Confessions of a Career Coach
Confession time. As a life and career coach, my biggest failure has been helping my son find his place in the world. Because kids don’t actually want to be coached by their mum. And in his place of not knowing, he didn’t want his mother to take him to uncomfortable places. My son talks to his hairdresser (okay, she is also his mate´s mum, and a safe place for him). She can even say things like, “That´s life, suck it up!” THAT’s how much sway she has.
My husband and I have fought the great career fight and retreated numerous times, and now with his 3rd ´gap´ year already underway we felt very close to the edge. Because the boat design and building course he had finally chosen and been accepted for in November was only going to happen if there were enough applicants, and they would only decide in mid-Jan!
Boats have been his thing since we took the kids blue-water cruising when he was 3.5 and his
sister was 7, and he lived on a yacht for 3.5 years. His school books always had way more pics of yachts than writing in them, and the first thing he did in his (first) gap year was get his skippers ticket and do all the courses he needed to go on ´the yachts´. Then he fell in love and the yachts went out of the window. So building boats replaced sailing them. Until mid-Jan, when the bottom fell out of his boat world altogether, and it was too late to apply for anything else. Another wasted year loomed.
But this is a story about faith and trust.
It’s about learning to let go and trust that your child will find their place in the world at their right time. And this is a hard ask when you can help other people´s kids, but not your own. I began questioning my belief in helping a child find something that resonates with them on a deeper motivational level and should instead become The Parent and give him an ultimatum. We even had that conversation and he agreed, because he was done.
He finally agreed to a career chat with me, but he wanted to show me something first. The
something was an application for computer science at Varsity College that he was halfway through. How had he even got to that? He plays loads of games but… And the worst thing was, he hadn’t even spoken to me!
I called up my inner coach and stood quietly and watched. He was applying for next year he said while he calmly uploaded his documents and pressed send. This year he was going to work hard and save… He had it sorted. Without even talking to me!
Long story short, we didn’t even have time for our chat because it turned out that they still had a place open for this year and it was his if he wanted it! He went in, registered, paid and started the next day. No drama, no anxiety, nada. We are still stunned, wondering where the heck that came from. And where had our son gone?
Overnight he has turned into a responsible, conscientious, calm, can-do young man who has (apologies for the appalling analogy but I can’t help myself) taken the helm of his life and is steering his own ship. Without even talking to me!
My learning through this? He was living proof that my instinct was right. That when you choose something that is authentically right for you, you stop swimming upstream. He had chosen his path, absolutely sure that it felt right, and even the hard stuff has become doable because it is his choice. And also, I’d had to allow him to make the choice without me.
Have a good week,
Love Vanessa
If you are looking for your career path or want to create meaningful change in your life, contact me at 076 778 2787 for a free 30-minute exploratory session.
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