Today I’m giving you permission to F.A.I.L. in your career. This permission slip gives you full rights to try on, test, experiment, play, and get curious about what’s possible in your career. This means you will not get it “right” the first time, and you will make mistakes or it will get messy along the way.
F.A.I.L. = First Attempt In Learning
Although I’ve heard this acronym before, it was a helpful reminder from a Peloton instructor, Becs Gentry, during a recent run. It made me think about how scary it is to try something for the first time. It’s not easy. We aren’t always that great, and often to get “good” at this new thing it takes time and practice.
This is the challenge when you start to explore your own career possibilities. There’s so many unknowns and uncertainties, and it can become quite overwhelming. So start small. Maybe you’re already career curious. Now’s the time to give it a try and take action towards Designing Your New Work Life!
Try Stuff: Move Beyond Theory to Application
You need to test things out. Stop thinking, reflecting, and planning — it’s time to ACT! Make plans to create, make, and do the things you’re thinking about for your future career self. Consider how you can try and fail at new ideas, practices, and ways of working. To make the change, you may need a trial period to experiment with the “what if?” and get into the experience of how want to work.
Need some ideas for where to start? Ask yourself these questions to learn what you will TRY or DO next:
What is one thing you’re going to explore?
What do you want to learn more about?
How can you try a new skill?
What things do you want to practice?
How can you grow and develop where you are now?
What small experiments can you create in your life/work?
If you’re going to say YES to a new way of working, what will you say NO to?
What is one easy thing you can to change about how you work right now?
I am curious career explorer. I’ve always wanted to know what drives people in their world of work, and what meaningful things are they doing in their lives.
A couple of years ago, I took my curiosity to embark on my own journey as a coach. I love partnering with clients who want to think deeply their “career” and how they impact others with their skills and talents.
This transformation work starts with space and time to talk about being a “professional.” In thinking about who you are, what got you here, and why you’re now questioning your career focus will help to provide insight and perspective into what’s going on. Welcome to the first part of career exploration — reflection.
Here are a few questions I ask my coaching clients before/when we meet:
What questions do you have about your career now?
How did you get here professionally?
What are you most proud of?
What excites you at work? In life?
What do you want to start doing?
What do you want to continue doing?
What do I want to stop doing?
What are the verbs or actions you enjoy doing at work?
How do you want to grow in your career?
Are you interested in creating the work and life you want to lead? Subscribe to my Substack at Careers By Design.
The pandemic, inflation, and changes in our economy, has brought about so many challenges and changes to our lives. As work is a huge piece of that life pie, how and where it happens matters. Over the past few years, we may have been pushed into new ways of working. And much to our surprise and expectations, we’ve gone beyond what we thought we could do. Some things were in our control, and in other aspects of our work lives we might have had little to no agency. But, what would happen if we had a choice? What if we just took a beat to think about possibilities? What opportunities do you envision for your future self? What if we imagined what our future work and life looked like?
Borrowed from one of my favorite podcasters/writers/people, Manoush Zomorodi and her ZigZag Pod, I drafted a “future self” visioning exercise for my coaching clients and teams. I want others to think about the “what ifs” and future life they want to lead — and work is a big part of that vision.
Let’s pause today to daydream about what life looks like on the horizon. Grab a pen and paper, open a new document on your desktop or start a new note on your phone — we are going to do some quiet reflective writing. You might want to close your eyes and listen to the prompts and questions in this Future Self Visualization, to help you imagine what lies ahead.
Future Self Visualization: Audio
Close your eyes and let’s picture yourself in the future. It’s exactly five years from now. It’s [insert MONTH] 2027. Imagine what your life is like. Picture what you WANT it to look like. We are going to walk through a typical work day. I want you to visualize what is happening, as I walk you through the following prompts and questions:
You wake up: How are you starting your day?
What’s the weather like?
What are you wearing?
Today you’re getting ready to go into the office for a team summit.
Where are you going?
How do you commute to work?
What do you do when you get there?
As you grab your favorite morning beverage to answer emails before the team meeting — you look around your office space. What does it look like? What do you notice?
Going back to your “to do” list — What will be 1 or 2 things you prioritize today?
