Professional coaching is always so interesting and rewarding, especially when it involves helping people with social or environmental enterprise, entrepreneurship, starting out in a career, creative careers, career change or leadership. I'm a firm believer if you do work you love it won't feel like a struggle. Enjoying and having meaningful work where you feel like you're contributing to the greater good is one of the greatest things about life. That is why I love career coaching and counselling and helping people align their career with who they are actually are as a whole human being rather than what someone else's version of value or time spend worthwhile is. Today's blog I share many of the great tools we use in career coaching and leadership work for professional development.
Here some common coaching tools I use to help you get started on your professional development journey:
- Self reflection - write down the pros and cons of current job. Things you like/dislike. Identify opportunities and strengths. Motivation to change.
- Self assessment- Evaluate your current strengths and weakness. Passions and hobbies. Capabilities and skills, interests.
- Research potential careers - For homework explore at least three. Interview professionals in these areas. Read up in related publications etc.
- Action plan - Write a list of smart goals with steps to a career transition that may include, study, training, gaining experience, volunteering, internships, extra responsibility in current role.
- Rebranding - Launching a new career means a new professional identity. Write a LinkedIn summary with new career goals to ensure your social branding aligns. Redo your CV to match up with your new direction, highlight transferable skills and knowledge.
- Network- Be in contact with anyone you know who might be able to assist with linking you in the new direction or have knowledge about it.
- Upskilling - Look at what learning you can do through training or eduction or volunteering to gain new experience.
- Expect rejections - The hard part of all of this you may be rejected when you start looking for new opportunities. Don't give up as it’s part of the growth process so use the experiences to gain new insights and learn. Each rejection is a step closer to the right opportunity!
Now that you have some inspiration for change careers try journalling some of these activities and get in touch if you're looking for more professional support or development? Visit link in bio to find out more about career coaching.
