In my practice, I work with different type of clients, starting from high potentials to new managers and individuals at their mid-career. They come with different motivations and different pain points, but I have observed a pattern among them . Those who want to change or/and progress their careers, they often have the intuition telling them they could do more & better, that they could have happier and more fulfilled lives, that they could have more impact or simply they could have more choice and options.
But they just feel stuck and cannot seem to find a way to move forward.
Self-reflection
While working together we tend to start with self-reflection to identify what’s important, how they would like to spend their time, what are their passions, strengths, unique talents, enabling beliefs, their brand and visibility etc. We would explore their experience and transferable skills, networking opportunities and support groups and resources available to them.
This work helps to identify areas of excellence and also might signal some educational and experience gaps that they would like to address.
At this stage I ask my clients to visualise themselves at 70 years old, sitting in a cafe. I ask them how they look like, how they feel, how safe financially they are and what advice they would be ready to give themselves for now.
Research
The next step involves looking at their options that are aligned with their values and work-life balance needs. This can take some time as at this stage, the client would activate their network. It requires finding some courage and energy to get in touch and to organise some long postponed catch ups/coffees/lunches with people who can provide some useful feedback and insights into work market that interest my client. Online research is required also to identify the skills and experience expected in the desired roles. We can then compare their skillset with the one required in their desired roles and start planning their next steps.
Personal Development Plan
Here comes some proper ground work in which we use all the elements from the start to plan long term career strategy. The clients would choose the timespan – it varies from 3 to 10 years and they list SMART objectives for each milestone (example: year 1, year 5 and year 10). We basically come up with a strategic plan around how to fulfil client’s potential. It is different for every individual but based on my experience breaking down the big ambition into smaller chunks and creating SMART actions around them, removes a feeling of overwhelem and stress. The success appears to be reachable and the individual gains a lot of self-confidence. The dream becomes a plan.
Additional activities
Coaching should be followed by client’s regular personal actions and taking a full accountability for them. Just to give you an idea how that could look like some of my clients decide to do the following in between the sessions:
- Regular journaling about emotions, also keeping a list of successes, reading it back on regular basis (Success Bank) to increase one’s self-confidence and to stay motivated.
- Identifying the values: Missing Jigsaw Article with detailed instructions.
- Complete a free Udemy course: Career Navigator.
- Googling yourself to see how you appear online – easy way to see what is your online presence and your brand.
And here is the quote on career coaching that resonates with me a lot:
Source: HBR Article The Right Time to Get Yourself a Career Coach
If you would like to learn more about Career Coaching book your free 30 min Discovery Call via Calendly to discuss how I could support your career growth.
Missing Jigsaw 