Posts Tagged ‘career coaching’

Bilbo Baggins said, “It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there’s no knowing where you might be swept off to.“  J.R.R. Tolkein

“If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.” Henry David Thoreau

“Don’t ask what the world needs.  Ask what makes YOU COME ALIVE (my caps) and go do it.  Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” Howard Thurman

The quest for fulfillment and possibility calls all of us several time during our lives.  As children, every year is a quest filled with new learning and edges as we crawl, walk, talk, read,  taste new foods; learn about numbers,  history, nature, physics; and about parents, siblings, pain, joy and video games.  We grow up to choose a career, friends and intimate relationships, whether to have our own children or not, and on and on.

As adults, our lives often become less adventurous and more about being prudent, healthy, and following all the rules we’ve internalized.  Eventually, we outgrow our status quo and must begin a new quest for fulfillment or we will “explode” with frustration, pent up desire, or illness.

You KNOW it’s quest time when you experience any of these symptoms:

* Work that was fulfilling is no longer
* You dread getting up and going to work
* You should be happy with everything, but you’re not
* Your long-time lover just left or you just left your lover
* Your health and vitality have diminshed
* Your life has taken on a predictability that is stifling rather than comforting
* You have dishonored one or more high priority values long enough and it’s time to express them  before you explode
* You ache, you long, and you may or may not be able to put your finger on what’s missing

Where do you begin? You begin where you’re at. You begin with love.  Love what’s here before you go on a quest for what’s not here yet.  Do not be afraid of or angry about where you’re at.  Allow and love the not job state; the extra 40,60,100 pounds; the mixed up relationship; the unpaid bills. Sit down next to your fears and have coffee with them. Just own them.  Love your ability to create.  Resisting what is tends to keep it in place.

I truly love to work with women who are on a quest of fulfillment, spirituality, and letting their brilliance finally and fully emerge.  I’ve been on physical quests up mountains and biking across the country.  I’ve been on healing, spiritual and and career / fulfillment quests. I’ve been on educational quests for knowledge.  I still take large and small quests.  Contact me for an exploration session about your quest – and join me on one of the Awakening to Your True Purpose calls.

Graphic: Through the Desert © Stiven | Dreamstime.com

When your passion, your brilliance, meets a need of the slice of the world you’re meant to serve, you can experience more synergy, service, gratitude, ease, reward, and purpose.

“If you had a secret passion, something that you rarely speak about because it’s just too big or outrageous or unlikely, what would that be?” I ask this question of my long term clients.  Sometimes we do a little digging to uncover what’s been buried since childhood or college. This is what’s in your passionate heart, not your logical, reasonable and  perhaps cautious mind. It can be big or small, and it can be single or plural.  No rules. It could be to travel to a certain place, learn an instrument, go to college, get fit, climb a mountain, go camping again, write a book, change the world in some way.

At age 12 a passion to “Discover America, It’s 3,000 Smiles Wide” was born when  I saw that written on an Amtrak advertisement.  Sixteen years later I took a leave from  my job for the summer and rode across America on my bicycle. It was now or never.  It was more than the challenge of the ride, it was seeing the beauty and connecting with the earth and honoring my brilliant passion before it was too late.  It took many people to help me make it happen.

Action

Close your eyes, relax with a good breath, and ask yourself what is my secret passion?  If you don’t come up with a response, let it be and use that question as an inquiry over the next couple weeks.  An inquiry is a coaching tool where you ask a broad, curious question and let your experiences give you many answers and take you down many tunnels.  If you’re already in your passion, that’s good.  Help someone else find and claim theirs, and get curious about what it is to live your passion, and if all the elements are in place.

What can you do this summer to bring the experience of your passion into your life? What steps can you take, what is ready to happen?  Maybe your passion is to play basketball professionally, but you’re already 40 years old.  Where/ how/when can you experience or live

the essence of your passion?  Find a team, form a team, coach a team, write about a team….? Get creative!  Well, will you?

It’s a good idea to keep it to yourself; or share it only with people committed to helping you realize it, until it takes shape.  Don’t let anyone stomp it out of existence, don’t let it die before its born..  If you’re ready, I invite you to write me how your brilliant passion is emerging this summer in the comments below.

Let a passion be part of your life every year, no matter how small it might need to be to fit in with everything else.  Let it nourish you.

Late May and June signal the end of the school year here in the US and students are graduating from their complete course of study or their grade level.  So, in this time of  endings and new beginnings, I invite you to do a Life Happiness Checkup.  Take a look at your life situation today and ask yourself the following questions.  You can also  download the Wheel of Life Checkup form.  It’s easy and takes only 5 minutes or less.

On a scale of 0 to 10, how fulfilled and satisfied are you in these eight major life areas? (10 is completely fulfilled, with nothing left out).

