Quick show of hands: how many courses are sitting in your logins right now, stuck at 14% complete? (And how many times this month have you almost bought another course anyway?)
No judgment. This is a safe space for unfinished modules. Most of us have a little course graveyard: the launch masterclass, the Instagram bootcamp, the “build your funnel in a weekend” program you bought at 11:48 p.m. because the timer was about to run out.
And here’s the thing nobody selling the next course will tell you: the reason you didn’t finish might not be discipline. It might be that a course was never what you needed.
Short answer: If you’ve bought courses and still feel stuck, you probably don’t lack information. You lack interpretation: help applying what you already know to your specific business, your energy and your constraints. Courses are great for learning a skill step by step. A coaching conversation is better when the hard part is deciding what to do with it.
Why don’t I ever finish an online course?
Usually because the course answered a question you weren’t actually asking. You bought “how to launch,” but your real question was “should I even launch this offer?” No module can answer that, because the answer lives in your business, not in the curriculum.
A few other very normal reasons:
- The timing was wrong. A course on scaling is useless when you’re still finding your first five clients. (I found mine by cold-emailing businesses out of the phone book, so I say this with love.)
- The examples don’t fit. Every case study is a fitness coach with 200,000 followers, and you’re a bookkeeper with a waitlist of three.
- It’s too much at once. Forty-seven videos, nine bonuses and a workbook, when what you needed was one decision.
- There’s no feedback loop. You did the exercise, but you have no idea if you did it right, so you quietly stopped.
None of those are character flaws. They’re design limits of a one-to-many format.
The Three I’s: Information, Implementation, Interpretation
When someone tells me they feel stuck, I ask which of these three they’re actually missing. It changes everything about what will help.
| What’s missing | What it sounds like | What actually helps |
|---|---|---|
| Information | “I don’t know how to do this.” | A course, a book, a tutorial, a template. |
| Implementation | “I know how, I just don’t do it.” | Structure, deadlines, a buddy, a sprint, a tool that holds the steps for you. |
| Interpretation | “I know how, but I don’t know what’s right for me.” | A conversation with someone who can see your whole situation. |
Here’s the trap. When we’re stuck on interpretation, we usually buy more information, because information is easy to buy and feels like progress. Then we feel worse, because now we know even more and still can’t decide.
If your stuckness sounds like the third row, another course won’t fix it. A conversation will.
Course or coach: how do I know which one I need?
You need a course when the problem is a skill you don’t have yet and the steps are mostly the same for everyone. You need a conversation when the problem is a decision that depends on your context.
A course is probably right if:
- You can name the exact skill you’re missing (setting up email automations, writing a sales page, editing video).
- Someone else’s step-by-step process would work for you with small tweaks.
- You like learning at your own pace and you’re good at finishing things you start.
A conversation is probably right if:
- You’ve been going back and forth on the same decision for weeks or months.
- You’ve already consumed plenty of advice, and it contradicts itself.
- You can’t explain your problem in one sentence, because it touches your offers, your pricing, your website and your energy all at once.
- You keep thinking, “this would be so easy if someone could just look at my actual business.”
That last one is the big tell.
What actually happens in a coaching conversation?
A good coaching conversation zooms out and zooms in. Zooming out means looking at your whole business: your offers, your audience, your website, your systems, and the life you’re trying to build around all of it. Zooming in means picking the one thing that would make the biggest difference this month and getting very concrete about it.
In my sessions, it works like this. You bring your business, your context and your messy questions, even the ones you think are too small or too weird. I bring 20+ years of websites, branding and digital marketing, an outside perspective, and pattern recognition from a career that included agencies, start-ups and once managing 300+ campaigns at the same time. We work through it together.
You don’t have to arrive prepared. “I have no idea where to start” is a perfectly good place to start. Come with a question, leave with clarity.
Try this today: the Course Graveyard Audit (15 minutes)
Open a note and list every course, program or membership you’ve bought in the last two years that you didn’t finish. For each one, write down:
- What I hoped it would fix. Be honest. “I hoped it would make me feel confident about launching.”
- Where I stopped. The module, the week, or “never logged in.”
- Why I think I stopped. Wrong timing? Too generic? Too much? Got the answer early?
- The real question underneath. What were you actually trying to figure out?
Now read your list from top to bottom. Most people find the same real question showing up two or three times in different outfits. That repeated question is your next step, and it’s almost always an interpretation question.
If you want someone in the room for it
That’s exactly what coaching with me is for. It can be one session, when you have one clear thing to work through, or ongoing support while your business evolves. We can talk strategy, websites, brand clarity, offers, marketing, technology, or the creative problem that doesn’t fit neatly into any of those boxes.
And to be clear: I love a good self-paced tool. When the problem really is information or implementation, that’s what my Purposepreneur Toolkit is built for. The point isn’t courses bad, coaching good. The point is matching the help to the kind of stuck you’re in.
Quick answers
Should I take a course or hire a business coach?
Take a course when you need a specific skill and a step-by-step process would work for you. Hire a business coach when you need help deciding what to do in your particular situation. If you’ve already taken courses and still feel stuck, the missing piece is usually interpretation, which coaching provides.
Why do I keep buying courses and not finishing them?
Most people stop because the course doesn’t match their real question, the timing is wrong, the examples don’t fit their business, or there’s no feedback. It’s rarely a discipline problem. Write down what you hoped each course would fix, and look for the question you keep trying to answer.
What is the difference between information, implementation and interpretation?
Information is knowing how to do something. Implementation is actually doing it consistently. Interpretation is knowing what’s right for your specific business and circumstances. Courses supply information, structure and tools support implementation, and a coaching conversation supplies interpretation. Being stuck usually means one of the three is missing.
What should I bring to my first coaching session?
Bring your business as it is today, your biggest open question and anything you’ve been going back and forth on. You don’t need a polished agenda. A list of what’s frustrating you, a link to your website and a rough idea of your goals is plenty. “I don’t know where to start” is a valid starting point.
Is one coaching session enough to help?
Often, yes. One session works well when you have one clear decision or problem, like choosing between two offers, fixing your pricing or planning a launch. Ongoing coaching suits situations that will evolve over time, like growing a new business, building a product or rethinking how you work.
You already know more than you think you do. Sometimes you just need someone to help you hear it.