I'm a Career Coach...AMA

[wheresmymojo]

I know a career coach has been done before but given the current economic situation I thought it might be useful to do another.

I specialise in helping women who feel stressed and stuck in corporate and professional jobs they no longer enjoy figure out what they want to do...but can also answer any regular career coach questions.

Ask away

Oh good, you can sort me out!

How do people get out of a rut? How can I rediscover what I'm great at and love doing?

Wtf shall I do with my life? I don’t have a career for you to coach me on so maybe you can’t help but I have qualifications in singing and cake decorating and just cannot do a job where members of the public will complain at me, no way jose. I have a thin skin and am a young soul much to my dismay, although I have a great bullshit detector and won’t allow people to treat me badly. The only other thing I am good at is parenting IMO! Thanks!

@Palavah

Oh good, you can sort me out!

How do people get out of a rut? How can I rediscover what I'm great at and love doing?

First thing - when we feel 'stuck' or 'in a rut' that usually points to the fact that you have one or both of the following fundamental human needs that are not being met.

Purpose and/or growth.

Does that sound true? Is it one or both do you think?

In terms of figuring out what to do next as a first step I would do a few things that involve some reflection time:

• Have a look at a list of values (google is your friend) and highlight all the ones that really resonate with you as important to you.

• Once you've done this narrow them down to 5-10 that you feel particularly motivate your actions (so being 'polite' might resonate but does it really drive you?)

• Think about what makes you feel angry, this can be a really useful pointer that our personal values are being challenged. What values come out of this as important to you?

• Think over all the good experiences you've had in life / the best times / the best moments and write them all down. What was going on for you at that time? What sort of situation were you in?

• Is there anything or any topic that you love to talk about or that people ask you advice on?

• What kind of people have you enjoyed working with?

• Are you drawn to work with any kind of particular person (e.g. women, teenagers, children with emotional problems, women who've been in DV situations, etc)?

• Sometimes we can be very drawn with working with people who are going through a particular (usually challenging) experience that we've been through in our past. Does this resonate in any way?

• Think of all the current and previous jobs you've had - what aspects of them did you really like and why? What aspects did you really dislike and why?

• If you won the lottery today and money wasn't an issue but you still had to work, what would you do?

I'd work through these and see what comes out - actually work through them like home study exercises and write your answers down.

At the end go back over them and reflect on what you have learned...you'll end up with a list of values and things that really energise you.

Then get creative and see how many jobs you can think of that give you some, or all, the things on your list.

@blessedbutdepressed I'd also say the same to you.

Not sure if you've worked before but if not then swap out 'current/previous jobs' for more wider experiences.

Both feel free to come back and share what came up in your list if you want help brainstorming all the kinds of jobs that could meet your values, things that energise you...

There are some other good questions to work through here...(not my content)

blog.iqmatrix.com/life-purpose

Try to keep everything on your final list positive rather than negative...

For example instead of "I don't want to work in a job where the general public complain to me"

It might be "I want to work in a job where my advice is respected" or "I want to work with professionals and experts in their field" or whatever

My whole career I’ve been suffering from impatience - if I don’t see appreciation and recognition within a year, I lose motivation and move on.
I’m finally in an environment with endless opportunity to grow - how do I rein in my natural impatience so that I don’t self-sabotage?

Also - I’m good at building ‘surface’ relationships, but these are not good enough to use to my advantage professionally. What should I do differently? I’m not good at forcing deeper relationships, it’s unnatural and phony to me.

I love my job as a carer. Also at university studying healthcare science. Thing is I couldn't ever imagine leaving my care job. I adore the people I support. Doesn't feel like work. However the pay is shit. I'd have to work pretty much every hour god sends to earn enough for a decent quality of life. Hence why I've gone to uni. Pre uni I also sell vintage clothes on eBay/depop to make some extra cash. No way can someone support themselves or a family on a carers wage. I've no interest in going into the management side of care which is marginally better pay. Really feel at a cross roads.

@chunkyrun

I love my job as a carer. Also at university studying healthcare science. Thing is I couldn't ever imagine leaving my care job. I adore the people I support. Doesn't feel like work. However the pay is shit. I'd have to work pretty much every hour god sends to earn enough for a decent quality of life. Hence why I've gone to uni. Pre uni I also sell vintage clothes on eBay/depop to make some extra cash. No way can someone support themselves or a family on a carers wage. I've no interest in going into the management side of care which is marginally better pay. Really feel at a cross roads.

What specifically were the things you loved about being a carer? Can you write a list of them...

Then be creative and see what jobs that provide better pay could meet the same list...

@7Worfs

My whole career I’ve been suffering from impatience - if I don’t see appreciation and recognition within a year, I lose motivation and move on. I’m finally in an environment with endless opportunity to grow - how do I rein in my natural impatience so that I don’t self-sabotage?

Also - I’m good at building ‘surface’ relationships, but these are not good enough to use to my advantage professionally. What should I do differently? I’m not good at forcing deeper relationships, it’s unnatural and phony to me.

What do you think sits underneath that impatience? What is driving it?

@7Worfs

My whole career I’ve been suffering from impatience - if I don’t see appreciation and recognition within a year, I lose motivation and move on. I’m finally in an environment with endless opportunity to grow - how do I rein in my natural impatience so that I don’t self-sabotage?

