Finding Your Purpose Through Coaching
The Coaching Crowd® Podcast with Jo Wheatley & Zoe Hawkins
In this episode, hosts Zoe Hawkins and Jo Wheatley explore the relationship between professional coaching and the search for personal purpos
Key takeaways
- Jo Wheatley views coaching as her primary purpose, while Zoe Hawkins sees it as an expression of her broader purpose to bring happiness to others.
- Coaching training often attracts people experiencing significant life transitions, such as redundancy or the end of a career phase.
Main topics
- Finding personal purpose
- Career crossroads and transitions
Notable quotes
Coaching is our purpose... Coaching is an expression of my purpose, not the purpose.
Conclusion
The episode offers a reflective perspective on how professional develo
Transcript preview
Speaker 2 (0:02) The Coaching Crowd podcast is for compassionate, courageous leaders, HR professionals and high achievers. Speaker 1 (0:09) People who are passionate about helping others to find alignment in their lives through coaching and who are thinking of training and developing as a coach. Speaker 1 (0:21) Hello and welcome to the Coaching Crowd podcast with me Zoe Hawkins and my friend and co-host Jo Wheatley. Hi everybody, today Speaker 2 (0:27) we are bringing you an episode where we're going to be discussing finding your purpose through coaching and we're talking about that because people often come to coaching because they are looking for a sense of purpose, maybe they're looking for a deeper expression of who they are or they think it'll be the vehicle that they can discover what it is that they are. supposed to do. And so we're going to talk about the different elements of that and probably a little bit of our personal stories too. Speaker 1 (0:53) Yeah. And I think purpose, first off, is a place that many people come to when they're at a crossroads, you know, so you may have been in a particular job for some time, perhaps you are facing redundancy, maybe you feel like you've made really good progress in your career and have reached a stage where you could continue to do what you've always done, but... sort of have a sense of like, well, what's my next adventure going to be? And more and more, we also speak to people who are coming to the end of... their career or can certainly see not the end of their career in the distance, but the end of this phase coming up and thinking about what do I want for the years where I have more freedom and flexibility, where I'm not necessarily needing to be tied to a mainstream career and I can build something now that I'm at that phase of my life with more flexibility. And it often just raises a lot of, I don't know, questions like, what if this? What if that? How would I know? How do I know if I'm making the right decision? And so we see people come to coaching training because many people feel like coaching is the thing, is the purpose, the ability to give back and find fulfillment through service in terms of helping others. And other people come because coaching is the vehicle through which you can find a purpose. And instead of working with a coach, they decide to come and train as a coach. So almost like a two for one. And I think it's a really natural and normal thing to be searching for purpose. And it's a journey, I think, that can bring a lot of joy. But for some people, it also brings a lot of pressure, you know, a sense to get it right. So that's kind of where I would start the conversation. What are you thinking, Jo? I'm Speaker 2 (2:31) thinking partly about us and partly about the scenario that I think relates to us, which is your life looks good from the outside. You're successful. You're progressing. you're competent in the things that you do you might be earning well you might be raising a family or thinking about raising a family or you know just starting out you're progressing but often there's a persistent sense of is this it or it might be an underlying sense of I know this isn't it like I know I need I've needed to do what I've done in order to get this point And I think privilege comes into it, like it's a privilege to be able to find and pursue your purpose, I think. And then there's another part of me that thinks that isn't a privilege. That's what we all want to find. But not everybody has the opportunity to be able to do that. That underlying desire for more meaning, wanting to make more of a difference or make a difference in a different way, maybe. Often I think people describe it as wanting to do more of what they feel feels like them. Hmm. It's hard to put words to that, but it's almost like a sense of maybe it's what you feel that you were here to do, or there's a different sense of connection, I think, when you're doing work that's aligned to your purpose. So for some people, it's not about finding your purpose. And, you know, people often think about coaching as being you have these conversations and it will help you to make decisions so that you can find that. For us, I think it was a case of Coaching is our purpose. I don't think we knew that before we did our respective coaching courses. But what I loved is that the idea that there are other people that feel like me, that want to help other people, that are kind and curious and, you know, can hold and create safe spaces for people to kind of look at themselves in the mirror, metaphorically. And the Speaker 1 (4:22) want to do the work. It's interesting because I see coaching as an expression of my purpose, not the purpose. So my purpose is more around to put it in a really basic way. It's like bringing a sense of happiness to others. So I know I can't do that. But that's where my discovery of my purpose started was like, oh, I love it when people are happy. What if I could make people happy? And obviously, I can't make people happy. When I started digging into what was my purpose here and when did I feel most alive, it was when I had... been a part of a journey with someone where they felt more fulfilled or happier as a part of that. Now, coaching is an obvious expression of that. And it's a real alignment and a true fit. And I know there are other ways I could express that purpose. You know, like a total wildcard. I could run an animal sanctuary. That would be brilliant. Like I may not bring happiness to, I bring happiness to humans by finding them a wonderful pet, but I'd be bringing happiness to the animals that