New Year’s Eve carries a particular kind of energy. It sits quietly between what has already happened and what feels possible next. In leadership, coaching and training, this moment is often framed around change, goals and resolutions. But that familiar approach isn’t always the most helpful.

For coaches, trainers and leaders, New Year’s Eve offers a different opportunity: reflection without pressure, learning without judgement, and development without urgency.

This article explores how taking a different angle at the year’s end can lead to stronger coaching conversations and more sustainable learning in the year ahead.

In This Article, You Will Learn

• Why New Year’s Eve is a powerful moment for coaching reflection
• How end-of-year pressure can undermine learning and development
• What a healthier coaching focus looks like at this time of year
• How reflection strengthens performance more than rushed goal-setting
• Practical coaching questions to use as the new year begins
• How leaders can support

Training is essential. It builds knowledge, introduces new ideas, and gives people the tools they need to perform better.

Training is essential. It builds knowledge, introduces new ideas, and gives people the tools they need to perform better.
But there’s a hard truth many organisations overlook:

Training alone doesn’t change behaviour.
Coaching does.

People don’t automatically behave differently because they know something.
Behaviour changes when people think differently, take ownership, and apply the learning consistently, and that’s exactly where coaching makes the difference.

This guide explains why training on its own isn’t enough and shows how coaching transforms skills into real-world habits that last.

In This Article, You Will Learn

• Why training often fails to change behaviour
• The difference between learning knowledge and changing habit
• How coaching turns training into daily action
• What happens when organisations combine both
• Practical principles to drive real behaviour change

One of the biggest misconceptions in workplace training is that success is measured by how well a session is delivered. Clear slides, confident facilitation and positive feedback at the end of the day can all feel reassuring. However, great trainers know that delivery alone is not the goal. What really matters is whether learning transfers into the workplace.

This is a key theme we explore on our Train the Trainer programmes, because training that looks good in the room but changes nothing afterwards has limited value.

In This Article You Will Learn

• What learning transfer actually means in practice
• Why strong delivery is not enough on its own
• How effective trainers design sessions that lead to real behaviour change

What Is Learning Transfer?

Learning transfer is the process of learners applying what they have learned in training back in their real working environment. It is the point where knowledge becomes action and confidence turns into competence.

If learning transfer does not happen,

When someone starts delivering training for the first time, they often feel a mix of excitement and pressure. They want to get it right, look credible, and keep people engaged. The problem is that most new trainers focus on the wrong things.

These mistakes are common — and completely fixable. In fact, they are exactly the challenges we help people overcome on our Train the Trainer courses, where we support trainers to deliver sessions with confidence, structure and impact.

In This Article You Will Learn

• The most common mistakes new trainers make
• Why these mistakes happen
• How to avoid them using simple, practical techniques

Mistake 1: Trying to Cover Too Much Content

New trainers often feel they need to “show value” by including as much information as possible. This usually leads to rushed delivery, overloaded slides, and learners who feel overwhelmed.

How to Avoid It

• Decide on the key outcome first: what should learners be able to do after the session?
• Cut anything that doesn’t support

Coaching is now a core leadership skill, but that doesn’t mean it comes naturally. Many managers want to coach well, yet unintentionally fall into habits that block thinking, reduce ownership or create dependency. These coaching mistakes are common, understandable, and easy to fix, but only when managers know what to look for.
This guide highlights the most common coaching mistakes and shows you how to avoid them, so you can strengthen your coaching conversations immediately.

In This Article, You Will Learn

• The most common coaching mistakes managers make
• Why these mistakes block learning and ownership
• What effective coaching actually looks like
• How small changes improve performance and confidence
• The key principles that prevent coaching from becoming “telling”
• Simple techniques you can use right away

What Do We Mean by “Coaching Mistakes”?

Coaching mistakes are the habits that take a conversation away from genuine coaching and into something else, teaching, advising, directing, fixing,

When trainers think about delivering a successful training session, they often focus on content, slides, timing and delivery. But there is one factor that influences learning more than all of these put together: group dynamics.

Understanding how groups behave, react and learn together is what separates a good trainer from a great one. Even the best-designed session can fall flat if the trainer fails to manage the people in the room.

If you'd like to deepen your skills as a trainer, our ILM-accredited Train the Trainer courses can help you develop practical techniques you can apply immediately.

In This Article You Will Learn

• What we mean by group dynamics
• Why group dynamics are crucial in every training session
• Common challenges trainers face with groups
• Five practical techniques to manage group dynamics with confidence

What Do We Mean by Group Dynamics?

Group dynamics refer to the behaviours, relationships, interactions and emotional climate within a group. Every group — regardless of

Many trainers try to teach adults the same way they were taught at school. The trainer talks. The learners listen. Everyone hopes the information sticks. Unfortunately, this rarely works. Adults learn differently. They bring experience, expectations and pressures that shape how they take in new information.

If you are developing your skills as a trainer, our ILM-accredited Train the Trainer courses explore adult learning principles in a simple, practical way so you can apply them with confidence.

In This Article You Will Learn

• How adults actually learn
• Why adults learn differently from children
• Simple ways to improve your sessions using adult learning principles

What Do We Mean by Adult Learning?

Adult learning is the process of helping grown learners understand, apply and feel confident with new skills or knowledge. Adults do not simply absorb information. They compare it with their experience, question its relevance and want to know why it matters. If we ignore this, training becomes

Coaching is one of the most powerful development tools available in organisations today, yet it is still often misunderstood. Many managers ask “What is coaching?” and confuse it with mentoring, training, problem-solving or simply giving advice. Others think coaching is something you do after training, rather than a core workplace skill in its own right.

These misunderstandings prevent organisations from seeing the full impact of workplace coaching, and they stop managers from using coaching skills confidently, effectively and at the right time.

In This Article, You Will Learn –

• What coaching actually is in the workplace

• Why so many managers misunderstand the coaching definition

• How confusion leads to unhelpful habits

• What coaching is designed to achieve

• Why coaching improves performance, confidence and behaviour change

• How coaching skills fit into day-to-day leadership

What Do We Mean by “Coaching”?

What is coaching?

Coaching is a structured, reflective conversation designed to

In the world of learning and development, effective trainers do more than deliver information — they reflect, adapt and continuously improve. One of the most powerful yet underused tools for trainer development is reflective journaling. It’s simple, structured and proven to transform how trainers think, behave and perform.

If you're looking to strengthen your delivery skills and develop deeper trainer self-awareness, our ILM-accredited Train the Trainer courses show you exactly how to apply these reflective techniques in practice.

As we head into the new year, Target Training Associates is excited to introduce a new tool designed specifically for trainers: Monkey Journal for Trainers — part of our brand-new Monkey Series of books. This journal has been created to help trainers build habits of reflection, self-awareness and deliberate improvement.

Before we explain what makes reflective journaling so impactful, let’s explore why reflection matters so much in the first place.

The Missing