Clarity of thought is crucial to a successful switch to a green job, and while that sounds a bit obvious, it can prove to be a fatal stumbling block for lots of people. Get a few tips on this issue from this new Harvard Business Review article:
There’s no such thing as a straight line to success in careers today, and the past few years have created an environment where we’ve all had to become accustomed to constant change and increased complexity. Coaching is a valuable way to create clarity and deal with the uncertainty of an increasingly squiggly world of work.
Coaching helps us understand ourselves, uncover new options, and get unstuck, but the opportunity to spend time with a qualified coach is only available to a fortunate few individuals and organizations who can afford it. We know coaching can make work better, but we need a better way to make it work for everyone.
To make coaching accessible, we need to widen its definition from a person to an approach. An important part of taking a coaching approach is learning the skillset to be able to coach yourself in your career. This doesn’t replace the value of career conversations with other people — if anything, it does the opposite by putting you in a position to have more meaningful coaching conversations with a wide variety of people, like managers, peers, and mentors. Self-coaching skills accelerate your self-awareness and your self-sufficiency, helping you navigate your career with more confidence and control.
Self-coaching is the skill of asking questions to improve self-awareness and prompt positive action. Everyone can learn to coach themselves, regardless of experience or expertise. It takes practice and might feel uncomfortable at times, but the hard work will be worth it. When we develop our own ideas and actions in response to the challenges we experience in our careers, we increase our resilience and reduce our dependency on other people.
To get started coaching yourself, work on developing these three skills. Read the full article on HBR.