What outcomes can I expect from coaching?

This is not typical career coaching. The focus of sessions will never be about resumes, job hunting, or interviews. Although those topics could be involved in some conversations, the focus of coaching is to empower you with the foundational skills that support your ability to make as many intentional and authentic choices as possible in your career. The outcomes you can expect to gain as a result of this career coaching are:

• A clearly identified direction for the next steps of your career journey. 

• Expanded awareness of limiting patterns developed in childhood that prevent your desired growth.

• Identification of likely root causes of limiting patterns.

• Knowledge of skills that you can implement to overcome limitations and achieve goals.

• Identification of abilities and qualities that can be used in your career. 

• Greater self-confidence and self-respect as a result of being seen and heard. 

What type of homework can i expect?

Any homework provided between coaching sessions is given in hopes that it will make efficient use of the time we have together. Homework may consist of answering several questions that will help prepare you to share what’s most meaningful and pertinent to you in the session. It may consist of watching a video or reading an article about a concept. Homework between sessions will most often require no more than an hour of your time.

What is enmeshment?

Childhood enmeshment is a term used to describe a family dynamic where boundaries and identities are blurred between parents and their children. It could involve parents determining a child’s career path, excessively managing a child’s choices, oversharing struggles with a child, and much more. Although each individual act may seem innocent, consistent and repeated acts can damage a child’s psychological development and inhibit the formation of a sense of self. The solution for an adult who is suffering from the effects of enmeshment is to self-differentiate through forming and maintaining their own values, beliefs, feelings, choices, and actions. For example, someone may have been raised to think they need to to go to college to be good enough to obtain an adequate career. However, they learn best through self-learning and can develop confidence in their abilities through practice. Following their own way provides them with the belief that they’re good enough to pursue what they want. Even if an adult doesn’t know their way yet, acknowledging the desire to find a way and being open to learning others’ opinions and experiences is being self-differentiated.

What does it mean to develop my own beliefs about work?

Whether we are aware of it or not, we all have core beliefs about the reasons we should work or why we want to work. If you’re working just to pay your bills, then you believe that the purpose of work is to maintain material security. If you’re working because you value the services your employer provides, then you believe the purpose of work is to contribute what you value with others. You can also hold multiple beliefs about work at the same time. There is no one right purpose for work. It’s all an individual’s choice how they want to exert their free will. An exploration into your beliefs about work can help to develop a clear direction for your career and lead to the intrinsic motivation to proceed in that direction.

What is insecure attachment?

Children that do not receive adequate emotional bonding from their primary caregiver develop survival strategies to cope with their unmet needs. The survival strategies were adaptive during childhood, but become primarily maladaptive in adulthood. These strategies lead to insecure ways of attaching to partners, supervisors, jobs, hobbies, and more. The subcategories of insecure attachment (anxious, avoidant, or fearful avoidant {aka disorganized}) describe how one navigates their attachments, whether through means of strict emotion, strict logic, or assessing the environment to determine whether emotion or logic will win. However, secure attachment can be developed so that equal parts logic and emotion can be used while navigating important attachments. This can be important because secure attachments are typically what leads to fulfillment.

What is household dysfunction?

Household dysfunction refers to a living environment in which substance abuse, mental illness, domestic violence, poverty, or any other harmful environmental dynamics are present. Although none of these directly affect the way a child is cared for, they create an environment where the child experiences extreme distress and learns maladaptive behaviors and beliefs to survive. For example, a child raised in poverty might learn that making mistakes with financial decisions is often dangerous. This could lead that child to grow into an adult that is not willing to take financial risks.