We all have had to become accustomed to constant change and increased complexity over the past few years & How to Become Your Own Career Coach. Today, there’s no straight road to career success. As the world of work becomes increasingly squiggly, coaching becomes an increasingly valuable tool for creating clarity and coping with uncertainty.
How to Become Your Own Career Coach?
Individuals and organizations who can afford it have access to qualified coaches who can help them understand themselves, discover new options, and overcome obstacles. Coaching can improve our work, but we need a better way. Coaching must be defined as an approach rather than as a person to become more accessible. Learning How to Become Your Own Career Coach is an essential part of taking a coaching approach.
If anything, it makes it easier to have more meaningful coaching conversations with management, peers, and mentors since you are now in a position to have them with a wide variety of people. Your self-coaching skills enable you to manage your career and improve your self-awareness.
Asking self-coaching questions increases self-awareness and leads to positive behaviour change. No matter your experience or expertise, anyone can learn how to coach themselves. The hard work will be worth it, but it will take time and practice. In our careers, we will become more resilient and less dependent on others when we develop our ideas and actions in response to our challenges.
Develop these three skills to start coaching yourself.
Self-Awareness
We must understand how others see us achieve high levels of self-awareness. The development of self-awareness does not happen by chance – it is an act of will. Adding self-awareness to your workday can be achieved in two ways.
Make a mind map in five minutes
It’s rare for us to prioritize spending time thinking about ourselves. It is possible, though, to make better choices in the future when we become more aware of how our values and beliefs shape our actions.
In case of a career challenge, a five-minute mind map can provide insight into your reactions. Consider the challenge’s what, who, when, and why, write down any reflections you have about it, and see what comes to mind.
It is possible, for instance, to conclude from your complicated relationship at work that people happen to work differently from you (a “who” insight) because of your need to be liked by others. Observing your thinking patterns will help you discover which ones are working for or against you. To coach yourself effectively, you must develop self-awareness.
Identify the impact vs the intent
Understanding whether what we wish to become known for matches how we behave at work helps us recognize self-awareness gaps. Try to visualize your way of showing up in three critical situations in your week. Using only one word, summarize your intention for each scenario.
It might be vital for you to be “credible” during a presentation or “collaborative” during a team meeting. Describe from the perspective of at least one person you impacted after every situation.
Self-coaching questions
Making positive progress can be achieved by asking yourself insightful coaching questions. Use the following three O’s to evaluate your questions:
Then open it
There should be no closed question with a yes-or-no answer but who, what, why, where, when, or how. You might ask closed questions like, “Do I enjoy my job? If so, ask: “What about the job I enjoy?” You’ll find you get more insights as a result.
Taking ownership
You should refocus on what you can control when coaching yourself if you blame others or external factors. Your commitment to change will increase if you identify your actions.
The one-at-a-time approach
Stacking your questions is not a smart idea. Asking and answering each question, in turn, is one way of generating more options and actions as part of your coaching strategy: “Why am I missing deadlines?” and “Why does my time feel out of my control?” Using one-to-one questioning can help you develop more options and actions.
The following are five CYQs to get you started:
- How can I maximize my energy at work?
- How often does my self-belief hold me back?
- If I get more feedback, how can I make it more frequent?
- How could I approach my career challenges from a different perspective?
- What would I like to be true in 12 months compared to today?
Self-audition
Our thoughts and beliefs inform our actions, and we need to develop the skill of listening to those thoughts and beliefs to coach ourselves. We can, however, get distracted or gravitate to easier things when we are uncomfortable or distracted.
We cannot achieve the depth of reflection we need to change our thinking or behaviour when our attention is diverted. Listening to yourself can be practised using a few techniques.
Discover what friction you have
Distractions are part of life for everyone. Learning coaching yourself requires an understanding of when and where this happens. To prevent distractions from hindering your self-coaching efforts, find ways to increase friction between you and it.
By leaving your devices in another room, you can find friction if technology is your weakness. Try coaching yourself before the demands of your job distract you in a café or at the beginning of the day if other people cause you to lose focus.
Get to know you better
Being able to listen to your internal voice is part of coaching yourself. Sometimes, your inner critic will creep in and take control, and each of us has an internal coach and an inner critic. It might sound like, “I can’t figure this out, so I should give up now,” or “I am too stupid to figure it out.”.
You might find it helpful to speak to yourself like your best friend would if you want to quiet your inner critic.
Write down three supportive sentences you would say if you were in conversation with that person. Then you will be reminded of your past successes or your ability to overcome adversity in the past.
Perhaps they will express their admiration for your bravery or determination. When your inner critic starts to creep in, remember this person.
FAQs
Q1. How do I start as a career coach?
You can advance your career by becoming a career coach. Those who enjoy serving others may find it an enjoyable career choice.
Q2. How can I create my own career?
The career you choose does not have to be as elaborate as saving lives, building schools in Africa, setting up libraries around the world, or any of those things that make a huge impact every day.
Conclusion
We all have the capability to self-train, which can help us feel more confident about our careers. You can open up more growth opportunities by developing your self-coaching skills. Coaching yourself is the most effective way to learn, practice, and improve your skill in 2022.