Getting a Career Coach can be a great idea, but there are also some ways that you can coach yourself.
A recent Harvard Business Review article suggests that we focus on these topics and questions in order to coach ourselves:
*Build Your Self-Awareness. This is one of the keys to professional development. Create a quick mind-map. Write down your career challenge in the middle of the page. Then note reflections you have about the who, what, and why of the challenge. Do this every so often to identify trends with your challenge.
*Coach-Yourself Questions. “What do I enjoy about my job? What gives me most energy? When do I let self-belief set me back? How can I increase the amount of feedback that I get? Who could offer me a different perspective on my career challenge? What do I want to be true 12 months from now?”
*Listen to Yourself. You know yourself better than anyone. Pay attention to the answers to the questions you ask. Become your own best friend. Listen more to that friendly inner voice than your self-critic (we all have them!). Imagine having a conversation with one of your best friends and what they would say about you.
Our work lives take a majority of our weekly time and we want to steer our careers in directions that can be most fulfilling. Use these ideas and questions to help you focus your career progress.
*Ideas for this blog taken from: Tupper, H. & Ellis, S. “How to Become Your Own Career Coach,” Harvard Business Review online, January 13, 2022.
