Writing should be a passionate, fulfilling, intoxicating, therapeutic, and challenging experience. It is not all of these simultaneously, but we aim for it to be at least one of these things at all times. 
I do not believe in a harsh “tough love” approach to coaching. In my experience, that shuts more writers down than it helps. Your internal environment is even more important than the external. A writer should feel comfortable, even excited, taking risks. I encourage my clients to embrace imperfection, learn from mistakes, and ignore the critic who lives in your head (you know the one, saying your idea is not good enough even before you write it).
Writing is a practice of experiments and I believe in a collaborative environment that involves looking at what is working and not working in a with curiosity, then coming up with a plan for the next experiment. This could mean exploring things like other techniques or digging deeper into the themes and characters to bring them to life.
We are sometimes disappointed by an outcome or frustrated when we feel stuck. In my experience, an open environment that embraces the experimentation process is where writers flourish. You won’t know if something works until it is on the page.