Are You Confident in Your Direction?
Curt Skene’s In2Win! Career Coaching Supplement.
Should you continue the type of work you’ve been doing or is this a good time to switch careers? If you’re looking to make a switch are there obstacles that might slow your re-employment? These are just some of the questions you need to ask yourself as you begin your search.
Determining your future direction can be daunting and requires a high degree of self-analysis and awareness. It is important to recognize that one of the most common mistakes is to try to do this work alone. It can take months to recover from mistakes you make, so you are better off seeking professional help early and getting re-employed sooner.
While you may find yourself tempted to focus on the cost of investing with a professional, you need to be more concerned with the cost of being unemployed. The reality is that an employed executive who was earning over $100,000 annually is losing $8,333 every month when he or she is unemployed. Aside from the obvious financial gain one might expect from coaching, there are often many secondary benefits such as improved relationships, increased confidence and having a safe place to share your fears and worries.
Find a coach you are comfortable with, commit to share openly and be prepared to give it a few weeks for the relationship to really gel. Coaches offer many different styles and approaches so there is definitely a perfect one out there for you!
A short-term compromise can be worthwhile when it creates stronger long-term career possibilities.
Why I Wrote This Page
Because most people weigh the visible cost of a coach and ignore the much larger invisible cost of staying unemployed longer without one.
This is a common decision-making error: the fee is a specific number you can see, so it feels expensive. The cost of an extra two or three months unemployed is diffuse and easy to underestimate, even though it’s almost always larger. A professional earning over a hundred thousand a year loses more than eight thousand dollars a month sitting on the sidelines, that’s the real number to weigh a coach’s fee against, not the invoice alone.
This isn’t really about hiring a coach specifically. It’s about noticing when you’re making a decision based on the cost you can see instead of the much larger one you can’t.
Action Steps
- Before ruling out professional help on cost alone, calculate what an extra month unemployed actually costs you. Compare the real numbers, not the gut reaction.
- Talk to two or three coaches before deciding. Fit matters as much as credentials, and a bad fit is often what people are really objecting to.
- Give any support relationship, a coach, a mentor, real weeks to work before judging it. Trust takes longer to build than a single session.
In2Win! Afterthought
Curt’s current observations and updated guidance will be added here.
Suggested Reading Links
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