach as regulator of engagement
Being coached is not a passive act; it requires energy, curiosity, and a sense of safety. Clients who feel defensive, ashamed, or judged are less likely to absorb questions or reflect honestly. The coach’s task is to regulate this state of engagement through subtle interactional choices.
Tone, pacing, and language all play a role. A coach who communicates calm confidence and genuine interest signals to the client’s nervous system: You are safe here; you can let your guard down. Small gestures of validation — “It makes sense you feel hesitant,” “We’ll take this at your pace” — lower defensiveness and open the door to cooperation.
Motivational ITs therefore work not by persuading, but by inviting. They help the client feel willing to participate in a process that, by its nature, involves vulnerability.
The art of positive expectancy
One of the most effective ways to enhance willingness to be coached is to create positive expectancy — the belief that the process itself will be useful, not only its outcome. When sessions feel structured, personal, and relevant to daily life, clients begin to expect benefit from the interaction. This expectancy activates the brain’s anticipatory reward system, preparing the mind for openness, focus, and trust. Motivational ITs such as personalising, contextualising, and explaining the rationale behind exercises strengthen this confidence, while realistic expectation-setting prevents disappointment. The client starts to see coaching as a partnership that supports rather than evaluates — a process they are willing to enter fully.
Personalisation and contextualisation: the ownership effect
A client is more willing to be coached when they recognize themselves in the process. Motivational ITs therefore aim to personalize and contextualize every element of the interaction.
Personalisation means connecting the coaching trajectory to the client’s unique situation, values, or language. Contextualisation means embedding it in the reality of their daily life, so that the conversation feels relevant rather than abstract.
These small adjustments have a profound effect. When a client hears their own words echoed back in the coach’s framing — “So for you, this is really about having more energy at work” — they feel ownership of the process. Ownership generates commitment. The coach is no longer an authority, but an ally.
Regulating expectations and emotions
Clients often enter coaching with mixed feelings: curiosity mingled with skepticism, hope shadowed by fear. If these emotions remain unspoken, they become silent barriers to engagement. Motivational ITs invite them to the surface.
By openly discussing expectations (“What would make this time together useful for you?”), the coach transforms anxiety into collaboration. By normalizing uncertainty, the coach removes the pressure to perform. The client no longer feels evaluated, but accompanied.
This emotional regulation is the hidden foundation of coachability. When tension drops, listening improves, and reflection becomes possible. The willingness to be coached is not created through pressure, but through presence.
The difference between being convinced and being invited
Traditional approaches to motivation often rely on persuasion: convincing the client that change is necessary. But persuasion targets behaviour, not relationship. Motivational interaction techniques take the opposite route: they focus first on relationship, trusting that change will follow from cooperation.
To be willing to be coached is to feel invited into a joint exploration. The coach does not stand above the client but beside them, co-constructing meaning. The interaction shifts from I’ll tell you how to let’s discover how. This shift is subtle yet transformative — it changes the emotional geometry of the relationship.
The relational neuroscience of willingness
From a neurobiological perspective, the willingness to be coached emerges when the social brain detects safety and value. The ventromedial prefrontal cortex integrates relational trust with self-relevance: Is this person safe? Is this process meaningful to me?
Motivational ITs operate exactly here. They combine signals of trust (warmth, predictability, respect) with cues of personal relevance (individualized framing, clear rationale). When both are present, the client’s brain lowers its guard, allowing learning and behavioural influence to occur.
Without this foundation, even the most sophisticated behaviour change techniques remain inert. The relational channel through which they would operate stays closed.
From cooperation to collaboration
The ultimate goal of motivational interaction techniques is not obedience but collaboration. A cooperative client complies; a collaborative client participates. The difference determines whether coaching produces temporary adaptation or lasting insight.
By continually aligning the process with the client’s values and rhythm, the coach helps transform external guidance into internal drive. The client becomes a co-owner of the process, and the coaching space evolves from instruction to co-creation.
This is the essence of being coachable: not passivity, but active participation in one’s own learning under the guidance of another.
Conclusion
Motivational interaction techniques are the social and psychological catalysts of coachability. They do not aim to change behaviour directly but to make behaviour change possible. By enhancing the client’s willingness to be coached, they prepare the ground on which all later techniques can take root.
Structure provides safety. Relationship builds trust. Cognition enables understanding. But only motivation to be coached turns these elements into a living process.
When a client leaves a session saying, “I look forward to next time,” the motivational ITs have done their work. The door to influence is open — and through that door, the art of behavioural change can finally begin.
References
Dijkstra A, Van de Graaf RC, Kootstra Y. Hét praktijkboek voor de leefstijlcoach. Evidence-based technieken voor langdurige leefstijlverandering. Academie coaching en leefstijl 2025.