Also - I’m good at building ‘surface’ relationships, but these are not good enough to use to my advantage professionally. What should I do differently? I’m not good at forcing deeper relationships, it’s unnatural and phony to me.

As for relationships...

Who are the people you want to build these deeper relationships with and for what purpose?

Why do you think building deeper relationships feels forced?

For example - is it that you don't like them enough to want deeper relationships with them?

I'm curious about the feeling of it being 'forced' and what's underneath that / can you tell me a bit more about it?

Sorry to sometimes answer questions with questions - I need to make sure I fully understand what's going on to give an answer that actually helps!

Gosh, that’s going to sound really immodest, but - I’m very business-minded, love to work, keep adding to my qualifications etc, so I actively push for big projects and more responsibilities.
In the past I’ve been palmed off or denied because the company didn’t prioritise my function (fair enough), so I kept moving.

I have a niche skill which not many leaders understand - it’s easy for them to pay lip service and then when the hard work begins they give up.

So in a way I’ve been playing catch up to reach the right level - I’m at it only now - I feel I’m learning and growing in my existing role, but I’ll master it within a year and the drive to move up will reappear.

Is volunteering a good way to get into a new sector? Also, my IT skills are a few years out of date. Can you recommend any free/low cost IT courses to upskill?

And, what made you become a career coach?

Re relationships - I think they are important from Director level onward, from what I’ve witnessed across many industries.

I do like people, but I am introverted and don’t like mixing personal and business. I guess I compartmentalise and really don’t like talking (or even thinking) about personal stuff while in business mode.

@ThickFast

Is volunteering a good way to get into a new sector? Also, my IT skills are a few years out of date. Can you recommend any free/low cost IT courses to upskill?

Volunteering can be a great way to move industries but it's not the only way.

Do you know what you want to move in to (and what did you do before)?

For IT courses...I'm guessing you mean general Microsoft Office skills?

If so Vision2Learn have a good all rounder

www.vision2learn.net/course/free/107/essential-it-skills-level-2

If it's just brushing up on knowledge you already have don't overlook YouTube tutorials - I took myself from fairly basic excel skills to intermediate by using YouTube but it's easier if you do it when you're actually working on a task

@ThickFast

And, what made you become a career coach?

I worked in a six figure job that I hated (management consulting). I loved it in my 20s but as I got older my values changed and I really started to resent my job and everything that went with it (long hours, arseholes, big commute).

I didn't know what I wanted to do and had no idea where to start. I felt very stuck as I'm the breadwinner by a long way and needed to replace at least most of my income.

I've always been someone people ask for advice and I've always enjoyed coaching so I did some coaching and NLP qualifications.

I then realised I could use some of my management consulting background to come up with a process to follow to figure out what I wanted to do.

These all ended up combining to realise that helping other people in the same situation I had been figure out what they wanted to do and escape jobs they hate but still earn decent incomes was 'my thing'

Taking a break - will be back to answer the rest later

Thanks - will do some homework :)

I’m in a job, which I love. But as I have risen up, my job now involves management as well, which I don’t really like, but have reframed and I’m glad to learn a new skill. I will try and move out from management very soon back to purely my field, as I know that is what I like. This may take 18 months or so.

However, I am burnt out. I was before Covid, but managing during the pandemic has just pushed it into red flag territory. I do not want to take stress leave a signal anything to my employer that might impact my career. Do you have any advice as to how to recover from burnout whilst still working? (I can take annual leave, or the odd day off here and there, just not stress leave).

Thank you OP. I did mean just general Office skills. I’ll look into that.

I’m trying to move out of social care management (so, so stressful) into something else. In charity sector but not frontline. Currently volunteering and hoping this will eventually lead somewhere. Don’t want to say too much as it’s quite specific. But who knows how many jobs there will be soon anyway. It’s all looking pretty dire.

I have 2 if this is OK?

1. is it possible to learn to be a good manager? I've gone as far as I can in my IT office job, I am a senior version of the role. Nothing further I can do except manage people. It's never really appealed (I'm an introvert and probably suffer from imposter syndrome somewhat even though I know I'm good at what I do).

2. I'm on my 2nd period of maternity leave. Even though I kind of want to go back to work because looking after a baby I've had zero break from child care and won't until I'm back at work (part time) and baby is in nursery (part time), I'm not really looking forward to it like I was the first time round. I feel I want my own business or to work for myself. How on earth do I figure out what to do if that's the route I want? (My DH earns a pretty good wage so I don't need to work in terms of financial need.)

Thanks!

I qualified as a solicitor in a fairly niche area. I loved the client contact but hated the paperwork which was the majority of the job really. Left to work in related roles which I enjoyed, but don't pay anywhere near as much as I would have got if I had stayed in law. Several years on, am working in admin due to having a three year stint as a SAHM and moving out of the city so fewer job opportunities. I feel really resentful towards the fact that I now could have been earning so much more money and having nice holidays etc. I am planning to go back to Uni in a couple of years to qualify as a healthcare professional. It's what I feel I was born to do, but feel bad I am starting again at almost 40 and that I wasted those years in law 😩