You are in the office, but you are not truly “present.” You are comfortable at your organization, but you are not challenged in a meaningful way.
The pay is good, the situation isn’t threatening, you have worked hard for a long time to get to this point, your team is in decent shape, and you are relaxed.
You’ve reached your destination. Cheers!
For some in the same situation though, there’s a nagging sense of “there has to be more than this,” and that feeling won’t go away on its own. In fact, left unattended it will only increase over time.
Maybe you haven’t reached your destination. Maybe instead the foot is off the gas pedal and you are just coasting.
Breaking through roadblocks
We dream a bigger dream — pursuing a promotion, launching a new business, moving on to a larger organization — and then we begin to tell ourselves stories about why we can’t get there. Consciously or not, we throw up roadblocks, binary “black and white” reasons for why we can’t do this or that.
I worked with one client who was truly done with the big organization life. She was successful but really wanted to be out on her own, forging a different, more entrepreneurial path. There was one reason, then another, and yet another for why she just couldn’t pull the trigger.
Money was a factor, but she’d done well enough to have a sizeable cushion to fall back on. We worked through this and then began to focus on security, how “risky” it was to make the leap. I found this odd as she never seemed particularly risk averse in her corporate career — quite the opposite, actually!
We delved deep into the security question, trying to get at the root of the roadblock. Turns out those concerns about security were rooted in a nagging lack of self-worth, despite all her success. Behind that sheen of confident executive was a very insecure person, who was fearful of being “found out” for not really having what it takes.
Confronting the fear
The executive coaching process unpacks these issues and helps you get to the heart of what’s really holding you back, the fears that keep us locked in, stuck in professional routines that are no longer working.
For many hard-charging executives, road warriors, and star players, it’s hard to admit having fear, hard even to recognize it within ourselves. “Fear is for others, those who never got out of the starting gate,” one may say. But that’s not true. In fact, the more someone refuses to acknowledge the fear, the bigger it grows, the more influence it has, the more roadblocks they face.
Help
Maybe you don’t know what it is you’re looking for, maybe you need help finding your edge. The executive coaching process is designed to promote clarity, to uncover these locked away answers.
Significant change isn’t always the solution. Instead, the key to your particular happiness may be reframing your current situation, finding ways to be challenged and rewarded within your current structure.
Success in the business world, regardless of industry, relies in some capacity on networking — for opportunities, for clients, for knowledge, for badly needed levity. A quality executive coach is another part of your network, someone special whose duty is to you and you alone, someone who can help you move into areas out of your comfort zone. Broad knowledge, deep in several silos, will serve you well as you strive to be a better leader. It’s also a key to personal satisfaction for those of us driven to grow, driven to exceed our past successes.
Fulfillment is a magical thing. Need help getting there? Drop me a line.