We have all been coached in some kind of activity, from learning to walk, reading, sports, arts and music etc. Let’s take a coaching approach to your career. We have developed this tool to help coach you along in career preparation.
“Career Coaching” is our attempt to help you discover & unlock your passion and design a career map to help you get to your career choice.
Passion means extreme, compelling emotion; intense emotional drive, excitement or enthusiasm. You will have passion for something when you really like to do it.
Passion
As you prepare yourself for your career in business, you know that you have a lot to learn. One of the most important things to discover that is not normally taught in school, is your passion. This is something that you need to understand and discover for yourself. You will find that your passions will help you succeed in life and in business.
You have probably discovered by now that if you don’t like doing something, you either don’t do it or don’t do it well. If you don’t like your job, you will not be happy and you will not do your job well. As you talk to people about their passions, you will recognize that many people do not do something they feel passionate about in their careers. If you don’t try and connect your passions with your work, it will not happen.
Let’s be careful that we don’t limit ourselves to things we have a passion for now, or things we only like to do at this moment. It is important to discover new things and give them a chance. Don’t stop doing something because you don’t like it right away, or because you are not good at it. Many good musicians and athletes did not have a great passion at the beginning, but they worked hard and became good and developed a passion over time.
You probably have a passion for something that will not take you too far in life, or help you succeed. For example, you may have a passion for sleep, but you will find that there are not many good careers where you need the skill of sleeping. You will always need a good sleep to perform in your career. You may love to eat chocolate, but will find that there are very few “chocolate tasting” jobs. Therefore, recognize that you will have many passions over the years, but you will need to discover how to enjoy them in your life and use them the right way. You can enjoy many passions without making a career out of them. The key will be to choose or discover a passion and plan how to put it to work for you. Find a way to enjoy your passion and use it daily to earn a living.
You will know when you have found something that you have passion for. Think back to what passion means so that you will recognize it. Only you can decide when it happens. Enjoy the discovery and don’t limit yourself!
Activities
- Write down what passion means to you and the type of things that you have passion for. Go back to the definition at the top of the page for help. Try and group the activities into “just passion” and “passion with career potential”. Both groups are important but lets work with the ones that may lead you to a career. Just having organized and thought through the list is a big step. Now, keep the list and refer to it as you work on preparing for a career.
- The “What’s Your Business Thing” activity will help you discover a passion that you may use to develop your career. Try this activity as a framework to work through. Click on “What’s Your Business Thing” to go to this section.
Unlock Passion
After you have discovered a passion, you will need to figure out how to use it to develop it further and eventually use it to your advantage. It is easy if it is a sport, music ,or arts, as you can usually find a way to practice by working on it at school, at home or through community programs. If your passion is animals, you can find many ways to learn about and care for animals. If you love to write, you can think of ways to write stories, write a book, prepare a diary or report local news. If you like to build things there are many products to help you develop this interest or just good old sand, rocks and dirt, etc. Utilize some “thinking time” to figure out how you can practice your passion.
The step to unlocking your passion is to do it, continue to enjoy it and try and make it an important part of your eventual working life.
- Once you have discovered a passion, sit down with your parent(s)/guardians and tell them that you have an interest or passion that you would like to develop. Many kids are put into programs for many reasons like exercise, meeting other kids, developing skills, activity to keep you busy etc. Try and find an activity that really interests you and figure out how you can do it.
- Try the “Doodle Away to Ideas” section to help you sketch out some ideas.
- You may want to work on a recommendation on how to develop your passion. See the “Kids Idea Recommendation Tool” to help you.
Career Map
We have all seen a map before and probably have witnessed someone using it to help us get somewhere. Well, think of a “Career Map” as a diagram of how to get to a particular career. At this stage, we don’t have to choose a particular career, but just a career in general.
Your résumé is a good starting point. Go through the exercise of where you are now and the next steps you need to take. Understandably, you may not know all the steps that you need to take right now, but let’s get organized and start to write out the “directions” or steps that you will need to take. Have other people review it and help you. Set aside some “thinking time” to figure it out.
The “Career Map” should help you to set some goals and find ways to reach them. Your map should identify issues and opportunities that you need to deal with along your journey to a career. Issues may be financial, access to education, experience, support by your family for your choice (rock star). You can’t deal with these issues until you identify them and start to figure out how to resolve them. Opportunities are out there to help you develop your talents. You have probably heard about singers or actors who went to a talent audition and launched their careers, or scientists who entered a project in a science fair, or an artist who entered drawing contests, or movie producers who created movies at an early age, etc. There are many opportunities out there that you have to find, create or just be lucky enough by being in the right place at the right time.
Choosing a career should entail 60 percent “inner work” or self-evaluation, and 40 percent in-depth research into the chosen career.
- Investigate the e-Mentoring Program for Kids as it will help you understand different careers and the preparation required to get there. Your preparation is your “Career Map” as it helps you get there. Your preparation is understanding your talents, developing skills, education, training and experience. You will find that a good way to develop your own “Career Map” is to examine other peoples careers and learn from them.
- Check out “What’s Your Thing” to help you understand things you are interested in and that you could consider for a career.
This is a little advice for your coaches.
Why not take the same approach to teaching kids business as we do to coaching/teaching kids sports? We can take many of the reasons we choose to teach sports at an early age and apply them to business. Kids will more than likely end up with a business career instead of a sports career.
Try a “Sports Approach” or a “Coaching Approach” to teaching kids business. Expose kids to business at an early age, try different businesses/careers until you find one they like (explore different career paths), teach the fundamentals or basic skills first (creating and presenting ideas – see our “Resources “) and then work up to competitive games (participating in business – see our “Business Experiences”) – like sports.
Think of the important components of coaching; motivating, demonstration of skills, educating, providing tools to succeed, inspiration and character development. The goal of coaching is to try and develop skills in kids that they will carry with them for life, instill the desire to work on their passion, have fun and to try and keep them focused and in the game.
Activities
- Hey Mom/Dad, will you be a Career Coach? Ask your parent to be a coach. One important rule is to ask them to review the “Put Your Thinking Hat On” section and promise you to review your passion list with each of the hats on. You are trying to get their input and support for your passion.
- Talk to a friend of your parents/guardian about some “Career Coaching”. Ask them to help you develop a career map for a particular passion of yours.
- Talk to a school councilor or teacher about providing some “Career Coaching” for you. Ask them to direct you to information about a particular interest.
- Investigate some of the career coaching websites to understand some of the services that are available and of interest to you.
Congratulations from TeachingKidsBusiness.com! You have developed another business skill and taken a big step in preparing for your career!! Keep up the good work!.