Are Life/Careers coaches worth it?

[Elixir86]

Has anyone ever spoken to anyone regarding career options to try and determine what would make them happy on the job front? Like careers or life coaches etc.

I feel like I've spent my life chasing something and haven't been able to find it. I started in admin roles and then after having kids wanted to do something a bit different that felt more challenging. My sister encouraged me to do finance so I've found myself in finance based roles for the past 10 years.
I'm not qualified and don't want to be. I like spreadsheets and logic but I couldn't care less really.
I have a decent capacity to learn and was an achiever at school but just never turned that into anything in life. I don't earn lots but also don't enjoy what I do.
I've just not found my passion and feel a bit trapped. I expect I have some good transferable skills but really want to hone in on what I like, can be good at.
Friends have told me to read about things I enjoy and that will help but I don't really know what I enjoy. I feel like its in my head somewhere but someone needs to prod to slowly reveal snippets to build a picture.
I think I probably lack faith in myself and don't feel remotely successful in work or life and am clutching at straws as I'm miserable.

I’m biased as I work in this space but definitely worth it. I say that from my own experiences of being coached and the feedback from clients who I have coached.

my advice is to look at their background and credentials as many people who call themselves coaches don’t have any training or education behind them (less so in career coaches who will often be a member of a professional body). Ideally talk to 2 or 3 to get a feel for fit (most will offer a free chemistry/discovery call)

Not a careers coach but a professionally qualified careers adviser. Level 7.
Someone with experience of advising adults.
Try local careers company. Local authority.

Someone CDI registered.

I agree with @Beemail2 . Be careful who you pay money to.

I know someone who is a 'life coach' this person failed to launch, lives with parents in their 40s, has never held down a regular job, had an interview or done all of the things that most of us have experienced.

They are a 'life coach' amongst other things. Charlatan imo.

A career advisor sounds like a good start, then maybe some career coaching/ mentoring once you've identified a direction?

Have you tried the National Careers Service for free advice/skills assessment?
(Assuming you are in England; I'm pretty sure Scotland and Wales have their own equivalent services).

I feel very similar, also tried finance and did not enjoy it (although I love spreadsheet & data), currently on mat leave from a school admin job but would like to progress in a "proper" career, so am planning to take my own advice and call them soon myself

A Coach needs to be able to work with something and honestly I think you need to work on yourself first. If you go into a session and say I don’t know what I’m interested in, they’re going to really struggle - or maybe that is the conversation they can help you with, but it is fairly basic one to be paying for

they might be able to put you through some basic inventorys and psychometrics but ultimately they are not predictive of roles/careers. I think you need to really think hard about where your interests lie and start untangling that.

you’re in finance because your sister encouraged you to be.
You like a challenge, but not that much
Your friends are telling you to find something you enjoy
And now you’re looking for someone else to prod you, give you answers, and get you motivated.
But it’s you who needs to do the work, including the thinking

Ultimately, you’re a very passive person and no one else is gonna put a fire in your belly. It’s you who needs to find the fire and stop leaning on others to make decisions for you.

Ultimately, you’re a very passive person and no one else is gonna put a fire in your belly. It’s you who needs to find the fire and stop leaning on others to make decisions for you.

What an absolutely ridiculous assessment based on one post from a complete stranger.

Sounds daft but honestly start with ChatGPT, start a ‘project’ in the app and give it instructions that you want it to be a world class career coach based in the UK. Tell it your interests, skills, qualifications, goals.

I’m not saying to do this instead of a career coach, but maybe to get your juices flowing and test it out to start with before spending money.

Chat GPT? Really? thats a bit of a silly thing to suggest

Completely agree to start with AI.

Even if it just hones down the sort of gaps or questions you really have, it can be helpful.

Social media is full of grifting life coaches who are no better qualified that the lone know it all drunk at the bar, and give advice with just as much value. Once you have your area narrowed, then a proper career coach might add a lot of value .

Why?

Better than seeing an actual life coach with zero life experience. All of the ones I know from school are failures, and they’re guiding others through life. Utter scam.

Thanks for the suggestions.

@ChocolateMunchBunch @Beemail2 and @Naaaamechaaaanged useful on the skills and qualifications set up and also picking someone that fits. I've done counselling before so definitely important.

@AwkwardPaws27 i recently did do a government based skills assessment but I do find I have a wide skillset so it comes up with a lot of things that wouldn't actually fit with my life. It feels quite basic I guess and limited. I'm wondering if a more "to and fro" conversation approach would be more beneficial to understand why I like the things I do and how that might translate to other careers that I didn't know about.

@curious79 i get your point and id say as a whole I can appear to be passive and agreeable person. I avoid confrontation, always look out for others and tend to put them before myself. That empathetic nature combined with some of the ways I have been treated by people in the past has always left me questioning myself and that has a big impact on your drive for a career. As a kid I wanted to be a Vet, a marine biologist, a pathologist, but I had such low self worth that I didn't ever feel I could do it.

