Say "hello" to the Career Fairy

Now, back to the Career Fairy. Have you seen her? No? Well, the truth is she doesn't exist. However, quite a few clients come to me thinking that I do have a magic wand and fairy dust (metaphorically speaking).

What do I mean by that you might ask? Well, some might think that all they need to do is a Strengths assessment and maybe have a look at their Values and some other stuff and then I will wave my magic wand and say "You should be a ........[fill in the blank]!". If only it were that easy. But it's not, for two main reasons.

You have to do the work

The first thing that I always tell clients is that you need to do the work. I have a process and coaching techniques which will facilitate your exploration but I can't do the work for you. Human beings are so complex and multi-faceted that it would be impossible to pour in all the ingredients that make you who you are, stir them up and produce a nice, neat career cake for you.

Who and what you are, your values, your beliefs, your barriers, your strengths, your opinions, your motivators, your dreams, your desires, your fears: these are all unique to you and can be applied in a multitude of different ways. This business of creating a career you love involves looking at all of these things, digging deep, experimenting, being honest and being a work in progress.

You are a work in progress

And so to my second point. Creating a career you love is not a destination. It's a work in progress (really trying to avoid the word journey here!!).

A simple but effective coaching tool that many coaches use is a scale of 1 to 10. On a scale of 1 to 10, how happy are you with your career right now?

Personally, I'm about a 7 at the moment. There are things that I'm striving for, things that I don't enjoy right now. But the important question is not "what does a 10 look like?" but "what does an 8 look like?" and "what do you need to do to get to an 8?" (mostly outsourcing certain tasks for me!). And because I enjoy learning and growth, my 10 will be a constantly evolving target.

What to do now

Start with this simple coaching exercise and answer the following questions:

• On a scale of 1 - 10, how happy are you with your career right now (1 is unhappy, 10 is overjoyed)?
• What does one number higher up the scale look like?
• What do you need more of?
• What do you need less of?
• What is the next action you can take to move you a bit closer to that number?

Feel free to share your action with me if you'd like to. I love to hear how people are moving towards great fulfilment in their work.

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