At the bottom of most career coaching journeys is a critical core question: What do you really want from your career? If you want to find a job that fulfils you, then I recommend that you start by establishing what matters to you most in life.
You gain fulfilment when you fill your life full with those things that you value most.
It’s that easy. Yet often we do not know what it is that matters to us most. In fact, most clients who come to me for career or life coaching are looking for clarity about what they want from life.
How can a simple question like this be so difficult? My answer is that there are just too many voices around us telling us how to live our life. Our own true desires are drowned out by the noise of all those voices.
The voices around us
It starts with our parents and wider family. They promote certain lifestyles and values that they expect us to share. Like me, you may have been brought up with the view that only academic jobs are worth pursuing, or maybe your parents told you that you had to gain status in society by setting up your own business or creating a legacy. Maybe you were at the other end of the spectrum and your parents told you to “know your place” and play small. You may also have been told how you should live as a man or woman, what good parenting looks like, how you need to behave in society, etc. The list is endless.
Many of us were then exposed to religious values that communicated standards about good and evil, right and wrong, sexual behaviour, the role of women, caste systems, martyrdom, and even how to dress or what to eat.
In addition, most of us will have been exposed to some sort of peer pressure. As children we were conscious of the things that were “cool” or “not cool”. We feared standing out from the crowd for not doing what the other kids did. There are similar pressures in adult life. Maybe you do not feel comfortable saying that you work as a waiter when you’re in a group of bankers. Maybe you feel that you should be fitter or more spiritual like your friends. Are you maybe a stay-at-home mother who feels less worthy than her working friends? The kind of woman who believes that she “should” be able to be everything: the all-giving mother, successful businesswoman, and then of course the skinny and beautiful fitness fanatic.
The impact of social and other media
Possibly the biggest influence in industrial nations is social media and entertainment industry. We watch films that show us fantasy stories about perfect families, rags-to-riches success, and endless images of immaculate beauty and fitness. They also make us believe in the fairy tale of the one and only, the soul mate who will fix our life and stay with us forever. We get the feeling that we are missing out if we do not have the wealth, sex life, fun and beauty that is shown to us in magazines and advertising. The reality of life can seem bland and disappointing in comparison to the glamorous lifestyles that we admire in movies and on TV screens. These are just examples of all the voices that tell us how to live our lives. You can probably think of others that were, or still are, influences in your own life.
4 critical questions to test your values
I do not want to demonise those voices. They are part of life and, when it comes to parenting for example, they are important to our upbringing. However, it is essential for our wellbeing that we identify those voices and reflect on their messages later on in life:
- From amongst the many voices that influence you, have you consciously selected only those values and standards that are true for you?
- Do they create resourceful results for you?
- Do you feel inspired by those values and standards?
- Are you actually living them or are they just “shoulds” that drag you down by making you feel guilty or less worthy?
If your answer is yes to all of the questions above, then by all means continue to live by the values and standards you have chosen. If you answered no to any of the above questions, it’s time to reconsider those values and standards which may have been imposed on you by others, or which you may have outgrown.
For example:
- You may come to the conclusion that the religious standards you grew up with no longer resonate with your own truth.
- Maybe it’s time to look for new friends or even a new partner to remove yourself from a lifestyle that you do not enjoy.
- Maybe it’s time to stop voting for the political party that your parents favoured and find your own position.
- Maybe you are finally ready to accept that chasing an unrealistic body image does not serve you well.
In my book “Falling in love with your job“ you will find further exercises to examine whose values you currently live by and what your own true values are. I have also launched a more comprehensive online career change course.
You don’t have to do it on your own
Would you like help exploring your values, planning your life, finding a new job or progressing in your career? Most of our career coaching clients have no idea what’s possible for them and where to start. That’s where we come in! You can book a FREE Discover Call with me or one of my hand picked associate coaches here.