So you've decided to get some career coaching. You've got your goals and you're ready to get started. How many sessions are you going to need?
We get asked this question a lot. It’s a fair line of inquiry, as you’re likely weighing up the financial cost as well as the time it’ll take to solve your problem (e.g. finding a new career, or securing a promotion).
In essence, the number of coaching sessions depends a lot on your coaching goals and what you’re ready to work on.
Sometimes clients’ coaching goals are clear cut and relatively quick to achieve. For example, you may need some help preparing for an upcoming interview or choosing between different job offers. In these situations, one or two sessions are often ample.
In other instances, you may have been contemplating a career change for a while now, and have a clear picture of what you’d like to do next (e.g. from science to teaching; or from marketing to interior design). You may just need an impartial sounding board to sense check your ideas, flesh out the best strategies and obtain some support to put it all into action. Depending on the amount of ground work you’ve already completed and how fast you put things into action, this can take between three and six sessions.
Other coaching goals can seem straightforward, though once we scratch the surface things are more complex and require more time to work through. A good example of this is clients who are seeking more clarity and direction to make a career change. A common response to why you’re seeking a change is something like: “I fell into my current career and have lost the passion for it, but don’t really know what I want to do next.”
When we begin coaching, we often also uncover things like:
· “I don’t feel a sense of purpose at work anymore”
· “I’ve got really different values or passions to those required for my job or profession”
· “I’m sick of never-ending restructures and constant productivity disruptions”
· “I can’t stand my manager”
· “I’ve come back from parental leave to a part-time role, but instead have to work full-time hours on a part-time salary”
· “I’m the only female in a male-dominated work environment, I don’t feel understood and can’t truly be myself”
Through further exploration, this can also lead to discovering some rich development opportunities, which become often additional coaching objectives, such as:
· Clearly articulating your strengths, values and what is really important to you
· Speaking up for yourself and asking for what you really want
· Better navigating workplace politics
· Influencing without formal authority (getting things done through others who don’t report to you)
· Developing a stronger leadership presence
· Building effective relationships with your direct manager and key stakeholders
· Identifying and developing advocates and sponsors at work, and in your profession more broadly
· Treating yourself with more compassion and kindness
For the clients who are open and ready to explore these sorts of deeper development opportunities, we recommend starting with a block of six sessions, with the possibility of extending for additional sessions as required.
Understandably, the amount of sessions we schedule for each client is informed by each client’s unique personality, needs and circumstances, therefore the above examples are a guide only.
In all instances, we maintain a safe, confidential and reflective thinking space for clients to explore, experiment and learn, to ultimately implement their chosen strategies and achieve their coaching goals!
(We still get really excited and energized by helping each and every one of you towards your coaching goals – being able to nurture, inspire, empower you to be better versions of yourselves is why we do what we do!)
