The Economic Times carried a survey report that said, “….. 3 out of every 10 employees are thinking of quitting their current jobs” and, “….. of the 68% of the surveyed employees,  job satisfaction solely ranked as ‘very’ and ‘most’ important aspect followed by salary and job satisfaction for 62%”.            (Refer  https://m.economictimes.com/jobs/71-of-employees-rethinking-their-careers-report/amp_articleshow/88976325.cms).

The Need: 

At some point in one’s career, it is not just the remuneration that is important, but also the job satisfaction, work-life-balance, and job-security that you want. The earlier part of your career is spent in learning and consolidating our positions in the company / industry and also, socially as you want to provide a comfortable life to your family. But a time comes where, when you reflect back, you wonder if you are moving in the right direction towards progress, and whether you are indeed getting what you are looking for. It is said that nearly 90% of people don’t have goals, which means, if you don’t know where you are going, you obviously don’t know whether you progressing enough, and most of your judgement about your career comes from observing what your peers are achieving. So, you end up doing trainings and certifications as though that will solve all your problems. It’s like having the best of the most modern equipped boat with excellent tools like powerful oars and a powerful jet engine, but you still don’t know what to do with it and where to go.

That Feeling of Getting ‘Stuck’ –

The feeling of getting ‘stuck’ is natural when you don’t have clarity of what specifically you are looking for in your career, and this results in lack of motivation and direction. Also, as you grow in age, you have to be vary of your competencies and skills which align to what the market is looking for. You need to have sufficient motivational drive to keep learning new things, be open to adapting change to news environments and culture, and more importantly, make yourself marketable enough so that you can keep organisations interested in you.

In these ever-changing scenarios where organizational level re-structuring and company take-overs are the norm, its usually the very senior and mid-to-senior levels that are affected the most. There is a strong urge to get into other roles functions, or even look for alternate careers, but there is a lot of hesitancy towards this change with the fear of failure that pulls you back towards action. Making any such a change is often not easy and you require careful thinking and planning, and also evaluate the risks, before taking the leap.

What you are looking for –

In such times, you want someone who can listen to you without judgement, provide you with feedback and help you reflect on the options you have and the actions that you need to take, thereby guiding you in your journey. A person who points out the obstacles and helps you overcome them, helps you create a plan, encourages you to take the right decisions, and motivates you to move forward with confidence. All of this require a change in the way you think, and do things differently.

Mid-Career Coaching is a meaningful, interactive and confidential engagement between you as my Client, and me as your Coach, completely focused on your outcome and goals that you seek. The coaching sessions are one-on-one personal sessions, and the conversations provide you thoughts for self-reflection, retrospection, introspection, and learning (what do YOU really want), assess your personality and core strengths (understand the real YOU), and motivate you to move forward through proper planning and actions. Coaching is action-oriented and every coaching session ends with some action that you need to do and move you towards your goal.

Coaching is NOT Training or Consulting or Counselling or Therapy: Often, coaching is perceived to be like counselling or a training. Well, here’s the differentiation –

Training – You learn new skills here where, the trainer is providing you the knowledge and you are in listening and receiving mode.

Consulting – The consultant is the expert in the field who tells you specifically what to do, and procides you with a detailed report and presentation. Consultants usually work only with organisations. 

Counselling – The counsellor listens to your problems, and gives you advice and recommendations specific to your needs. For example, you have marriage counsellors, student counsellors, psychology counsellors, etc.

Therapy – The therapist takes you through a deep sub-conscious state through hypnosis to remove the impact of past trauma or experiences and beliefs, that you are affected with. Typically, therapy is used for depression, PTSD, trauma, or other such mental health ailments.

Coaching (and Mentoring) – Coaching provides you with powerful questions that help you think out possible options and solutions. It allows for deep reflection to understand yourself better, remove fears and negative beliefs that stop your progress, create goals and plan for yourself, and hand-holds you through your journey. There are Life Coaches, Business Coaches, Executive Coach, Mid-Career Coaches, Wellness coaches and so on, who can help you in the areas of improvement that you are looking for.       

Mid-Career Coaching works very well when the client is willing to change, and the coach partners and supports you, as the client, to meet your goals and the outcome you are looking for. It works with the philosophy that you have all the resources required to reach your goals, and the Coach helps them harness these resources effectively. It’s also helps you identify your strengths and encourage you to work to your potential.