Fun and Recreation

Health and Fitness

Career

Money

Friends and Family

Significant Other and Romance

Physical Environment

Spirituality or Personal Growth

Do you have a clear, unobstructed path to getting to fulfillment in these areas and are you are on that path  with enthusiasm, optimism and effectiveness?

Do you know what you are best designed to do and be on this earth?  Are your head and heart are aligned; your soul and ego in partnership as you gloriously do the actions and have the impact that you love, love, love to do and be?

For those of you who are  finding clarity or momentum around career, money, relationships, fun, health, environment and/or joy while simultaneously in your busy life commuting, working, raising a family, or handling problems,  I invite you to consider an alliance with a professional to help you focus on you.  It might be a therapist, group, or coach (believe it or not, I’m partial to the coaching solution!).

Businesses readily hire coaches to ultimately improve their bottom line.  Well, the bottom line for your life is what you call fulfillment. That’s my business.  For a no-cost consultation,  call me (510-886-7374) or email me.  I am on purpose as a coach when I  create a courageous, energetic relationship with you so you can clarify and manifest your vision or dream.

Coaching Mode!

Ten years ago I hung up the phone and cried tears of gratitude after my first completion call as a coach.  I’ll call him Roy.  He had achieved his goal in about 5 or 6 sessions, and our final call was to acknowledge and celebrate and clean up anything left undone or unsaid.   He had trusted me with his life and heart; and allowed me to journey with him for a while as he created courage and stepped into a new, bigger experience in his life. That moment marked a turning point in my years of seeking fulfilling work, training, certifying, letting go of the old work, starting a business, marketing, and finally coaching.  It’s been many clients and sacred journeys since and I am filled with gratitude for all the people who have allowed me to serve their emerging brilliance.

Do what you love.  Be who you are.

Consistently.

Laugh when you forget.

Honor your soul before you honor the cage of beliefs  that keep you predictable, safe, and fitting in with your tribes.

Your soul won’t steer you wrong.  If the word soul is too spiritual, honor your personal heart wisdom.

Do what you love.  Be who you are.  Consistently.

Why am I saying this?  Most of my life, and I imagine yours, has been spent sacrificing soul for safety, money, and fear.

I have a free teleseminar today, “Insider Truths to Unleash Your Success”, at 6Pm Pacific for more on this topic.

Idea #1 in the last blog was about you as a new and improved product.   Idea #2  is borrowed from sales; it is scripting.  OK, you might want to throw me out of your network for suggesting this, but hear me out.   The more people I talk to, the more I realize that my biggest challenge in making sales is your  biggest challenge in getting in front of people or having control of a call or interview.   My sales mentor, Eric Lofholhm says using scripts was the biggest boost to his sales than almost anything else.  I reluctantly started using scripts and found I was much more comfortable in presenting my services and asking for business.  Good people – sales scripts are noble, necessary, and are just creative, informative, and focused communication with an agreement and/or money included in it.  A script saves both you and the person you are presenting to time and energy – you have a clear direction.  Here are a few areas you might want to have a script ready to use:

1. When a HR person or recruiter calls you on Friday at 4 PM and you are not in shape to go through an interview
2. When you cold call an HR person,
3. hiring manager,
4. or someone about an informational interview
5. When you are asked a question in an interview that throws you off.  A one line mini script that gives you a moment to collect your thoughts
6. A script for each interview – the questions you’ll ask, the concerns you have
7. At the end of the interview – a powerful completion with what you say if you want the job, if you do not want the job, if you think you’d be better qualified in a different position….etc.

What else?  Write some here in the comments – even some samples.

You can download a free audio on sales from Eric Lofholm here  (https://m269.infusionsoft.com/go/7sec/Nancy) It will have many ideas you can transfer to interviewing, setting up interviews, and organizing yourself around presenting yourself as a service or product rather than an employee.

Get out of the box here, and borrow from other industries to find new approaches to the job search.

New Packaging

Amp Up Idea Number One: As the entrepreneur of your life (you must look after you, the days of the long term corporate job are gone with just a few exceptions) part of your job finding process is to package  yourself.  Most companies put out a new and improved version of their product every few years (or sooner for software!).  What’s the new and improved you?  Amp up with a product overhaul.

What is your core product?  Consider what you love to do, the part of your work that makes your heart sing and the time fly by.  What is that?  Why do you love it so?  Why would an employer be lucky to have you – what benefits will they receive from buying you?  If you were to look at all of your skills, how does a combination of them enhance your core product?  In what new ways can you combine them in order to come out with the new and improved you?

You can take courses to add a new skill.  You can get a group of supportive colleagues and friends, and brainstorm up new job descriptions that combines some of your interests and skills in new and improved ways.   You can take your so-called shortcomings (”too old”, “too young”, “too long out of area”) and flip them into assets (”experienced”, “longevity”, “energetic”, “coachable”, “out getting other experience to bring back to this area”).

OK, let’s hear about some new improved you’s!