When you know you want change (but you're not making it happen)
Careers can lose purpose over time. We can drift to a place that no longer meet our deeper needs. Yet we often stay stuck there. Change can be elusive.
Stephan Fowler
Coaching is thinking together. I work on the basis that self-understanding can provide you with a sufficient will to change. My role is just to catalyse this. I am directive about the process, ensuring our work together is orientated to outcomes that are both meaningful and realisable.
I focus on these areas:
Career transition. Over time a gap may have developed between your work life and your sense of self. You may or may not have an idea of the change you want, but it feels insurmountable.
Managing people. You want them to flourish, but they don't. You sense that your management style is disempowering, or that you don't truly engage with or inspire others.
Mid-life transition. What previously made sense no longer seems to. It may be time to actually integrate this shift into your life, rather than let it fester unacknowledged.
Change happens when you become what you are. Not when you try to become what you're not.
Why coaching?
Equality & Empowerment. Coaching rejects external ideas of right or wrong, in favour of a positive inner evaluation of your self, your autonomy, and your self-expertise.
Awareness & Responsibility. Change emerges as a function of your awareness of yourself plus your responsibility toward yourself. These are aspects unique to you that coaching explores in depth, and challenges you to reconsider and to act upon.
Goals & directions. Coaching starts from the idea that you should orientate towards choices and behaviours that are in harmony with your values. It helps makes sure that your direction is meaningful to you, a path towards an idea of yourself that you are enthused about pursuing.
From a client...
"I'd reached a point in my career whereby I'd fallen into a bit of a rut. I began seeing Stephan Fowler with a view to fleshing out how I could get out of my predicament. He's been enormously helpful in both directing me towards longer term goals, but crucially in how I navigate my daily working life; focusing on my strengths and my approach. He's both a great sounding post and also gives very practical advice in a resolutely fuss-free way. Ultimately the change comes from within and Stephan has given some very useful markers in how to circuit any issues I've had career-wise and how to go about enacting positive change."
Google review by Paddy
What's the outcome?
You may well be up for a solo journey, but coaching is a partnership that may help you navigate your dilemmas. It's collaborative, and empathic towards you and the specificity of your world.
Coaching aims to help you...
Recognise the importance of change.
Build confidence in your ability to do so.
Commit yourself to taking action.
Coaching begins by clarifying what change is actually right for you. It explores what you find valuable and meaningful, reinforces your efficacy, and elicits commitment to taking action.
Fundamentally, it supports you in resolving ambivalence and stuckness. Coaching tries to tip the balance by developing your awareness of agency, innate motivation, and ultimate responsibility for your choices.
Ambivalence is normal, it's a stage on your journey towards change. Just make sure you don't get stuck there.
Where are you?
Identifying your stage of change and then supporting you through the subsequent ones is a core aim of coaching.
Next steps...
FAQ about coaching in general.
Contact me to arrange a free initial conversation or with any questions about the relevance of coaching to your situation.