You can expect the following:

✓ Confidentiality – All the coaching sessions are a one-on-one engagement between you and me, and total confidentiality is maintained of all the conversations and information shared with me. A Coach Agreement is signed that includes the code of ethics, scope and the process that will be followed so there a mutual trust, understanding and transparency what to expect. This allows you to freely share your inner-most thoughts, fears and frustrations during the sessions and I help you navigate through the turbulence.

✓ Gain Clarity – You gain clarity of thought through a systematic and well-structured approach using various assessment tools, templates and thought-provoking conversations. As a coach, I facilitate the conversations through questions to help you de-clutter your mind.

✓ Goal-centric Approach- All the coaching sessions will have the focus completely on you, your goals, the challenges that you face, with the objective to meet your expectations. We will understand this on three counts – (1) what needs to be achieved by the end of the coaching engagement, and (2) what is the career goal that you are envisaging at a higher level, and a (3) Goal-Plan to move forward. If the career-goal is not clear at the start of the coaching engagement, then that, is the first task that we mutually work on.

✓ Remove Limiting Beliefs and Mental Blocks – Often, one of the reasons for procrastination is the fear of taking action, especially if it’s in a non-comfort zone. There could also be several other fears or  negative beliefs that limits one’s progress which are the little voices in your head that tell you that this is not possible, or you cannot be successful, or ‘what if I fail’, and so on. Therefore, it’s necessary that you work on these fears and limiting beliefs, and as your coach, I help you to overcome them.

✓ Behavioural Change – At times, if your current approach and the behaviors are not working with the goal you seek, then you have to change the way you want to be perceived by people. This requires some behavioural changes that you have to bring in, for instance, if you are an introvert, you may have to step out of your comfort zone to meet and interact with people, if you hesitate asking questions in a group, then you may have to do that, and so on. At this stage for the career, it’s often the way you are perceived, the confidence you carry, your professional networks, and your positioning in the market becomes very important.

 ✓ Use a Structured Process – Often in our career, you have had to take important decisions. Some decisions worked in your favour and some did not. However, most decisions are often taken hastily and emotionally which means, you look at what’s there that your colleagues are doing or what the market is all about, and then you dive into it. For instance, you may take certain courses and certifications hoping that this will help you. However, such actions take you only up to a point because unless those courses tie in with your higher career objective and goals, it becomes a waste of time and money. The difference that you will see in this coaching engagement is that, we use a structured process that involves, understanding your strengths, skill-sets, and personality behavioural patterns, where we mutually discuss  and see how they align with your higher goal. So, you are able to take informed decisions on your career direction with confidence.

✓ Use of Supporting Tools– The coaching sessions often involve using various tools such as, self-awareness to understand and evaluate your strengths, personality patterns, career assessment, value elicitation, and so on, which provides you with enough inputs and data to move forward with confidence. The usage of tools will, ofcourse depend upon what you are specifically looking for, from the coaching engagement.

✓ Take Action and Accountability – Coaching is all about helping you take action. Infact, every session will result in an action for you towards your outcome. As a coach, I push you towards your goals and hold you accountable for your actions – what went right, what went wrong, what could have been better. So, you use me as an accountability partner for your actions, to push you forward with greater velocity.

Years back when I started my career transition, I had no one to guide me, and I had to rely on my instincts, and the risks were high. Over the years of working with various types of clients, and also with my own personal knowledge and experience, I created and used this powerful coaching Methodology, which I find very productive for my clients.

Assessment Tools Used – The process also includes several supporting tools that are used to gain deeper understanding of your personality, career, strengths, values, and skill-gaps which provide deeper insights into your behavioural preferences and patterns. The inputs from these tools provide useful insights for self-discovery and introspection, and are useful during coaching discussions and help you to take informed decisions.

• Sign-up for a Complementary Discovery Session with me to understand more about the engagement and how it aligns to your expectations.
• Once you sign-up, schedule the first coaching session at the earliest and set mutual expectations.
• There will be multiple coaching sessions, and the number of sessions and the frequency depend on the outcome and the duration that you are looking for. This is decided right at the beginning so there is complete transparency about what to expect.
• The number of sessions can vastly differ as some people may just opt for getting only Career-Clarity, while some others may be looking for Role-Enhancement, or a Career-Change, or long-term accountability. So, the number of sessions is decided mutually during the Discovery Session itself.
• Each coaching session duration is a maximum of 60 minutes, and results in actions that you will work on, before the next session. The actions make you move forward towards your goals.