job – Touch of Clarity

7 steps to decision-making clarity

28/07/2020 touchofclarity

🤷‍♀️ Why do people get stuck when making a decision?

timj-Vrv_nZHaFTc-unsplash — Photo by timJ on Unsplash

That’s a really good question, and there may be many answers to it! This is why I find it helpful to take a systematic and structured approach to the decision-making thought process. At every stage self-awareness is as necessary as the content that surfaces when thinking through a decision. Many obstacles and hindrances to decision-making often and subtly surface up into the light but can then be excused by the irrational self. In these moments, it can be a challenge to have clear perception.

Whether you are making a life-changing decision about your relationships, your career, your life goals yourself or your wellbeing, here is my 7 step personal decision-making approach for clarity. I hope it will save you time, stress and ultimately heartache, when trying think through your decision!

Step 1: Define your situation

This is where it begins!

The more self-knowledgeable you are, the faster you will pass through this stage. Here, you’ll get to weigh up the significance of this decision you’re making against who you are, what you stand for, where you’re heading, and decide whether this decision needs to be taken now.

If you are a person of faith, then you will also want to bring God into this entire journey.

Self-Coaching questions for step 1

What is/are… [aka Define]:

the significance of this decision?
your needs?
your priorities?
your wants?
your vision, mission & values?
the implications if you do not make a decision about this?
the ideal decision?
the timing of your decision?

Step 2: Clarify what you’re making a decision about

Clarifying what the driving and resisting forces of this decision are, what is influencing the decision and how much power those influences have over you and your decision, as well as gaining insight into your decision-making strengths and weaknesses will help clarify what your decision is really about.

Self-Coaching questions for step 2

Clarify:

how does this decision align with your values?
how does this decision align with your goals & vision?
how does this decision align with your purpose & mission?
what are your decision-making strengths and weaknesses?
what are the driving forces in your decision?
what are the resisting forces in your decision?
what are the influencing factors in your decision?
what gaps are there in your knowledge, skills, competencies and experience re this decision?
who is/are influencing this decision?

Step 3: Identify outcomes of your decision

This activity will help you to separate what are assumed, and what are certain outcomes of your decision. Broken down into short, medium and long term outcomes, this step will help you to reflect on your emotional and psychological commitment to those outcomes.

You’ll also gain some insight into your change readiness.

Self-Coaching questions for step 3

Identify the short, medium and long term outcomes with:

what will this decisions’ impact be on your physical, spiritual, emotional, psychological health?
how will it affect the people directly involved in your life?
what it will mean for the regular routine you live by or your daily activities?
what are the material considerations of your outcomes (e.g. possessions & value of them)?
what are the financial considerations of your outcomes (e.g. regular income, savings, investments, retirement)?
what are the career & job considerations of your outcomes?

Step 4: Consider the options, alternatives, consequences & opportunities of the decision

Here is where you identify all the risks in your decision, as well as the impact of this decision to your and others before actually committing to it.

Self-Coaching questions for step 4

Consider:

what are the pros and cons?
what are the risks? How to mitigate them?
what are the positive and negative impacts?
where can opportunities be found?
how will it cost you in time & personal resources?
what sacrifices will be required?
what would you ideal choice be if you had to choose?

Step 5: Understand any emotions behind your decision

Your heart is greatly influenced by your past experiences, your desires, your passions, your pains, your personality, and a myriad of other factors and qualities.

Here is an opportunity to check the balance between your emotions and your rationale, moving forward without looking back in regret.

Self-Coaching questions for step 4

Understand:

what pressures may this decision be feeding on?
what needs may this decision be feeding on?
how can I be more balanced (head vs heart)?
what emotions are influencing here?
what are my fears?
where might I be experiencing limiting beliefs?
how will my feelings change after this decision?
how are my past experiences influencing my emotions & feelings?
when am I likely to change my mind because of others’ feelings?

Step 6: Capture other viewpoints & objective opinions

There is GREAT VALUE in seeking counsel.

Seek the opinion of those:

immediately involved in this decision
indirectly involved in this decision
experienced in this area
whose wisdom you appreciate & respect
in the ‘helping’ professions

Self-Coaching questions for step 6

Capture:

what do the people most involved in this decision have to say?
what do people indirectly involved in this decision have to say?
what do people with experience of this decision have to say?
what do people whose wisdom you appreciate and respect have to say?
what do professionals from the ‘helping’ professions have to say?

Step 7: Prepare & commit yourself to your decision

Often, limiting beliefs and self-sabotage about a decision happen before the very moment of committing to a decision. This is unlikely to happen if you’ve gone through the previous 6 steps to decision-making clarity. You will know what actions are needed to move forward confidently and courageously.

