Dr Elena?s Life By Design Life Coaching Services

Considering a Career Change? Read This

Many years ago when I was personal training at a gym, I found myself training a career coach. She told me that in her opinion, the average person goes through seven career changes during the course of their working lifetime. This sounded like a lot to me; it was possibly more career changes than anyone I personally knew had undertaken. However, her comment does highlight that career changes are a part of modern life for most people, and a common cause of much anxiety, stress and worry in many cases.

Some career changes are a natural evolution of an existing role, some are a complete change from the familiar and known, some are chosen and some are forced upon us.

My career change, or addition to as it presently is, is one of choice and lengthy contemplation of what I want out of life now compared to 5 to 10 years ago, and contemplation upon how I like life to look in the next 5, 10 or more years.

One may ask why I would look beyond such a blessed career such as being a veterinarian, and that is a good question. As much as being a veterinarian is one of my greatest blessings, achievements, and joys, there are some things I now seek in life that being a vet cannot offer me.

The ability to work autonomously from home is big motivation. And the ability to explore and share my life experience and all I have learned and continue to learn on my never-ending quest to improve and evolve. There are so many tools and strategies, and useful solutions to many of life’s challenges I have acquired that I desire to share with people. I want to be part of someone else’s growth and development. All this and more cannot be achieved by just practicing veterinary.    

If a career change is not a natural progression and evolution of one’s present occupation, chances are there is some considerable soul searching and decision making, maybe a fair bit of angst involved in a career change. Regardless of whether it is a chosen one or a change that feels forced on you for any reason.

Try this:

“If you are afraid to consider a career change, whether the change is one you choose or forced upon you, you may experience fear and anxiety of the unknown and reluctance to change.”

Some questions you would want to ask yourself are:

      • What do I actually want to do with my life?

      • Do I have the skills right now or do I need to upskill?

      • What is involved in upskilling?

      • Can I make the upskilling work both time-wise and financially in light of present commitments?

      • Do I have the enthusiasm, commitment, motivation and drive to do what has been identified by answering the above questions?

I will cover the rest of the questions above in my next blog but for now let’s examine the first most important question we need answer. Identifying what we actually truly want to do is often the most difficult part of all. It often involves looking through thoughts, ideas, belief systems and prejudices we have had instilled into us at such a young age.Often we are not even aware they exist. The whisper of our soul’s calling of often not heard over the noise of these ideas and beliefs.

Here is one way to start identifying the vocation that will be most true to and fulfilling for you. Think back to when you were a little child - preschooler or primary school age. What were your natural inclinations then? What did you naturally enjoy and find yourself drawn to before you bought the story that stopped your thoughts of developing in that direction.

You know, THAT story created by well-meaning loving adults telling you it isn’t masculine or feminine enough to do that job. It says you are not smart enough or that you need to get a ‘real’ job, something more ‘professional’ and esteemed? It tells you that what you want to do will never make you money, or that your family simply do or do not do a certain line of work.

Perhaps you were teased at some level about your natural interests and inclinations and so you dropped them. Perhaps you just didn't feel (or were told) you were not good enough in your area of interest as a child?

I remember teachers stopping me in the corridors of school during 6th form telling me to give up on choosing veterinary as a career as I just was not bright enough. The cheek of them!!

I was very blessed to have the unconditional support of my parents as a child when choosing veterinary as a career, even though I suspect they secretly doubted if I would get there!

Go ahead. Go to the dark recesses of your memory, to what you naturally loved and were drawn to as a child. Whatever is, however uncomfortable it may make you feel, and however much it may go against what you believe you ‘should or should not’ do for your vocation.

Write a list.

Now, choose 10 people you trust to be absolutely honest with you, who know you best, whom you trust have your best at heart. Ask them to email you a list of 3 vocations that they see would suit your innate nature, personality and strengths.

Compare their lists with your list. What is the common denominator or most commonly listed vocation? How does that sit with you?

Now list on paper your gut feelings and all the objections and arguments your rational mind throws up immediately? Remember this – your conscious mind likes security and stability and will object immediately to any suggestion of change. That is why writing things down is so important – so you can see through this trick of the mind and its objections.

If I can be of help with you working through this process give me a call or email. I have done and lived this! It is a process I use time and time again in my life.

For my first blog I will introduce myself and introduce you to life coaching.

