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Career coaching is a niche area of life coaching that is very popular. Many people think of using a life coach when they are considering changing career, or because they are unsure of what they want to do.
Why is it that so many people need a life coach to help them with choosing or changing a career? The answer is often to do with fear and low self esteem.
People often get stuck in making a career decision because they are afraid that they might fail in their new venture, or that they will not be good enough. Sometimes, just the very idea of making a change in one's life can be extremely terrifying.
These fears are very often due to low self esteem. The individual may feel incapable of coping with such big changes in their life, and perhaps they do not feel that they deserve the fulfilment and satisfaction that comes from being in a career they love.
This is why career coaches spend much of their time improving their clients' confidence and self belief. Every career coach has also to be a confidence coach. Improving a client's self esteem will ultimately weaken their feelings of fear and enable them to see a way forward.
How does one improve self esteem? Very often, the root causes of low self esteem come from the perceptions created by negative childhood events, or simply something that has been said to you at an early age.
However, life coaches do not (and should not) try to psycho-analyse a client, or give them counselling. This is a separate service that should only be carried out by professional counsellors or analysts. Occasionally, a life coach will refer a client to a professional counsellor if they feel that the individual is severely blocked by past events and cannot be helped by coaching.
On the whole, though, a life coach can help to increase a client's low self esteem once the client has realised that the events of the past, or negative feedback, really has nothing to do with them. We all make choices in life, and our choices have sometimes been to believe what someone has told us, or that a "bad" event is proof of our inadequacy. Once we understand that we did not have to make that choice, we are then free to make a different choice.
Once you realise that you are free to make your own choices about yourself, you can begin to start thinking about yourself in a different way. You can begin to look for the positives within yourself and learn to recognise your abilities. You begin to rely less on the opinions of others, and start to trust your own judgment.
Once this process has started, the client will begin to feel a better sense of clarity about the career paths ahead of them. As they become free of the past, they can get more in touch with what they would truly love to do. The career that they have always wanted, but were afraid was beyond them, suddenly becomes a possibility.
Improving self esteem is an integral part of career coaching, and has benefits that will not only help you in your career, but in all other areas of life.
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