Thinking about your role and the work you do: What is your job? What actions & verbs describe what you do?
What’s something surprising about the work you do?
What impact do you make in your organization?
You walk into the conference room to meet your team: How do you engage with your colleagues? What are you contributing to this meeting? What is your role on the team?
After some collaboration, discussion, brainstorming, and planning you end the day: What did you learn? What did you accomplish? What are you most proud of? What direction are you leading on this team?
As you leave the office, you decide to do something you enjoy before you head home: What is that? What fun things do you have planned? What activities are you involved in? If this activity involves others, who do you meet?
Now open your eyes and take 3-5 minutes to write down a few bullet points of what you just visualized about your future self. What was interesting to you? What did you learn?
What was interesting to you?
What did you learn?
What did you notice about your day?
What are the verbs or actions you found yourself thinking about doing at work?
What was interesting about your day?
What are the projects, problems, or initiatives you are working on?
What work activities and tasks make you feel alive?
What are you proud of?
Feel free to write, doodle, job down bullet points, and capture ALL your thoughts, ideas and answers to these questions/prompts. Just write and reflect for as long as you can remember what you thought about in this visualization. Save this for later — we will talk about what you discovered in our next coaching session. See you soon!
For the fourth season of the Coaching Through It podcast, my co-host/fellow coach, Julie Larsen, and I want to support real leaders with real problems. Whether you’ve just transitioned into people management or you’ve been supervising folks for a while, being a leader today is increasingly complex and complicated.
There’s been a whole lot going on in the world of work. If you manage people, your workload and expectations as a leader has only been amplified. Being a people manager is not an easy role. With evolving economics, a multi-generational workforce, recent layoffs, and knowing that the only constant is change, leaders are required to keep the lifeboat — their team and themselves — afloat in the sea of uncertainty. We have no doubt you’re being more than challenged as a leader — so, we wanted to throw a lifesaver to you.
Call for Leaders Who Are Searching for a Coach:
We want to hold space for any people managers who could use a “guide on the side” for the next season of Coaching Through It pod. As coaches, we want to offer a FREE, 1-time coaching session for leaders who want a thinking partner to discuss their leadership development. Whether you want to tackle a specific supervision issue, identify an area of growth as a manager, or just take a beat to review your own leadership practice. We want to offer a 60-minute coaching session to support YOU!
If you are interested in joining us for an audio-only, recorded experiment to work through your leadership values, strategies, and approaches — please reach out to us by email (coachingthroughit at gmail dot com). We’ll meet to explore coaching topics and discuss how this session is shared in the podcast in advance. In your message, please tell us about you, your role as a People Manager, and how coaching can support you:
What leadership challenges are you experiencing?
How are changes impacting how you manage others?
What practices do you want to work on to support your team?
How do you want to grow and thrive as a supervisor?
What leadership support do you need now?
About the Coaching Through It podcast:
About the Pod: In Coaching Through It, co-hosts and coaches, Julie Larsen & Laura Pasquini, bring their ideas, questions, perspectives, & insights to their own coaching practice. Whether you’re making a big decision, exploring a new path, planning a project, or you just want to learn how coaching might help you. In each episode we’ll introduce you to our coaching practice with powerful questions, reflections from our training, share coaching tools/techniques, and share how coaching fits into our work and personal lives. Subscribe to Coaching Through It & follow the pod on Instagram or Twitter.
Based on the chatter and traffic on the OpenAI ChatGPT, I have no doubt folks are sourcing more than college essays or exam answers from this platform. There are probably professionals asking (or should be asking) questions to our robot friends. As a coach, I became curious to learn what information and advice was being offered about the field of coaching. So, I decided plug in the frequently asked questions (FAQs) I get from friends, family, colleagues, and potential coaching clients. Coaching FAQs: ChatGPT answers + my edits/adds to these responses.
Q: How can I find a career coach?
A: You can find a career coach by: (or any type of certified coach)
Searching online for professional coaching organizations or individual coaches, (The Top 6 Coaching Organizations from Paperbell — there might be others, but those are the ones I know of)
Asking for referrals from friends, colleagues or HR departments, (ASK YOUR NETWORK! Only some HR departments offer these resources — I wish there was more career development & growth support!)