But I am passionate about people, their success, their happiness, human rights, mental health and there are lots of things I love like baking, animals and nature. I want to feel like I've made a difference to someone.
I'm also a single parent so need to be able to provide for my family, dont have the mental space for a full retrain (I'm still adapting to the single parent role and have young kids who I want to make the most of) and I don't want to leap into something and it be a mistake so I'm trying to be logical about the process.

I'm thinking a careers/life coach has an understanding of lots of roles I won't be aware of, what might actually fit, instead of me feeling like I'm stuck on the path I'm on.

I'm very much a cynic when it comes to AI but tbh this doesn't sound like a bad idea to me. There's a million different jobs/careers out there so something that might help you to narrow the field down a bit could take help.That would then give the OP a shortlist to discuss with a human.

Plus if the AI doesn't come up with anything useful then there's no real loss.

@lhsf844 @AlphabetBird thabks for the thought. It's not something that had crossed my mind even though I do use AI for a few things. Could be worth a try like you said, to focus in on some questions so at least I am narrowing down things to think about.

@Elixir86ive found the project function really useful, I have a health based one where im getting it to track my cycles, mood, IBS systems, so I log what I’ve been eating and feeling that day and it’s pulling out patterns for me, honestly finding it hugely useful to make some guided lifestyle changes and I can imagine it being useful in this context. As I say not a replacement, but something to try while you’re figuring things out.

The squiggly careers podcast people did an AI skills sprint a little while ago.

The first prompt was to look at strengths, might help you in shaping questions on other areas:

Act as a squiggly career coach. Be high care and high challenge in your approach.

Ask me 10 questions, one at a time, to help me explore what my strengths might be. At the end, use my answers to create a summary of what my top strengths could be.

I’ve met up with three coaches over my career, all of whom were provided through work which perhaps affects the outcome.
The first I found really helpful. It was about three months before I went on mat leave in a male dominated industry and the firm had introduced this as part of their attempts to retain women after maternity leave. I didn’t have any friends whose children were older than about 2 and so everything she said to me about maternity leave, childcare, what might change again if you had a second child etc was like golddust. If I had a broader age range of women in my friendship group or had worked in a less male dominated industry, it would have been a less unique perspective!
The second I saw for a year. On this occasion, we got a choice of about 20 different coaches who were all affiliated to the programme. In retrospect, I wonder if going with someone of a similar age & background to mine was a mistake as, rather than providing insights and strategy, it was more about providing sympathy & reassurance. So I felt heard but in the same way that I feel heard after a night out & a good moan with a friend! It didn’t help that the coach was going through a fractious divorce and at least a third of our time was spent with her telling me about that and the impact on her children!
The third was with a man who seemed to have a very inflated sense of his own importance. If he was that blinkered about himself, I couldn’t see what benefit he would be to me!

I would look for specialist careers advise. honestly, the people I have known that are life coaches were really quite odd people who didnt have their own lives remotely together

I’m a career guidance professional, agree with the post above that you need to ensure that whoever you see is a qualified adviser, with at least a post-grad qualification. I’m in Scotland where Skills Development Scotland work with people of all ages. The idea is that it’s coaching, not telling.
AI is not a bad idea to start with, but as you say, often the value comes from interaction with someone who will challenge you.

Thanks, some more great advice.
I definitely know quite a bit about myself like I am logical and structured, not creative. I can think outside of the box but usually through things I've seen or heard being implemented well and transitioning that to another task, not through my own creativity.
I value procedure, fact, science, morals etc.
So I have some base points on general things but it's how those align with actual jobs.

Maybe explore things around compliance, risk management, AI ethics. I promise it’s not as dull as it sounds! It probably would be in finance; but in interesting contexts like civil service certain policy areas. You need a certain amount of structure and logic, but equally, risk management is rarely black and white, it’s being pragmatic, it’s thinking innovatively, ethics/morals often plays a part. Still stand by my AI recommendation but you sound quite like me and this is what I do for a living and I enjoy it.

It pays pretty well too and room for progression.

I considered changing things up and then ended up changing my accountancy job - so far so good! I just say this as finance is quite a wide field and from experience can be pretty good for flexible working with a family so it may be worth considering working in a different sector, or more client focused for example.

@Greymalkin12 id say my finance roles haven't tended to be that flexible due to big deadlines all hitting at once, but I've been OK as I've not been that high a level. Everyone else seems to be manic though (possibly more due to the business and not hiring enough staff though 🤷‍♀️)
My current role is probably the most flexible I've had but due to location I have to plan a lot around the traffic to get my hours in and each week it's different (which plays havoc with my brain as I like the structure and routine)
I think id be ok on the fringes of Finance but just don't feel it's "me" as a whole.
@lhsf844 interesting idea, maybe something to add to the list to see what skills and attributes are good. I'm generally risk averse I'd say, but I think I'm still fun. I'm a chatty and social type.