career coach

A few weeks ago, I wrote about taking risks and a Risk Challenge held by Live in the Grey that I had entered and ended up winning.

I recently cashed in my prize – a free hour long coaching session with career coach Caroline Zwick.

I was excited for my session. First of all, I live for this stuff. I am a self-help, therapy, coaching, self-reflection junkie. And second of all, after a few years of career uncertainty and taking the time to maybe get it right this time, I’ve had some major career revelations over the past few weeks that I was ready to bounce off someone else. And this was a professional career coach.

Jackpot.

I didn’t want to overly prepare. I wanted to speak from my heart, but since it was only an hour call I wanted to make sure that we fit everything in. About an hour before the call started, I found myself going into rehearsal mode. Telling myself my career story in my head.

This was not particularly problematic, but I did realize something. The thing about our career histories is that like any history, over time it becomes harder to remember how it really happened or how I was really feeling or if that’s just how the story has evolved. We’ve told our tale to ourselves and to everyone else so many times that sometimes it starts to feel more like a story than what actually happened.

One day I’ll write The Legend of Kaly’s Many Stalled Out Careers for the blog but meanwhile, I could not quiet my rehearsing brain. It was like I was practicing for a performance that would receive a review. Something told me this was not career coach approved behavior. Was I was already botching this?

Caroline called, and we got down to business. She asked me one question, “What interested you in the risk challenge in the first place? Why did you participate?”

And I just sort of vomited out my entire career history in a nonlinear, non-related explanation to her question. And we were off.

Talking to a career coach is somewhere between a therapist and a fortune teller. You want to put it all out there, but you’re sort of hoping that you’re not revealing too much.

Most of the hour was me talking frantically, barely making sense and then her saying something like, “What I think I hear you saying is…”

And me saying, “I think so…”

I struggled because I’m not good at responding on the spot. I have to step away and process things before I can know how I feel or what I think. So when she would try to summarize for me or get me to go in a certain direction, I would freeze. And I had to admit, “I don’t know.”

It was becoming increasingly clear that I was not going to solve my career uncertainty or get Caroline to validate my most recent career plan in this one hour call.

What Caroline was able to accomplish was to call me out on my bullshit. She pointed out where and when I was looking for external validation and when I was rationalizing things. She pushed me to reconsider my current career plans. She warned me against taking on everything that I want to do all at once. She encouraged me to put some projects on the back burner while I focused exclusively on others.

She reminded me that I need to get out of my head, practice listening to my heart and follow my physical, gut reactions to potential projects. That I should put my resources into things that energize me vs. deplete me. That I need to have boundaries in place to protect my own creative projects and plans. That if you don’t deal with things, they will keep popping up over and over again until they are resolved (not just in your career but in the rest of your life as well).

She left me an exercise to get me moving in the right direction. Make a list of three priorities for my career that I can use as a touchstone to stay focused so that any project I take on falls within the parameters of my priorities. All very solid and sound advice that I found incredibly timely and valuable.

When the call was over, I was feeling good. As much as I would have liked for her to say, your plan sounds exactly right for you, she poked a few holes in it and gave me a different perspective and that was incredibly helpful.

Because I was resisting parts of what she was recommending for me, I knew that I had to sit with it all for a few days. And while I valued Caroline’s input and perspective, I ultimately decided to move forward with what I had already planned. With her insight, I’ll hopefully be able to avoid some of the pitfalls she pointed out. Or maybe not.

But I also feel like it’s my time to make some big steps.

Everybody needs a good coach.

They aren’t there to validate your plans, ignore your bad habits or sugar coat it.

They can praise you when you do a good job, cheer you on from the sideline, and tell you how they see it.

Coaches can call the play but in the end it’s the player in the game that makes the final move.

So I’m making it.

Wish me luck.

Wait, what would be the sports equivalent? A slap on the butt? This is where my metaphor falls apart.