Image by Chräcker Heller from Pixabay
By Dave Bushy, PCC
“After a time, you may find that having is not so pleasing a thing after all as wanting. It is not logical, but it is often true.” Spock – Star Trek
Career aspirations are fascinating. Seldom are they verbalized or fully explained, even to ourselves. But sometimes in quiet conversations, and occasionally in daydreams, we think about what it would look like if we got the ideal job, the officer position in a company, or just the right situation that would fit our needs and desires.
As a coach I get to work with a lot of high performing leaders whose career aspirations include ascending to the top tiers of their companies or organizations. And often I see them succeed in those dreams, getting promoted into positions of great authority and even greater responsibility.
Those leaders get what they want. But sometimes, like the quote above, they find that having the job to which they aspired might not be quite as pleasing as they originally thought. And, as the quote implies, it is not wholly logical when those feelings emerge. It is not uncommon for them to have feelings of disorientation, or a level of remorse, or even imposter syndrome. It can be like a dog that catches a car for some people, leading them to say to me, “What do I do now?”
The fact is that we never really know what the future will bring and how we will feel about it.
As a coach, I help clients work through what they are experiencing, and encourage them to fully examine the tools that they have at their disposal to succeed.
I’ve worked with clients who have leaned hard into personal development, exploring as many aspects of their capabilities as they could. What I find interesting is that the awareness they built about themselves and the actions they took in their growth was based on real data and feedback, while dreams about positions they desired were not nearly so evidence-based.
The ideal job or position might be far more undefined or unknown. When I coach clients seeking a promotion or position they think they want, I spend a lot of time learning what it is that drives them and what they really want to achieve. I inquire about the reasons, the motivations and often about how they feel about those aspirations. Sometimes I ask them to do some “future thinking,” where they imagine a time when they have achieved their career goal. “Tell me all about it. What have you achieved? What challenges have you faced since you assumed the position?.“
I let them spend as much time as they need to fully think about the role that they want and ended up achieving (again in a future state). And sometimes I ask, “How does it feel to finally have that position?” This exploration of a future possibility provides a confidential and safe container for my client to consider their motivations, and most of all the understanding of the real meaning of what they think they want. In the process of doing that, they can begin to know what it will be like when they finally arrive in a new position.
Of course no one is ever completely ready to take on a new role, not just because the “having” is different from the “wanting,” but because we can never know everything we will feel when we get something we want. But by exploring what a new role will look like, we can have a firmer grasp on the realities of our dreams.
I spent time a while back with a longtime client who had recently been promoted into a dream position. He commented, “Things seem different in this role. I’m no longer on the outside looking in – I’m one of the guys with the levers. I’m seen differently and I feel different. What I do feel, though, is that I can take all the personal growth I’ve achieved into this position or any other one in the future. I’ll get used to this new role, even though what I have now is definitely not exactly what I thought I wanted.”
Dave Bushy of Boston Executive Coaches – bostonexecutivecoaches.com – is a an ICF-certified coach who was trained at the Gestalt International Study Center (GISC). Dave is a former U.S. Army officer and senior airline executive who works with leaders throughout the world.