In the self-improvement career coaching online that I do with my high-achieving female executive coaching clients, we focus on getting promotions. This isn’t solely the kind of ‘promotion’ your boss can offer you.
My coaching clients do move up quickly, via self-improvement, and earn the roles they want. However, it’s actually more about progress towards self-improvement that makes every subsequent decision easier – both at home and at work.
The first step is in recognising a few ‘uncomfortable truths’. These are the kind we’d prefer didn’t apply to us, but that we have to engage with. This is particularly prevalent if we are a minority in the field in which we work.
Self-improvement uncomfortable truths for career progression
- 1. No one will ever care about your career as much as you do. You may have a great partner, a fantastic boss, even great mentors – however, they will never care about the direction your career takes as much as you do.
- This hard realisation is what often draws people to my career coaching online, as they’ve either seen me speak or perhaps read one of my books like ‘Beyond the Boys’ Club’ where I dig deeper into what it takes for women to succeed in male-dominated fields.
- 2. Successful delivery in your job is taken for granted once you reach a certain level. Most people make a good start in their early jobs, just cranking out long hours and a lot of technical work. This works for a period of time – but it’s only the start.
- Unfortunately, you’ll have to get more recognition for what you are achieving, as there are no fairy career-mothers waiting to reward you for your efforts. Getting credit for your work is a key stage in self-improvement on the job. Without it, you cannot get any further. Luckily, clients for my presentations seem to get this too.
- 3. Get comfortable with self-promotion. You may never have to lift a finger because your boss sings your praises to anyone who will listen. But if they do all the way to promotion level, you are in a very lucky minority.
- What most people, in the real world have to do, is increase their willingness to self-promote.
- This is not self-promotion without ethics or honesty. It’s simply spending more time communicating what you and your team are achieving, so you can all benefit. It’s based on getting credit for your skills.
- This isn’t just blagging it about all that you could achieve, but focusing on the evidence of what you’ve already achieved. For most of my clients this is far more than they normally give themselves credit for!
- Faking it until you make it, couldn’t be further from my mindset which is all about rewarding competence, as you can see from my latest published book. The good news is that’s not the psychological place where any of my achievement-driven career coaching online clients live in any case!
This last one is perhaps the most uncomfortable truth for many of my career coaching online clients to face. But face it together we do, and they go onto the roles they want. If you are curious as to what career coaching online with me could do for you, take a look at this video which focuses on the benefits of coaching in the workplace for professional women.