Self-Coaching questions for step 7

Prepare & Commit:

what are my critical activities moving forward?
what personal preferences do I have?
how can I exercise greater freedom of heart?
where do I need to exercise more resilience?
where do I need to exercise more courage?
what are my coping strategies?
how often should I review my progress and approach?
what does my task list look like?

Need an objective opinion to walk through the above with?

Depending on your situation (particularly the time limitation) and the gravity of the decision you have to make, you may be interested in an intensive breakthrough coaching session to get to decision-making clarity quickly, and for putting a sketch plan in place.

Intensive Breakthrough Coaching Session for decision-making clarity (2.5 hrs)

What is included in your session?

Initial email outlining your preparation for the session
Any relevant tools or materials required for activities in your session
Face to face to face session in West London OR video meeting call (prices vary by location & added onto base price. Video meetings via Zoom are no extra cost.)
Follow up email with reflections from the session and suggested actions

Your investment

My intensive breakthrough coaching session is great value at a base price of £325. For this amount you will gain:

peace of mind and of heart that you have made the most informed and thought-through decision you could possibly have made
clarity on 99.9% of elements, factors, influences and options worth considering
an impeccably designed set of action points / plan to make any changes smoothly based on who you are and where you’re heading
greater knowledge of your blindspots and choke points, with an increased desire to manage those
confidence because you’ll have cleared mental and emotional obstacles preventing you from moving forward
enhanced or maintained good quality relationships (personal or professional)
holistic & well-balanced perspective, energy and momentum
avoidance of more time and money spent down the line from a decision that ultimately cost you more than you could afford
relief from stress and heartache that would have been an outcome of a poorly-made decision

Tips for CV L-Writers… according to your learning style

08/05/202008/05/2020 touchofclarity

It can be assumed that I’m writing this blogpost for teens or recent graduates looking for their first job. You are mistaken.

I believe there will be a lot of people out there, who are writing their CVs for the first time, who are beyond this category of CV Learner Writers (I’ve nicknamed them CV L-Writers for ease, hence the title!). I have one client, for example, who has set up and ran businesses, who is super bright and super loving, who loves learning, but has never written a CV in her life. She’s never had to. Having come into the family business soon after O-levels and then being in the business world until she became a mother to two amazing children has meant that she has never had to apply for a job. Now, however, this is something that she is exploring, and I’m here to offer her career coaching help.

Of course, one of the first objectives was to get a CV together. An entirely new concept for my client! There were indeed blockages there when trying to put this CV together, and it became a task that for weeks hadn’t been completed. After coaching the issue out, and understanding the bigger picture, it appeared that my client needed to complete the task in a way that many might not understand. You see, she is a Reflector-Pragmatist blend of learner, and this would make her task of CV writing difficult – especially in lockdown!

So what are learning styles and why are they important for career coaches to understand? I guess I learned the hard way. Our careers are a journey that we are always learning from. Based on the work of Kolb (…), Peter Honey and Alan Mumford identified four preferential learning styles. You can research into their work yourself if you are more interested, but here’s my take on it here:

Which one are you? Or in fact, which blend are you?

My client as a Reflector-Pragmatist first needs to watch someone explaining what they are doing as they create their CV. She’ll take a billion and one notes about it. And then she will apply past life experiences to having a go, but needs to be assisted whilst on the task by a respected practitioner. This had not dawned on me until most recently. It has inspired the content for this post, since others may also be needing some helpful tips on learning how to write their CV bearing in mind their learning styles.

For the purposes of not drowning this post, I simply post up the tips, but don’t point to any particular sources. Notice that NONE of these learners would ever revert to a CV writing service. They will learn their way, and not fob of the task onto someone else.

Tips for ACTIVISTS

My friend… you’ve probably already started on the task and are ready to share your first draft with your coach! But if you’re not quite there yet, here’s a few tips especially for you with love from Claz!

Get cracking way before your set deadlines so that you can produce multiple drafts if need-be.
Research your ideal model CV using the various means and methods you have at your disposal.
Consider taking up a career coach to keep you on track and to give you the feedback that you will be wanting after your drafts.
Don’t rush the process. Activist learners have a tendency to move on too quickly from one experience to the next. In doing so, they block their own abilities to learn effectively.

Tips for REFLECTORS

My cautious and careful friend, I understand the risks you are imagining in your mind as you begin your CV writing task. But don’t you worry! This practical experience is going to be of great worth to you once you have landed the job that you’re going to be happy excelling in. My tips for you:

Start. Just start. Once you’re started, don’t stop. Build up your courage to keep going. Creating something badly is better than not creating it at all, if that’s what you’re worried about.
Hear/Watch others’ stories and ask your network of friends, family, acquaintances to share with you how they went about putting their CV together.
Watch YouTube tutorials.
Ask your career coach if he/she has anybody who is currently writing their CV whether you might be able to Zoom call or meet with the CV L-writer to observe how they do it.
Try to engage sufficiently with others in the process, but not become dependent on them to do the task. E.g. you might want to pay a CV writer to sit with you as you produce your CV (note: you must not have the CV writer do the task for you though!).

