"I hate my job, but feel like I can't leave..."

2/6/2018

Yesterday, Monday 5th February is dubbed "National Sickie Day" - did you take a duvet day? Are you back at work feeling sheepish for your absence yesterday? Was it because you were genuinely poorly or was there a more complicated reason behind spending the day at home?

The first Monday of February is traditionally the day that has the highest number of employees calling in sick over the course of the year. An interesting piece of trivia, possibly related to the end of many people's dry January, or that there are so many viruses going around - but my concern is when its something deeper. When its something harder to shake off than a cold. Something like the fact that some of us can't face going into our places of work when we have come to detest how we spend our days.

That's a red flag. Notice it.

I meet many clients where the main focus of our sessions is career and job satisfaction (or lack thereof). And it makes a lot of sense that this should be the main focus for our emotional energy. If someone is working full time, then over 70% of their week is spent either at work or commuting there and back. Or worse - as we are now permanently connected to our smartphones we tend to work late into the evening and are seemingly on-call 24/7.

And I get it. This used to be me.

So when my clients come to me and ask for help in determining what they should do with their careers, whether they should call time on an unfulfilling and exhausting job it's an area that I feel uniquely experienced in to raise some pertinent questions. Perhaps you might like to ask yourself these now and note your response:

How did you get to where you are now?
Do you dread going to work?
Where is it that you want to be instead?
What's holding you back from making change?

I've realised in-fact that this has become such a big part of my work, an area that I enjoy so much and that has been working so well for my clients, that executive and career coaching is a new area that I will be bringing to my practice from the end of February 2018. So clients who don't necessarily have a counselling or therapeutic issue to work on right now can book a session. Perhaps those who are looking for guidance, coaching through a thought process, to talk over a different perspective that might assist them in making what could be one of the biggest decisions of their life. That might mean a change of career completely, perhaps leaving an unsatisfactory job for a career break or to work on achieving promotion - just a few of the things that my clients and I already work with. To support this work I've booked myself onto an intense piece of training which will give me a formal qualification in coaching - so watch this space for an updated section of the site which includes this service.

Coaching session enquiries are welcome now, with a view to commencing sessions in the second part of February 2018. Please feel free to get in touch if this is something you would like to talk about in more detail.

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