For sponsorship to work, the sponsee has to be honest, open-minded, and willing.
What does this mean?
Honesty:
I have to be honest about the fact I have a problem, do not have a solution, hope I have been wrong, and hope someone else can show me a different way to believe, think, and act.
This is the self-honesty aspect of sponsorship.
The second aspect is truthfulness. As a sponsee, in the past, I have been in the habit of concealing, distorting, and fabricating, with varying degrees of awareness that I was doing so, and I have been outright deceitful.
The third aspect is candour: unless the sponsor is given the full deck of cards to play with, the endeavour is kyboshed from the start.
Open-mindedness:
This is about being open to new ideas. This means being willing to accept the new belief, thinking, or behaviour, even when I don't fully understand it. Obviously a certain amount of explanation is legitimate, but only because understanding helps, not because compliance is conditional on understanding. If the adoption of the new belief, thinking, or behaviour requires my understanding or approval, I'm stuffed, because the problematic mindset will never approve its own elimination.
The key aspect of open-mindedness is this: being open to challenge.
If challenge is responded to with evasiveness, gaslighting, excuses, explanation, self-justification, defence, and attack, there is no open-mindedness.
Is the challenge sometimes wrong? Yes!
If the sponsor repeatedly challenges inappropriately, they're the wrong sponsor.
If there is resistance to all challenge from all people, the problem lies with the person being challenged, not the challenger(s). Everyone has stuff they can be challenged on.
Willingness:
This means taking the action indicated. If the action indicated is not taken, there is no willingness, whatever the ostensible excuse or reason. It is important to be clear about this. Half-hearted action almost always indicates compliance rather than surrender and reverts to inaction once the monitoring or pressure stops.
How to deal with these roadblocks as a sponsor:
When you spot them, call them out. If the callout is not promptly accepted, suggest a timeout and resume at a later date. If this happens repeatedly, call out the repetition. If this callout is not promptly accepted, say you're not the right person to help, wish them well, and withdraw. On the off-chance your callouts are wrong, you're probably the wrong sponsor, anyway, so withdrawal is right in these circumstances.
The after-party:
People tend not to like a sponsor withdrawing. You might be accused of laziness, abandonment, apathy, unhelpfulness, and all sorts of other crimes. You might be attacked, or the individual may switch to charm, ingratiation, pitifulness, remorse, or other more positive manipulations. If the decision to withdraw is final, let it be final, at least for a few months, and don't respond. Hold your nerve!