Introduction to Coaching Outdoors

This is a summary of our previous podcast episode which you can listen to in full here: https://yourcoachingjourney.com/project/episode-95-coaching-approaches-coaching-outdoors/

Coaching Outdoors with Anna-Marie Watson

From a ‘walk and talk’ in nature to the metaphors of the landscape, coaching outdoors means many things to many coaches

Anna-Marie Watson, host of the Coaching Outdoors podcast joined Helen to talk about about this multi faceted approach to coaching and how she got started with it.

An ex-Army officer, Anna Marie is never happier than when she is outdoors. She is an accredited coach and coach supervisor who loves to move her coaching away from a Zoom window and the confines of four walls and take her conversations with coachees into nature. 

Anna Marie is not just passionate about the outdoors; she has lived and worked in some of the most challenging natural environments on Earth, having formerly served as an army officer in places ranging from the Arctic tundra to hot, sandy deserts. Her mission is clear: to encourage more coaches to break free from four walls and let nature be an equal partner in the coaching conversation.

The Journey to Coaching Outdoors

For many coaches, the path is straightforward, but Anna Marie’s trajectory was driven by a deep, enduring affinity for the outside world. She openly admits that joining the military and later leaving it was fuelled by a recurring theme: not wanting to be stuck in an office.

Growing up “free range” in the Northeast of England, exploring allotments and building dens, the outdoors became her place of freedom, centring, and grounding.

When she transitioned from military life, where her final role was in leadership development, she recognized a common thread running through her entire career: people. What she realised much later was that her fundamental coaching skills, listening and asking questions, had been honed years earlier as a junior officer working with her soldiers.

Despite eventually training as a coach, she initially felt compelled to fit the corporate mould, resulting in a lack of authenticity. It wasn’t until she found the courage to merge her love for nature with her professional practice that she truly aligned with her values. She realized that for her, and many others, being in nature is intrinsically healing, a crucial element she needed to translate into her work.

A Spectrum, Not an Approach

Anna Marie stresses a crucial point: coaching outdoors is not a rigid model; it’s an extra layer that can be applied to virtually any existing coaching approach, whether it’s Gestalt, systemic, or positive psychology.

It’s also a bit of spectrum from simply picking your coaching up and taking it outdoors at one end, through to various ways you can partner with, and learn from, nature.

1. Walk and Talk

At the less intensive end is the simple “Walk and Talk,” where the focus is on movement rather than explicit nature interaction. This side-by-side dynamic inherently changes the coaching conversation’s quality.

When two people walk together, there is an embodied synchronicity—a shared pace and cadence—that is often less confrontational and more connecting than being seated face-to-face. This setup can feel psychologically safer, as clients are face to face with you. Furthermore, the benefits of movement, fresh air, and light exposure can help down-regulate the nervous system, leading to a more relaxed and creative mental state.

2. Partnering with Nature (The Living Metaphor)

At the far end of the spectrum is “Partnering with Nature,” where the environment actively co-creates the coaching session. Here, the surroundings are used as a living, visceral metaphor for the client’s internal landscape.

In this space, the coach may facilitate deeper thinking by pointing out subtle environmental cues. Examples are:

• Observing Path Choice: As one client discussed their internal dilemmas, they unconsciously moved off a well-trodden path and onto an uneven, obstacle-ridden route. The coach was able to use this visible choice, asking “What do you notice about the path you’ve taken versus the path right beside it?” unlocking profound self-awareness about their current life approach.
• Emotional Release: When a client needed to process anger, they were invited to choose a rock and channel their emotion into it before throwing it into a canal. This physical, cathartic action created a powerful, anchored memory of release that transcends mere words.

The goal here is not just observation, but active engagement, turning the outdoor setting into a “safe container” for emotional exploration and expanded awareness.

Navigating the Challenges

Taking coaching outside, however, comes with its own set of challenges, many of which are rooted in perception and planning.

The Perception Barrier: Anna Marie highlights a deep-seated cultural dichotomy: work is seen as serious and indoor; the outdoors is for leisure and play. This perception means that coaches who work outside often feel like an “anomaly” or have to fight the ingrained corporate belief of “presenteeism.” The pandemic has helped shift this by normalising time outside, but this idea that serious, knowledge-based work can be done away from a desk persists.

Mitigating Logistical Risks: The other two frequently cited challenges are safety and the weather.

1. Safety and Comfort: Since the coach is leaving the controlled environment of four walls, dynamic risk assessment is essential. This involves careful route planning and ensuring the client feels psychologically and physically safe, especially when meeting a coach for the first time. Anna Marie notes that for some, a wide-open landscape can feel exposing, while others find shelter in trees claustrophobic. Discussion beforehandm and careful planning are essential.
2. Weather: For the weather, the motto is simple: “There’s no such thing as poor weather, only inappropriate clothing.” This challenge is mitigated by having a Plan B, whether it’s a nearby coffee shop, a sheltered route, or simply changing the route based on the current conditions.

Ultimately, the core challenge for a coach starting out is often internal: giving themselves permission to break away from traditional norms and trust their intuition.

An Invitation to Authenticity

The movement to coach outdoors is not about forcing everyone outside. It is an invitation to explore a spectrum and find what level of connection works for you. For coaches who love the outdoors, it offers a path to greater authenticity, aligning their identity as a person with their identity as a professional.

By integrating nature, coaches can access a rich source of metaphor, movement, and embodied experience, offering their clients a profoundly different way to achieve clarity and growth.

If this conversation has piqued your interest, Anna Marie encourages you to start simply: observe your own relationship with nature. Do you feel centred? Grounded? How might that energy translate into your practice?

For more information, you can explore the work of Anna Marie Watson and her podcast, “Coaching Outdoors.” We also recommend the “Coaching Outdoors Handbook

Both our Doctors’ Transformational Coaching Diploma  and our Transformational Coaching Diploma for Lifestyle Medicine explore many ways that we can open up our coachees’ thinking and view new perspective. Take a look and get in touch if you have any questions about either.