Is Your Career Eating You Up Inside?
Posted on July 05, 2019 by Janet Lim, One of Thousands of Executive Coaches on Noomii.
Career management guidance for those currently seeking new jobs and those who find themselves questioning their career.
Most if not all the clients I’ve coached have spoken about their career issues in the cause of our engagement – even when they didn’t hire me for career coaching.
From where I come from, Singapore, career is a huge part of our life. If fact, it is LARGER than our life. If we live up to 80 years old, we would have spend up to 60% of our life working.
Of course, you may have a different percentage but that’s not the point. The point is, it is a huge part of our life and it can consume us when we don’t feel in sync with what we are doing.
Having clarity or a “Head-Heart” in tandem is often the issue. Many of us are brought up with the belief that we must study hard so that we can eventually work for huge glamourous multinational corporations that pay us to the nines.
Very nice idea. In fact, so nice it should stay in the 1900s.
With the same cookie cutter career management philosophy, half the globe ends up working for some organisations, in a job that hardly strum a cord in our hearts. We all mould ourselves into frames that suit the job, not the other way round. No wonder we wake up dull every morning and by 30 or latest 40, we all sink into something known as the quarter life or mid life crisis, asking, “Who am I?” “Why am I here?” “What am I doing?” “What do I really want to do?”. Sound familiar?
My suggestion goes out to all young people – by 25, you better get yourself a career coach. Pay for a professional, don’t be a cheapskate. Friends and families are fantastic but our relationship with them has trained them more as a cheerleader or booleader. If you go to just anyone for advise, you will end up receiving piles of great ideas that will work well for them instead. Not because they don’t love you – precisely because we love our friends and family, we tend to wish they have the best we never could have in our lives. Make sense?
You need a trained, objective coach to work with you on your career planning and management. Career course changes over lifespan, so do keep your coach for “maintenance check-in” from time to time – every quarter or half yearly if that make sense for you. At the same time, figure out how and who you can ‘recruit’ as your mentor, influencer and supporter at your workplace.
Here are is some readings that I highly recommend, especially Carla’s Pearls. I’m not allowed to attach any links here so do Google them out when you are free:
- 5 not-so-obvious career mistakes that could halt your climb up the corporate ladder
- Carlaspearls dot com
