How to Get the Most Out of Career Coaching

It’s mid-week. You’ve woken up again with that dread-feeling in your stomach and it’s still 3 days until the weekend. You know you need career guidance - so you've booked a career coach. Or you're definitely thinking about it anyway.

Whatever stage you’re at, welcome. You’re in the right place.

Career coaching is becoming more and more prevalent. The days of it being a perk reserved for senior executives (and people in TV dramas who wear a lot of linen) are well and truly over. More and more people are turning to coaching when they feel stuck, lost, or quietly furious with their working life. Which is, frankly, a very healthy development.

But here's the thing: coaching is not magic. A good coach will not simply download a new career into your brain over a flat white. (Where’s the fun in that though, eh?)

What coaching is is a process. And like most processes, you get out what you put in.

So how do you actually make it work?

What's actually going on in your brain (bear with me)

Before we get to the practical stuff, a quick pit stop into psychology corner.

Self-efficacy, the belief that you are capable of achieving a specific goal, is one of the strongest predictors of whether coaching will move the needle for you. People who go into coaching thinking "I genuinely don't know if I can do this differently" tend to get further than those who go in thinking "I've tried everything and nothing works, fix me please."

The good news? Self-efficacy can be built. That's partly what coaching does. But you have to show up open to the possibility that it might.

How to get the most from career coaching: 6 things that actually matter

1. Know what you want to work on (even vaguely)

You don't need to arrive with a five-year plan. But "I don't know, everything feels wrong" is a starting point, not an outcome. Think about what's bothering you most. Is it the work itself? The people? The fact that Sunday evenings now fill you with a low-key misery? Give your coach something to work with.

2. Be honest, even when it's uncomfortable

Psychological safety, the sense that you can speak without judgement or consequence, is what makes coaching actually work. A good coach creates that space. Your job is to use it. If you spend the session performing "fine, thanks, just need a bit of direction," you will leave with a very polished nothing.

3. Do the homework

Most coaches will give you things to try, reflect on, or research between sessions. Do them. I know - revolutionary advice. But the number of people who treat coaching sessions as the whole thing (rather than the conversation around the thing) is significant. The insight happens in the room; the change happens in the week.

4. Notice what comes up (not just what you say)

Some of the most useful moments in coaching are the ones that catch you off guard. You say something throwaway and suddenly feel a bit wobbly. Pay attention to that. Emotional contagion works internally too; your feelings are information, not inconvenience.

5. Push back on your coach

A good coach is not there to tell you what to do. If what they're saying doesn't resonate, say so. The best sessions are collaborative, not instructional. You are not a passive recipient of wisdom. (Even if wisdom is being delivered very compellingly.)

6. Give it time

One session is a warm-up. Real movement usually takes a few. Ambiguity aversion, the human tendency to find uncertainty harder to sit with than bad news, means we often want answers faster than the process can honestly provide them. Resist the urge to bail early just because it feels uncomfortable. Discomfort is often the coaching working.

The bottom line

Career coaching works when you treat it like a partnership, not a shortcut.

Turn up prepared, be honest, do the bits in between, and resist the temptation to wait for someone else to fix it. Because the version of you who comes out the other side of a decent coaching process? Considerably more useful than the one who went in.

If you're thinking about giving coaching a go, the team at Waddyado works with trained psychologists and career coaches to help people figure out what's next. Pop over here for coaching packages or here to join the community and think about what’s next.