Coaching often starts with “How can I support myself and have more “Work-Life Balance?”.  I noticed over the holidays that the most important thing to me is that people, including me, feel at home in their lives, their relationships and their careers. How do I know? Because when I am around people who are struggling to find their purpose, who are suffering because they think there is something wrong with them, who are working very hard to become someone who can matter in the world, I am instantly on high alert. I can feel myself get protective, and I can feel how they must feel to not belong in their own lives. How horrible! I spent years of my life feeling just like that, so I know how awful it is to be in that mood.

I was recently coaching and witnessed a wonderful young man struggling to realize what made him so terrific at his craft. He’s won many awards, and his clients love him. Yet, he has no idea why he does what he does. As he struggled to find his connection to that question, he kept coming up with all the bad things that have happened to him in his life, trying to explain why he chose what he chose as a profession. It never ocurred to anyone that he might have been born to do what he is doing! That all the circumstance of his life have led him to be perfectly suited to care for his craft and his clients in his very special way. When we stop and appreciate what we offer to life, we can often see this sort of thing much more clearly.

Career Wisdom Institute was founded on the belief that everyone has a fit with life, and discovering that fit aims us at careers that will give us meaning and will serve the world. That design becomes our cause, our reason for raising our hand, our reason for joining a community or organization. That design becomes the guidance system of our life. When we align with that cause, that design, we relax, and we feel wonderful. We feel at home.

Here’s some coaching for you!  Try this as you start your next week: Put a pad of paper by your bed, and prior to shutting off the light each night, jot down 2 things you are grateful for that happened that day. They don’t have to be earth shattering, just something wonderful that gave you a great feeling. Remember that feeling, how your physical body felt, and write that down.  Do this for 30 days, and let us know if anything changes!