What are the trends you see developing in your work choices? You may feel you have to run to keep up with the pace of change, but if you regularly coach yourself through your work choices you can set your own pace, and establish your own standards of excellence.
Generally, you feel a sense of making progress when you’re living your values at work and being your authentic self. And while all jobs have an element of routine in them, you usually feel more inspired if you’re able to find new things to learn about yourself and your skills through work.
What were my ‘wins’ today? This could be successfully negotiating with a supplier, or achieving a deadline.
What have I learnt today? Maybe you added to your skills, picked up some new knowledge, or discovered a way not to do something!
What can I change as a result of today? Perhaps you want to revisit your time management strategy as result of experiencing a bit too much stress meeting that deadline, or you decide that you’re going to step into future negotiations more readily to take your confidence to another level.
Write down your answers so that you can reflect back on them and witness the cumulative power of these small daily successes, learning points, and significant steps that you’ve integrated into your working life.
When you think about the work you plan for the future, how prepared are you for it? Do you have a dream to be your own boss, or to create a working life that is independent of your source of wealth – by investing in property for example – so that you have more freedom to choose your work on its own merits? You can think about your future work in the context of a SWOT analysis – considering your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats – as follows:
What are my strengths at work?
What weaknesses am I aware of and how am I working on them?
What opportunities do I have at work that match my whole-life goals?
What threats at work may hold me back from meeting my whole life goals?
Coach yourself for your future work by working through the following coaching questions:
Powerful opening question: What attitudes do I want to develop about work to fulfil my potential throughout my career?
Personal style: What kind of work am I naturally drawn to? What do I thrive on? What demotivates me? What kind of environments suit me best? Where do I feel most at home when I am working?
Beliefs: What negative beliefs do I have about work that prevent me from preparing for future challenges?
Motivation: What image of myself at work is most appealing as my future vision? What would I reach for if I knew that I couldn’t fail?
What’s working: What am I doing now to prepare myself for my future working life? How can I develop these behaviours and habits? What’s getting in the way of fulfilling my potential? What trends do I see developing now that either propel me forward or hold me back?
Exploring options: What options do I have to expand my working range? What is the easiest route? What is the most challenging route? What more information do I need before I decided on my options?
Taking action: What’s my first step? How much time can I allocate to planning my approach? How do I know when I am making progress? What can I do to celebrate?
