Career Coaching, Now for Your Soul!
In their hearts, everyone desires to work in what their soul will find nourishment—it is their divinity. The irony is that the stronger the desire, the harder the resistance. This is why most give up before even trying. The saying, the road to heaven is hell derives its aptness from how we casually discard what is good for our soul—and, in turn, for us—becomes our reality for the masses! In the process, we surrender our calling, maundering through a life of uncertainty and mediocrity, toiling away to eke out a meager living! A truly fulfilling life takes you on a journey that integrates body, mind, spirit, and material needs. Once we access our divinity each element of our life falls in place. A good coach can take you there.
The Coaching Conundrum
Over the years, career coaching has gradually shifted from a perk—where those in very senior positions were given some expert help to round out their leadership gaps—to today, where the right, experienced coach can change your career trajectory at any level for you to seek your own growth! Back then, it was a perk, available to only those in the upper echelons of a growing organization, where such a dispensation gave a clear signal that the person was special and was being coached to move up in their world. Most of the remaining crowd was—and is—left with having to be content with what comes their way and showing their gratitude for their good fortune!
The evolution of this paradigm stems from the growing realization that many feel they are being mercenaries and are engaged in their work for a transactional purpose, nothing more. This pursuit is not for their spiritual growth; quite to the contrary, they surrender that aspect of their inner need in exchange for a more secular compromise. And that is a real tragedy! With this mindset, their material focus shifts to the trappings of their positions: compensation, titles, status, and perks. In the process, they are selling their soul to a cause that they can only rationalize, but surely cannot justify!
To address this tension, many professionals recommend following your passion to engage in something that provides you with the means to support your needs. The problem with this approach is that most do not know how to find their passion and translate that into an employment that benefits both sides of the equation. Most also are at a loss to explain why their passion does not give them an edge in their pursuit; many often suck at what they assume is their passion when it comes to performance. Part of the problem here may be that their passion, their performance in that pursuit, and what they dream about may be totally disconnected from reality! I follow the simple principle: If it is your true passion, then you would already be engaged in it!
Those who feel lost in this pursuit often resort to going through a battery of comprehensive psychological tests only to realize that few real answers emerge that change the way they look at themselves and how they want to apply their innate gifts to quench their soul’s burning desire to grow and make an impact as they do. Often, these tests provide conflicting recommendations, further confusing the already lost subject! It is no wonder that the assessment and psychometric business is estimated at $12B/year in the US alone.
So, what is the way out of this vicious cycle?
Learning to Look Inward
A better way is to look inwardly, instead. With some effort, you can reflect on what drives your desire to grow and what will help your soul find the daily nourishment that it deserves to give you that sense of fulfillment in your life. Rarely is it a once-and-done process; it needs to be iterated with diligent work, conviction, and patience because of the high resistance it offers. But, when you get that epiphany, you must do something about it with purpose and fight that force of resistance, which is the proof point that you’ve struck a resonant chord.
Contrary to what many may think, such an introspection and discovery do not always require a total shift in your pursuits, taking on unknown risks; with expert guidance from a career coach, you can uncover new ways to find meaning in what you have already done and express it in a way that gives you the avenue to get closer to your calling. This is magical!
When you can engage in this pursuit, work gradually becomes joy, and stress becomes your friend, driving you to excellence in all that you do. You achieve a flow state in almost every task you undertake, and everything you ever dreamed of—money, fame, work-life balance, harmony, control, and creativity—comes to you without effort, more as a byproduct than as your main pursuit!
So, what is the secret to achieving this state of nirvana? It relies entirely on your innate gifts that you already possess, and you have manifested these gifts in much of the acclaimed work you’ve already done in your past. The reason you have not consciously thought about this work and gift that allowed you to deliver stellar results is that this gift is something you’ve taken for granted and is hidden from you in plain sight!
This gift is your innate genius, which we all possess but rarely think of consciously. Yet, we know the occasions on which it helped you achieve something even you could not believe was your doing. This is what I call the Aha! Moment.
Accessing Your Genius
If we revisit these Aha! Moments and write contextual stories of how they inspired a great outcome in a difficult situation, we can start articulating the contexts under which such excellence becomes routine for you. As you start gradually engaging yourself in areas of work that routinely demand this talent, then you are engaged in your work in a flow state, and this is where your soul is getting the nourishment it needs from what you do. This is transformational!
So, there you have it—the essence of an effective coaching engagement demystified. So, the role of a career coach is to help you uncover these Aha! stories and organize them in a compelling leadership narrative that is now your value proposition to position you with your new résumé. Although all this sounds simple and straightforward, it is not easy. Remember what I said at the top of this article: The road to heaven is hell. You must go through an arduous process to pull out these stories and create a coherent leadership narrative that gives you the platform to sell your value proposition in a unique way in any market!
Now that you’ve read through this point-of-view, please go revisit the right side of the Home Page to appreciate the Power of Great Storytelling!
