How do we help our clients follow through (especially if we struggle with it ourselves)?
If you support others through any kind of transformation, you’ve probably felt the ache when a client shares something you know all too well.
When your people get stuck, stalled, and avoid the thing they care about… you feel it in your body because you’ve been there too.
Follow-through is a common one.
As business owners, parents, space holders… we can deeply struggle with follow through, just like our people.
The good news? That means you understand and can help them.
Most of us are drawn to this work because we’re walking the path ourselves.
You don’t have to be perfect at it to support someone else. You just have to understand what follow-through actually requires. Especially in a world where people are stretched thin, punished for needing rest, or told they’re the problem when they struggle.
What follow through needs of us:
Dominant culture treats follow-through like a matter of discipline or willpower. Like if you just tried harder, focused more, pushed through, you’d “get it together.”
But that story erases and ignores the realities of being a human navigating life in a world shaped by capitalism, ableism, and supremacy.
What I’ve learned is that follow-through isn’t about forcing yourself to do the thing. It’s not about getting more done.
It’s about resourcing yourself and creating the conditions that make doing the thing feel more possible. Perhaps even easeful or joyful.
Here are the concepts that I teach to my clients around follow-through gently :
Real desire and values alignment. Wanting to do the thing because it feels true, not because you think you should, or feel like you have to. Follow-through rooted in obligation rarely sustains. But when it's aligned with your values and chosen from your wise self, it's easier to return to, even when it gets hard.
Right tools. Tools that are easy and actually help you, not what productivity culture says you should use. For me, that’s a simple Google Doc and a visual digital calendar that works with how my brain processes time.
Right expectations. A realistic plan that honors your capacity and leaves room for being human. One that can flex, include rest, and allows you to pause or pivot without being punished.
Right environment. We don’t follow through in a vacuum. We need environments and relationships that lower friction and make things easier. That might look like a quiet room, phone on Do Not Disturb, or a cozy blanket—but it also looks like access to childcare, a reliable ride, someone to co-work with, or a gym class that’s nearby and affordable.
Right internal voice. An inner voice (or thought) that’s compassionate and curious, not critical. One that believes you can try again, that cheers you on, and gives you freedom instead of shame. This voice doesn’t say, You messed this up again. It says, You’re allowed to try again tomorrow.
Right tolerance. The ability to be with discomfort (fear, doubt, frustration, boredom) without letting it take over or abandoning yourself. This is about building the inner capacity to stay with yourself when the work gets tender, messy, or uncertain.
Right identity. How we see ourselves shapes what we believe we’re capable of. If you’re still living inside the story of “I’m a procrastinator,” it’s hard to show up differently. Part of this work is letting go of that egoic label and claiming something new.
If you’re someone who holds space for others…
You might wonder: What’s actually mine to hold when it comes to follow through?
As a space holder, this is what I believe:
I’m not here to control outcomes.
I’m not here to fix someone.
I’m not here to take responsibility for someone else’s life.
I am here to help them tend to themselves.
To name the conditions that support follow-through.
To offer reflection without shame.
To hold the possibility that change is always available.
To offer accountability, if that’s what the client wants.
That’s my responsibility. The rest belongs to the client.
Helping your clients follow through deeply matters.
Helping someone follow through on what they care about interrupts shame and builds self-trust. It creates counter-evidence to the stories that say they can’t change.
It offers them a life that feels more like theirs.
That’s why it matters and why we do this work.
Want to better support yourself and your people in following through gently?
Register for the free Follow Through Gently: Helping Clients Honor Their Commitments workshop on June 24th.
Check out and enroll in this year’s Holistic Time Practitioner Certification program that starts on July 31st.
