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.
In setting up my clients for success, beyond any coaching engagement, I thought — why isn’t there more of a career check-up available? What would work assessment look like if someone wanted to take a pulse check? I dug into some of my coaching resources and readings to share questions often ask my clients. If you want to think more deeply about your career and life — specifically how you might want to make your next professional move— then these career exploration questions might be a solid place to start your own reflection.
How you doing, career? How are WE doing?
I used to do a monthly check-in tied to a planner for my own work life and projects — thanks to my Get To Work Book. There are monthly prompts to “reflect and goal set” on a regular cadence to ask what is going well, what’s still in progress, what needs attention/focus, and what could/should I let go of that’s not getting done. I love dedicating space and time to think intentionally about what I am working on — and more importantly to look at the bigger picture: Career Direction. Maybe it’s time to set up some regular appointments to review and ask, “How’s it going with my career?” Here are a few questions I tend to ask coaching clients when they start on this career check-in journey.
Explore Your Career Interests
How did I get here professionally?
What do I want to stop doing? What deflates you at work?
What do I want to start doing? What excites you on the job?
What do I want to continue doing? (E.g. transferable skills)
What are the verbs or actions I enjoy doing at work?
Define What Work Means to You
What work excites you or makes you feel alive?
What are the things you love to do at your job?
How do you define meaningful work?
What do you want your career growth to look like?
What skills do you want to build and grow?
Ponder Your Career Possibilities
What do you find interesting?
What topics do you often talk and/or read about?
What issues or ideas do you genuinely care about?
What do you want to learn in your next role?
If work was not required, what would you do?
Transfer Your Talents & Skills
How do you want to expand on our professional experience(s)?
How would you like to use your talents and skills?
In what ways can another industry utilize your expertise?
What are the problems you want to work on?
What impact would you like to make in your life/career?
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