We spend the vast majority of our adult lives in the world of work, and most of us have experienced genuine excitement about the working week ahead on the one hand, and that awful sense of ‘Sunday night dread’ at some point, on the other.
Career coaching is a powerful process that can support you to have more of the former in your life, and less of the latter.
Doing work that allows you to be challenged, inspired and fulfilled is more possible now than it every has been – but despite how effortless the internet gurus make it look, the truth is that this is often easier said than done.
Dissatisfaction at or because of work can creep up on us unawares – after all, everyone gets stressed and in Covid times, we tell ourselves, we should be grateful to have a job at all. Before we know it, unhappiness can set in for reasons that we often can’t put our finger on. This can happen even if we think we’re in our ‘dream job’ or brilliant perks where we want for nothing, materially speaking; sometimes those can be the most insidious situations to be in.
But therein lies a big part of the problem… when we’ve finally achieved something we’ve been chasing for so long, the question must then be begged – what next? It’s important to remain goal oriented and have plans for the future, but it can also be difficult to know what to do and where to go next.
This is where talking to a career coach psychologist can really come into its own. Working with someone neutral, who specialises in supporting people through the forks in the road, can help you find direction once again.
But, of course, career coaches aren’t just for those already established in their jobs – they can also prove very effective in helping you work out what you want to do in the first place. The key is being able to identify when you need support, coaching or input and where to go to get it.
2 key signs that career coaching could help you
1. One of the biggest signs that talking to a professional consultant about your future is being unhappy - restless, bored, discontented – in your current job. If you suddenly find that you’re thinking very negatively about everything and that you’re finding everything annoying instead of challenging, it could be a signal that it’s time to change course. Career coaching can prove very useful in this regard. Be honest with yourself about how you’re feeling as the first step to making real change. Are you feeling restless and disengaged with the work that you’re doing?
2. Another way to tell that you may need a bit of assistance is feeling envious of others. Envy isn't a sign that you're a bad person; it's a signpost to what we want, so pay attention to what or who you envy and notice if there are any commonalities. Perhaps you envy someone who appears to be in a better position than you, or maybe you envy someone who is doing something that you know you’d be good at but, for some reason, just can’t seem to get there on your own.
It can be hard to get out a rut when you find yourself stuck in one, but talking it through with someone with relevant knowledge and experience of how to make significant life and work changes can prove very useful indeed. Everyone has a certain amount of tedium, stress or areas of their job that they don't love, but if this is the vast majority of your time rather than an unavoidable part of your working life, it might be time to get back on track. After all, each of us only has one life. Career coaching can be the impetus to make that happen.
Find out more about career coaching here.
(Photo by Adi Goldstein on Unsplash. Thank you Adi.)