Not all my clients are as bold as Lucy. She routinely urges her friends and acquaintances who are having career challenges to make an appointment with Career Counseling Connecticut. She’s pushy but in a funny way. She often lets me know that one of her contacts will be calling and then will relay how she convinced the resistant.
“So Donna tells me that she doesn’t want to pay for career coaching. I asked her how much does she pay for her gym each year. It was close to $1000. She only goes a couple of times a week, particularly in the summer when she runs outdoors… [Lucy elaborated on the wastefulness of a gym when you can work out in your home]… but she has complained to me about her job for the last ten years. I told her that over the last dozen years she has spent over $10,000 on a gym membership that she doesn’t really need and $0 on career change. Makes no sense…”
In defense of gyms, I think paying for the membership incentivizes people to work out more. The outside force. creates accountability.
Almost all of our clients – at least those over thirty – leave by saying: “I should have come here years ago.” One of the reasons why career coaching is so effective – assuming you have found a good coach – is that the process is an outside force that creates similar accountability.
To be clear, the guidance of a good career counselor is really what clients are investing in but, unquestionably, those that engage in a career counseling process are engaging in a similar accountability process as to those who are trained effectively by fitness trainers.