Checking with local universities or career centers, (especially if you are an alumni)
Checking professional networks such as LinkedIn for coaches. (Suggestion for LinkedIn to design a new feature — why not identify Certified Coaches in this professional network with a URL like:https://www.linkedin.com/coaching)
Q: What questions should I ask a coach?
A: When interviewing a potential career [OR any type of] coach, you can ask:
Can you tell me about your coaching philosophy and approach?
How do you measure success with clients?
Can you give me examples of career transitions you have helped clients with?
Can you provide references or testimonials from past clients?
How do you communicate and work with clients, such as frequency and methods?
What is your availability and scheduling process?
What is your rate and packages offered?
What is your cancellation and refund policy?
How do you handle confidentiality and privacy in coaching?
This quick list of coaching questions aren’t bad. They seem really transactional in nature — so I might go a bit deeper to figure out what you want to get out of a coach. What do you want to know about someone you are going to work with? How can you be certain this coach can support your needs? To offer a counter perspective, here are the typical questions I ask potential coaching clients to see if they are prepared to enter into a coaching relationship with me:
What led you to coaching?
What experience do you have with coaching? What do you know/want to know about coaching?
What are your goals for coaching?
What would you like to achieve by the end of our time together?
What can I do to help you achieve your goals you have set?
What would a successful coaching relationship look like to you?
What questions do you have for me?
Most coaches offer a free exploration session where you can meet, ask questions, build rapport, and learn more about them and their coaching practice. One of my potential clients used this coaching questions guide, and I shared ICF’s Hiring Tips & Questions which include taking action BEFORE you meet a coach (I hope this is helpful if you’re search for a coach):
Set your own goals/objectives for coaching
Search the ICF directory for a certified coach — filter by topic, experience, domain, expertise, etc.
Identify at least 3 coaches to meet
Outline questions to ask a prospective coach
Follow-up if you think of questions you thought of after the initial call/meeting
Q: How do I become a coach?
A: To become a career coach, you can follow these steps:
Build a network of professional contacts and resources. (Sound advice for anyone who works today.)
Develop a coaching niche or specialty. (Maybe? But explore and try out a few along the way — good coaching IS good coaching in ANY domain/field/specialty area)
Establish a coaching practice by setting up a website, creating a marketing strategy, and building a client base. (I’d probably start with your WHY, at least — this will help you figure out your mission or north star to guide your coaching practice.)
Continuously develop your skills and stay current with industry trends and best practices. (solid advice for any professional or practitioner — but what skills?)
Consider getting liability insurance. (definitely part of setting up your own LLC and business plan)
Although the list is accurate, there is so much is missing. Ask any coach and they’ll let you know their coaching development and growth goes beyond these 8 steps. Becoming a coach is not a checklist, and it doesn’t necessarily occur in the above order.
Potential clients & the coach curious often asked: “Why did you start coaching?” and “How did you get into coaching?” I wish my response was a numbered list, but, like most, discovery of what you enjoy takes a much longer, windy path. I’ve responded to this question, “What is your past experience with coaching?” to share my origin coaching story (shout out to the Higher Ed Coaches training program & Katie Linder!). And, you can listen to me in conversation with Julie Larsen and other coaches to de-mystify coaching practice on the Coaching Through It podcast. If you’re interested in becoming a coach, I’d highly recommend using this ICF resource: https://becomea.coach/ I wish this was available when I was thinking about starting my own coach journey!
What drew me into coaching is helping others reach their potential and find their own way in their life/career. I’ve been career curious for a long time. I can track my exploration about the world of work by the career books I’ve read over the years (these are just a select few):
As I grow and develop professionally, I definitely coach myself at all stages of my career (Re: Career Check-ins). This has offered me new challenges and afforded me to work outside my comfort zone as I work my way through career transitions. For the opportunity curious and possibility minded like me, this quest is just how I’m oriented to the world. For my coaching clients and colleagues, it helps us to take a new perspective, question the status quo, and think about “what ifs…” for where we go next.
What questions do you have about coaching? How can I share more about the life of a coach?
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