Your Journey to Happiness at Work

Whether you are between jobs, wish you were in a different job, or just want to experience more satisfaction in your current job, a Career Coach is there to help you. A coach will enable you to make some important discoveries about yourself and the work environment in which you can be your best self. These discoveries are translated into concrete career choices that, perhaps for the first time in your life, will satisfy you at a deep level.

Career coaching is an interactive process of exploring work-related issues – leading to effective action – in which the coach acts as both a catalyst and facilitator for an individual and, in turn, organizational development and transformation.

Career coaches connect people with their passion, purpose, values, and other critical aspects of their dream job. They equip their clients with career management skills that can be used in future transitions in addition to enhancing their work. They also facilitate their clients’ process of developing and implementing a job search plan. The desired outcomes of career coaching include enhanced client self-awareness, clarity about their life purpose and goals, increased ability to be effective in today’s changing workplace, and to manage their own career, and overall betterment of the client’s quality of life.

Unlike the related roles of consulting and speaking, coaching is characterized by its interactivity. Coaches and clients have what are referred to as “focused interactions” in which the coach asks clients probing questions about their goals and challenges and how they wish to be assisted in moving forward. Clients, in turn, respond by simultaneously noticing – and learning from – their own statements and insights.

Work-related issues may include the exploration of both client’s overall career direction and their job search techniques, such as resume writing and review, interview practice, negotiation assistance, and the like. The coach may also assist with enhancing work satisfaction, career development planning, and similar issues.

As a catalyst, a coach precipitates the process of learning at three levels: behaviour, beliefs, and identity. As a facilitator, the coach remains objective and avoids getting caught up in client’s issues, while skilfully moving them toward their goals.

Most career coaching clients are not content to find “just another job.” Rather, they seek to find work that is truly fulfilling, that allows them to make the contribution they believe they were out on earth to make. The emphasis on ideal work, rather than suitable or acceptable work, sets career coaches apart. Employment agencies, many career counsellors, and the skills-based assessments often overlook life purpose and deeper motivators in suggesting possible career moves to clients. Since most workers will change careers many times during their lifetime – some during midlife when priorities are shifting – the focus on the Ideal Job can make the critical difference in quality of work and life for the career coach’s clients.

Clients begin the step-by-step process by recognizing that they have a purpose to their life that must be fulfilled for their work to be satisfying. There are exercises to help realize what that purpose is and to fulfill it through work. Work then becomes exciting and exhilarating.

Then once an Ideal Job has been identified and the client is ready to pursue it in earnest, the coach will provide guidance in writing your resume, interviewing, accessing the “hidden job market,” and more.

Coaching aims to teach clients to self-coach and to learn skills they can use again when other job/career transitions occur, instead of just learning which job is right for them now, as a career advisor may do. That is the key reason why the best coaches are known for asking the right questions, not giving the right answers.

Through discovering a life purpose and learning to set career goals, clients will experience greater satisfaction, wealth, and more happiness than ever dreamed possible. With a coach’s assistance, clients will open up to experience new aspects of themselves and let their goals become real as they work through the system.

Be sure to contact a career coach for further assistance on your journey to feeling fulfilled in your career and your life.