My name is Elena. My professional background is a veterinary surgeon. This is a dream I have chased since the age of 8 years old and have been fortunate enough to live my dream as a veterinarian for more than 20 years now.

During that time I also studied personal training and nutrition. This was inspired by my love of fitness and exercise.

When I was a child I used to think I was fat and unfit, so it came as a huge surprise to my 13 year old self (and all who knew me at the time) when I placed 3rd in our high school cross country race, therefore qualifying for the North Island Cross Country Junior High School Champs. I did not do well at all (having never run a race in my life prior to the qualifying race) but the training that followed for the champs unleashed in me a true love for exercise that I had no idea existed within myself.

This led to me becoming our high school’s only female competitive triathlete.

A few years into my university studies I developed chronic fatigue which put pay to my regular exercise regime for a couple of years.

I took up gentle weight training as a way to rebuild my lost strength and rehabilitate myself once the fatigue abated, a suggestion from my brother that had a profound impact on the course of my life. I discovered such a love of weight training that I became a competitive bodybuilder. Studying personal training and nutrition was the natural progression from competing in triathlons.

Having a medical degree means I have a thorough understanding of physiology, anatomy and kinesiology (how the body moves - what each muscle’s function is), which has added such a depth to my own training and ability to train/teach others.

I have at times worked as a personal trainer and nutritionist alongside my vet career; there had been times where being a personal trainer and nutrionist was my full-time career.

I have been and absolutely loved being a veterinary surgeon for more than 20 years. Working with and improving the quality of lives of animals runs very deep into the core of all I am, all I stand for and believe in. It is the very core beliefs and principles that govern my life, are the very essence of my being and who I am.

There was a time when I came very close to leaving the vet world due to burn out. Vet is a very demanding career, as well as rewarding. A very gifted life coach (a recommendation from a most precious friend of mine - one I will always be eternally grateful for) guided me through exceedingly powerful changes that shook up and restructured how I run my life and career, guided me to see possibilities where before I had only seen barriers and a feeling of being trapped with limited viable options. Being a veterinarian has been one of the greatest privileges and achievements of my life, without question.

I have been a student of life and spirituality since an awakening at the age of 14. A long journey of working with myself both by myself and with some very skilled teachers has broadened my knowledge of life and healing, taught me many skills and techniques to self-healing, self-development, improvement and ultimately self-empowerment. Key ingredients in living a full, connected and expansive life.

A few years ago my old friend fatigue reacquainted itself with me, again making me rethink my life. I mention fatigue here because as much of a curse as it has appeared to and at times feel to be, it has also been the catalyst for the most powerful and positive changes in my life. I have come to recognise and embrace that fatigue now as an indication that I am no longer in my truth, that there are changes that need to be made that I am shying away from facing and acknowledging.

This awakening lead me to look at where I would like the next chapter of my life to take me, what direction I now would like to go along. Deep introspection, and again the help of a life coach, brought me to the awareness that life coaching is indeed to be my direction in life. After all, over 20 years’ experience as a consulting veterinarian has given me a wealth and very diverse range of experience in working with people through very difficult situations.

So I decided to undertake the study required, and I am now a fully qualified life coach. Life coaching is a deregulated industry in NZwhich means no qualifications are needed and there is no organisation which oversees the quality of the practitioners. However, I felt it was important to have a recognised qualification in order for me to offer my clients the best possible services and hence the ability to live their best lives.

So, this brings us to the question….. what actually does a life coach do? A life coach is a person who will work with you, support and nurture you, hold you accountable but does not run your life for you, nor take over the controls of your life or the direction you take. They will cheer you on when you succeed, help redirect you and encourage you when you feel things are not as you would like, someone you can absolutely trust to have your best interests in heart. Confidentiality is always first and foremost priority.

A life coach gently helps you tease out what it is you really want out of life (and the answers can be quite a surprise at times!), identify the barriers stopping you from achieving that (be it real or perceived barriers) and aid you in finding your own creative solutions to achieve these goals. A life coach can help you lead the life you only thought you could dream of, one small step and identified strategic goal at a time.

My key fields of interest are personal empowerment, health and fitness goals, career goals and changes.. I work with traditional life coaching skills as well as less traditional mind - body tools. As a life coach, I can help people with a very wide range of goals, especially when the goal is unclear to yourself.

So, now you know a little bit about me, don't be shy in introducing yourself to me!