The Right Career, and You are on Your Way to a Balanced Life!
Posted on March 26, 2016 by Jim Burr, One of Thousands of Life Coaches on Noomii.
The final step in Career Coaching is putting all the information you have gathered together, developing a plan and sticking to it.
I have recently written articles about career coaching in which I stated that to be effective it needed to cover three general areas. Those areas were 1) interests and personality type, 2) abilities and 3) a collection of practical considerations such as what one had to do to get training, moving, family considerations, compensation etc. Those articles focused on the first two areas. This article is going to focus on the third area, practical considerations.
As I stated in the previous articles, but which I believe is worth repeating, the instruments we use in career coaching are tools. They do not give us final answers but only give us some information from which we can start exploring.
Looking at our interests has the ability to broaden our search. We are not bound by practical issues but only by what we desire or would be passionate about. Looking at abilities, however, narrows our focus somewhat. When I was young I very much thought I wanted to be a professional baseball player. While I had the interest and the passion I did not have the ability and so that goal had to be excluded and I had to look for alternatives. In this article we will look at some practical issues which can also limit our search. Finally, we will look at developing and carrying out a plan.
When considering our choice of career there are many practical considerations which need to be taken into account. There is, for example, the question of training. Is it a career that requires advanced training such as becoming a physician or is it a career that would involve on the job training? Becoming a physician requires a major commitment in terms of time and money. An on the job training program may require several years but it is several years during which you are receiving a paycheck. Another very practical issue is location. You may have an interest in being a marine biologist but may want to live in a small town in the Midwest were the odds of finding such a position are extremely limited. Another aspect of location has to do with your family. You may be willing to move and go where the job takes you but family members may put pressure on you to live in a certain locale. Additionally, if you have the training and the desire to move will you have the financial means to relocate particularly if you have to do so prior to securing employment. Another issue is, of course, compensation. After you get trained and even if you’re willing to make the move, you may find the compensation offered in a given field is too little to support your family. This is not meant to be an exhaustive list but rather to make the point that there are a number of practical issues unrelated to interests and abilities which can affect your choice of a career.
One of the things which can be quite helpful at this point is looking at the “wheel of life”. The “wheel of life” is an exercise which attempts to put your priorities in balance. It looks at various aspects of your life such as career, family, friends, recreation, etc. to get you to consider what you want your life to really look like and how your career choice fits within that desire. Reviewing the “wheel of life” with your coach provides additional opportunities to discuss what it is you want not only in terms of your career but in terms of your life in general. Ultimately you will not have a satisfactory career unless it is with in a balanced life.
Another instrument which has been used in business is a SWOT analysis. SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. You and your coach will look at your strengths, which includes the information you have developed by looking at your interests, abilities and practical considerations. You will also look at your weaknesses relative to the same variables. Considering your personal strengths and also the practical issues, you can identify and explore opportunities. Finally, you need to consider some of the threats or, in other words, things which will still prevent you from achieving your goal.
Having conducted the SWOT analysis you now are in a position to develop a plan. That plan will include your goals, after considering all the above information, and the action steps necessary to accomplish those goals. Finally, you and your coach will become Accountability Partners. The two of you will continue to meet to monitor your progress, celebrate victories along the way, evaluate obstacles which present themselves and develop mini-plans for dealing with the obstacles.
The process outlined in these three articles is very straightforward. It is, of course, easier to describe in theory than it is put into practice. Nevertheless, if you and your coach work diligently through this process and honestly evaluate all the information you develop, the likelihood of success is great.
