A career coach is a change agent and an evolution acceleratorPhoto By Author
90,000hours is the number of waking hours the average person spends working during their lifetime. That is a third of our adult lives.
If you feel like you’re exchanging misery for financial security, you’re not alone. But at what cost? With work occupying a huge portion of your day, being dissatisfied or unhappy in your job can have a negative impact on other areas of your life such as physical and mental health, relationships, finances, and more.
Job Dissatisfaction Is Real Which Is Why You Need A Career Coach
The statistics disclose that a high number of North Americans are gloomy about work. In Canada, only 1 in 5 people (20%) report that they are satisfied with their job. According to Léger’s GreatWorkplace Study for Hamster,72% see their job only as a means to make money, with only 36% finding it fulfilling. Almost one-quarter (23%) of Canadian workers say they plan to change jobs this year. Similarly, in the United States, a recent Harris Poll revealed that over 50% of American workers want to leave their jobs. The poll also indicates that 1 in 5 (22%) intend to quit their current job to start their own business.
“Nothing happens until the pain of remaining the same outweighs the pain of change.” – Arthur Burt
People are acknowledging their lack of enthusiasm about work and expressing readiness for change. However, even if you’re feeling ready for a change, liberating yourself from the suffering at work can be difficult. It can be tough to initiate and implement change. Organizations struggle with this frequently. In fact, there’s an entire professional discipline dedicated to change management.
Life Progression
Although progression through life is accomplished through a series of changes, we may not think of it that way or at least, not consciously. Personal change can be an emotional minefield, especially when it’s going to affect a third of your life. You might think, “what if this is a mistake?” or other “what-ifs”. Changes also have an element of risk. Fear of risk and of the unknown can keep you stuck in an agonizing work situation for a lifetime. Better the devil you know, than the one you don’t know, right?
On another level, leaving a job can bring about a grieving process, especially if your identity and self-esteem are tied to your current job. Grieving can begin as soon as you are aware of the need for change. After awareness comes the desire for change and that too can elicit several emotions. There will be feelings of guilt, regret, or shame for wanting to leave. You might feel like you’re abandoning others or dishonorable for breaking a commitment. You might feel like a failure. Another set of emotions and resistance might arise if you realize that there’s a need to change your beliefs or your mindset.
Once the desire for change is clear, the next step is knowledge. If you’re not sure where to start or where you want to go, you might feel resistance to exploring the possibilities that are available to you.
Making changes to your professional life can be challenging. Those challenges can be mitigated by having a defined direction, a tailored action plan, and people in your corner to support you through some of the negative emotions that can arise. This is where a career coach can help.
What Does a Career Coach Do?
A career coach will challenge your beliefs and encourage you to create new patterns of thinking and action. Armed with a variety of tools, they will support your career development or performance goals. A career coach will enable the clarity that is necessary to get you moving in the right direction. They will guide you through a journey of discovery of what is holding you back and will assist you to uncover the solutions to overcome those barriers.
What Problems Does a Coach Help Solve?
People from all walks of life will hire a career coach for a variety of reasons. Perhaps they feel stuck and have no direction. Maybe they know which direction they want to go but are unsure about how to get there. It could be that they are highly ambitious and eager to reach the next level. Another reason might be that they’ve had a setback, such as getting fired.
Even high-performing executives hire career coaches because they may feel “lonely at the top” or need an unbiased perspective regarding their professional or personal challenges. They might want a confidential sounding board for their ideas or to find ways to improve their self-awareness. Executives also hire coaches for their teams to increase their performance and agility. Or they are hoping to prevent, manage, or recover from burnout.
Every client’s situation is unique and deeply personal. A career coach will choose different tools and techniques to tailor the coaching experience to suit their client’s specific needs. However, no matter what type of unique career problem someone is facing or what level of society they are in, behind the problem lies one common feature: the need and/or desire for a change.
A Career Coach Is Your Agent For Change
A career coach is a change agent and an evolution accelerator. Fruitful coaching experiences that produce successful changes share some universal foundational features. When working with an experienced career coach, these are the top 7 things they will tell you:
1. Know Thyself. Be prepared to embrace an honest self-assessment and self-examination. You’re going to need to dig deep. A coach will help you get crystal clear on your values, interests, experience, skills, accomplishments, strengths and weaknesses. Your coach will honour that you are the expert on yourself and will help you develop an understanding of where you are right now.
2. Be Honest and transparent. Your honesty and transparency are key in a coaching relationship, especially to build mutual trust and respect. It will also help your coach to derive an accurate assessment of your current state and an understanding of what might be holding you back from your future state. Be willing to share your secret ambitions and fears.
3. I believe in you. Your coach will be someone who believes in you, even when you don’t completely believe in yourself. Career coaches can see the light in you, and they are passionate about inspiring you to awareness, insight, and action. During your conversations, they will be on the lookout for disempowering beliefs or excuses by zeroing in on your words and your body language.
4. Get curious to get clear. This might be the number one benefit of hiring a career coach. They will facilitate clarity about where you are now, where you want to be (your vision), and the gap between the two. Together, you will co-create a practical action plan to bridge the gap. A coach will help you tap into and harness your curiosity and open your mind to the possibilities. Curiosity leads to clarity, and this is accomplished with an open mind. The more open-minded you are, the more likely that new information will turn up and expose possibilities that you were unaware of previously. This will help you gain the clarity and the confidence you need to move forward.
5. Be Ready for Discomfort.
Everything you’ve done up until now has progressed you to your current level of success. Perhaps it was following the path of least resistance. Possibly, the path you followed was well within your comfort zone. During your sessions, your career coach will be listening for disempowering beliefs or excuses beneath the surface of your words. They will also say what needs to be said while providing a safe space for you to absorb and derive insights from the discussion.
“Discomfort is the price of admission to a meaningful life.” – Susan David, Ph.D., author of Emotional Agility.
6. Engage with and grow your network. There is a wealth of information and support available to you. Your career coach will encourage you to speak to your friends, family, and past and present colleagues about your career aspirations and your vision. Once you’ve identified one or more potential career paths or companies, reach out to recruiters, hiring managers, and professionals who are in those roles or work in those companies. Other than building relationships, these contacts will likely be able to share details beyond the contents of a job posting and will provide a more robust picture of what you’ll need to do to be able to present yourself as the ideal candidate.
7. Commit to the process. Your career coach will not do the work for you. You must be ready to fully participate in the process and invest the time and effort to realize the benefits of coaching. At times, it will be uncomfortable and maybe even emotional. Remaining committed to the process will maximize the chances that you will execute the actionable steps agreed upon with your coach.
Final Thoughts
Although every career coach is different, their goals are the same: to help you evolve and transition into meaningful and fulfilling work that aligns with how you want to live your life. The coaching experience will transport you over the hurdles and help you arrive at impactful insights. Those insights will lead you to a series of actionable steps towards your vision. Hiring a career coach is one way to drive your growth and step into a life where you love the work you do and do the work you love.
