What is my dream career? … When thinking does not get you the answer, and how to make logical sense of feelings.
We live in a society that is guided by rationality and logic. You study, follow the best suitable jobs, have everything you wanted and still, you’re unhappy or miss something. If you’ve been rational your whole life, it is time you start to understand and make use of your feelings. Let me illustrate.
Why rational contemplation is not enough in determining your true passion
When I was studying coaching, I was thinking of the kind of coaching I wanted to do. There are so many types and options.
I thought that simply looking at my experiences and skills should be enough to guide me to the right type of coaching...
In the past, I helped people with personal finance - I helped them find structure in it, motivation to do it and helped them find the sources of their behaviour leading them to financial troubles. As I was also a volunteer treasurer at a climbing club at the time, personal finance coaching made the most sense.
Tadaa, I thought. This is the most logical choice.
But in the midst of arranging work experience in this area, I started postponing meetings and avoiding working on this. Am I self-sabotaging this? Why would I do that? Don’t I dare doing it it? What’s happening?
If you self-sabotage something you do: Depending on your personality, when you self-sabotage your new decisions (usually subconsciously), the reasons can be simplified into two sources: either you do not feel like changing (you lack the self-confidence, motivation, energy,..); or the direction you are heading to is not the right one for you. In the first case, you should find ways to motivate yourself, to do it even if you don’t feel like it. In the second, to the contrary, you are not heading the right way.
How should you know which one of the two counts for you? Just pause, stop thinking, and start observing. Observe your feelings and thoughts during your daily activities. How do you feel right before arranging the activity, during and after? Just notice it. Notice that with anything you do.
So I paused and started observing. The less I thought, the more I knew I really did not want to be a financial coach. But what then?
How feelings help in decision making
She was so hard on herself. I could recognize it so well because I used to be, and sometimes still am the same. The three of us sat in a cozy café, shared food, wine and our current issues.
That’s what we usually do in our girly time. We analyze the most important issues that bother us and give each other advice.
“Why are you always so harsh on yourself?”, a carefully listening friend asked her.
And then it hit me. That’s how I’ve done it myself. The financial coaching was a product of the sum of the rational decisions I made in my life - the studies, friendships, relationships and work experiences.
I had a new idea: what if I could combine doing what makes me happy with what I’m good at? And considering the talk with good friends made me feel really good, which aspects, exactly led me to feeling this boost of energy and joy?
Was it the types of issues we discussed, the fact that we are all women, our background, the fact that we were with the 3 of us and could learn from each other, the honesty and warmth, simply that we knew each other well, or was it just a one time experience?
How to make sense of feelings
I knew, no actually I felt that I had to do something with this. I started testing each aspect out - on the one hand to eliminate that this was not just a special one-timer connected to my friends, and on the other to discover the specific aspects I enjoyed, to know exactly what I like.
For example, I gathered a group of girls for a group coaching session on the topic of self-confidence to see if groups of people I know or don’t know are my thing. I started coaching similar types of people as the girls I sat with in that café. I also realized I really enjoyed and was inspired by their alternative career paths and started experimenting with career coaching.
At the same time, I started setting up online coaching with a friend. Whilst I put a lot of energy to set up that business, I was almost effortlessly getting clients with similar backgrounds as the two friends I sat with for career coaching sessions.
I started connecting the dots - this time starting from what I felt and only then rationally thinking about it to understand my feelings. I started to understand what I really enjoy. The fact that, once I made the decision, I suddenly started getting clients almost effortlessly, confirmed my belief that I was heading the right direction.
When you start feeling good about something, most of the time you don’t know why. But if you notice you really enjoyed a particular activity, look into it because it is an indicator of the direction you can take in your life:
- First, just notice your feelings. Become more observant, to your feelings pre-during-post activity. This is the most important step and if you are a rational person, perhaps the most difficult one.
- Then, to make sense of it, write down all the aspects that come to mind that have something to do with the activity. As in my example, look at the types of people, the type of activity, the skills you need to use during that activity, and so on.
- Now you can think about each aspect and test them out to realize what makes you happy. It is really important you just try out some activity to test it out, how else would you know if you like it? In my example, I went and coached different types of people, individual and in a group, on different topics - to really discover what I like. Just go out there volunteer, sign up for that class, talk to people or groups that do something similar,..
Sometimes it hits you immediately, but most of the times, you need to give it a good thought (and a feel). Maybe it takes you a few months, a few careers. But you have to start somewhere. Especially if like me, you’ve been so rational your whole life.
Following my feelings in career coaching has trickled down into all aspects of my life. I apply this ‘technique’ or a way of life in private as well as social life. I also enjoy a mix of being a coach and an IT consultant - two completely different careers, both of which fulfill different needs and parts of my multi-focused (ow so typically female) personality.
Let the feelings or intuition guide your vision and your head execute the orders, even if our society teaches us otherwise.
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If you want help in your career search or just to improve your CV or linkedIn, contact me:
www.CareerFulfillmentCoaching.com
* A final note, I don’t think this is about feelings versus rationale, I think you need both to be fulfilled. If you are someone like me that was rational their whole life, then you definitely need to learn how to notice your feelings and make sense of them. If, on the other hand, you are a person largely drawn by their emotions from left to right, up and down, then learning how to tame your impulses would serve you better than a larger focus on your emotions. I don’t believe in a one size fits all solution. You have to find the solution that works for you and then go for it full on, 100%.