Tips for THEORISTS

I love the simplicity of your approach, dear friend. There are many websites out there with clear instructions for you to follow. Many career services will also offer CV-writing support in a logical and theoretical way.

Get in touch with your local University or Higher-Education College Career Service and make yourself known to them.
Understand the ideas and the intended concept of what you are reading. Remember that after this process is over, every step lead to an outcome. That’s what you’re aiming for! The outcome being a ready-to-distribue CV!
It may be worth thinking outside the box about who you might want to work with here. Yes, career coaches can be of invaluable help, as can CV writers. But people who write job descriptions, interview candidates and sit on shortlisting panels could also teach you a thing or two about what would be valuable in a CV.
Try not to ignore your intuitions and creativity or you may miss out on learning something new.

Tips for PRAGMATISTS

Your openness to new techniques and ideas is a result of your realistic and practical approach to problem-solving, my friend. You also very much appreciate respected practitioner coaches to give you feedback on your tasks.

You are so capable of completing the task, so continue in perseverance until it’s completed. Don’t become complacent.
Keep reminding yourself of the ‘why’ you are doing this task, so as not to reject or ignore ideas supporting your task and completing it.
On the very rare occasion, you will have to learn to do things that might not make sense to you, or that you can’t see the bigger ‘why’. I know it’s not as natural for you, but don’t let this prevent you from your learning opportunities. Life is full of learning, and worth learning even these lessons, that may appear to be insignificant or not of value to you. Don’t lose out. Your opportunity to learn is a gift.

So there we are. I hope that you will find some of this information helpful for you. Feel free to share it on to others whom you feel could benefit! You could also get in touch with questions 🙂

I’m Claz, a Professional Career Coach based in West London, accredited in the UK. I am also a Life & Wellbeing Coach, working with individuals as well as organisations. You can contact me through my website www.touchofclarity.com.

5 things you need to know when exploring career options & development

01/05/202001/05/2020 touchofclarity

Exploring career options often brings up the question ‘Where do I begin?’. It can be quite a challenging practical reality for many people under normal circumstances, but in these times, the pressure might be felt more.

It’s tough out there right now. I know. Don’t lose heart, and make sure you have your bases and foundations with which to build on firmly established.

If you’re someone exploring your career options, these 5 things are going to really help you get started. Together they form something called your CAREER PERSONALITY, and is pretty much just your ‘Career-oriented Self-Awareness‘.

Why do you need to know these 5 things?

Well, your career personality is essentially the picture of yourself that will not only guide your decision-making, but is also a major part of the ‘package’ (that is you as the unique and wonderful human being that you are) that your prospective employers, colleagues, co-workers will be receiving into their workplace and work lives. It is a holistic picture, that only you can paint, since it is borne out of your own self-awareness and self-knowledge.

1. Your Career Interests

Knowing your Career Interests can serve multiple functions. It can help you to:

Know which industries and/or sectors would be best suited to you
Get a feel for which occupations you might be a good fit for
Prioritise where and how you focus your job search
Differentiate you from potential competition
Explore out-of-the-box ideas
Foster hope and happiness in you

There are various ways that this can be explored. My clients receive my Career Discovery workbook. There are also a few career interests inventories out there – the Strong Interests inventory being one of the most powerful. One of the most fun inventories that I have found is the free app Game of Choices. I can’t really vouch for its accuracy, but some of my clients have enjoyed the fun of it, which can reduce the intensity of career exploration.

2. Your Career Personality Traits

It’s fairly common knowledge that in the workplace, we can adapt to behaving completely differently from how we normally do outside of work. Various factors influence this – particularly if you are in management & leadership positions. Knowing understanding, and embracing your core personality is fundamental as it allows you to manage your attitude and behaviour so as not to stray too far from your core. If you are in management or leadership, then the more you can align your management/leadership personality with your core personality, the more fulfilled you are going to be in these roles. For anyone not in these positions, it will be vital for your sense of wellbeing to turn up for work the best version of yourself.

If a recruiter has recruited WELL, then they will want you to flourish in the organisation and in the role itself, enabling you to be yourself and to reach a point of self-actualisation. There is really more to say on this point about recruitment, which I believe is sadly focused more on tasks than it is on people. A huge amount of cultural change is needed here, in my opinion.

There are several ways you can get to know your personality traits. The first is by really observing yourself in an objective manner, and learning about yourself from others’ honest and non-biased observations (really tricky, that one!). There are then psychometric testing that could reveal to you your traits. Professionally, I use the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, but there are many others out there and there are other blogs that specialise in this information. I like to use Schein’s Career Orientiations Inventory with my clients, as it reveals to me certain career personality traits together with intentional direction – great meat to chew on with my clients in our coaching sessions!

3. Your Career Values

Firstly I need to tell you that Career Values are not the same as your Personal Core Values. These two are of different levels of importance. Core Values are of secondary importance whereas Career Values are of tertiary importance. This hierarchy of importance is where a lot of people go wrong.

Your worth and dignity is beyond any value – it is infinite. It is constant and never changes. Nothing material (such as money) can ever ransom or exchange your intrinsic and human worth. Please, please remember this for the rest of your life!! Whatever salary you are paid does not equal your immeasurable worth… ok??

Secondly, let’s establish the hierarchy of values. Your Personal Core Values are fundamental interior lights that find an expression for your unique worth. They are both borne out of, and feed back into, your beliefs, attitude and behaviours, your tendencies, attractions and then the faculty of your will. Personal Core Values are of secondary importance in understanding oneself. The tertiary importance of Career Values is simply based on the fact that they ought to be borne out of personal core values, and not the other way around.

When someone places their sense of worth on their career, or what they can do, they strip themselves of their inherent dignity and value. This is level III-I (three to one) disorder. Level III-II (three to two) disorder can be found when, in a similar manner, someone’s personal values are uprooted, and re-rooted in the third hierarchy – that of the career. In other words, someone’s core values are aligned with career values, rather than the other way around. This is, in my opinion, disorder, pure and simple. Is it any wonder why people climb career ladders, achieving all their career goals, and yet experience this emptiness or dissatisfaction in life!?

When I’m career coaching, I use a variety of methods to identify clients’ career values, but I stress the distinction between these values and core values. One of the most fundamental pieces I work on with life coaching clients is personal core values identification. Sometimes, I work on both – but it depends on the client. There’s a myriad of content out there about values, and on this one, I encourage you to do some research (taking into account all I’ve just said) 🙂

4. Your Skills and Competencies

This is usually the most obvious approach someone takes when beginning their career exploration or development. I think this is because when it comes down to recruitment, one of the major shortlisting factors is skills and competencies.

There’s a multitude of ways you can determine or get clarity on your skills and competencies. One task I might give my clients is a workbook based on the European Skills, Competences, Qualifications and Occupations classifications, which I call the Skills to Occupations Inventory. I might also give my clients a personal SWOT style analysis. As mentioned, there are a myriad of options out there. This skills matcher is a helpful one, I have found.

5. Your Differentiator

Finally, knowing what makes you different will give you that added boost of confidence at both application and interview stage. This is really an amalgamation of the previous 4 steps, plus your own conviction and character.

During this time, we’re going to see huge organisational changes, and the way we work is also going to change. The Covid-19 / Coronavirus pandemic is going to loosen tightened hearts. Soft-skills like empathy, compassion, understanding are skills that will be very much needed – skills, that we aren’t often needed or appreciated in the majority of corporate roles. Resilience and adversity – where does that sit with you? Where do you sit with them in yourself?

The power of career coaching really shines through when it comes to differentiation work. Here, working with a coach will nail down the clarity on what makes you different from the rest, and how to really bring that message into your application and interviews. This is because your career coach will be looking for the absolute best in you as well as the blind spots in you too. Your answers to their requests for information (whether the method is application, testing or interview), if holistic yet honest will make you really stand out.

Taking this further

You could, of course, work through the above on your own. That would be fantastic, and a lot cheaper for you! However, if assistance in developing your career personality is needed then, of course, I’m going to recommend that you get yourself a career coach.

A good career coach wants you to know as much about yourself as possible, wants you to be convinced by the worth of who you are and the added value of what you can offer the world, and wants you to succeed for your very own sake, and not for what they would benefit from being your coach. As great as that sounds, however, it will require you to do your homework. This sort of stuff doesn’t always appear in a dream 😉 If you are furloughed at the moment, this might be a good time to do this work.

Self-Knowledge / Self-Awareness in career work is often known as Career Personality. Whilst a career coach can help you with the other parts of the process of getting a job and also continued professional development, for me personally, the starting point must be your self-knowledge. It is absolutely fundamental to your preparations for your next move. Your development or progress may be misdirected if you ultimately don’t know the end goal for yourself, and your decision-making may not be truly aligned with your core values otherwise. No coach would ever want you to make decisions that will lead to unhappiness.

Your journey of self-discovery will be a beautiful one, I promise. And oh, how excited I am for you if you’re about to embark on it!