Rebecca Zucker

July 8, 2015 at 7:03 pm #1992

Dan, thanks for your interest and apologies for the delay – a few thoughts occur to me. First, for perfectionistic clients (my practice client for ITC Certification was one such client), where her BA was “If it’s not perfect, I’m a failure.” Some small safe tests, were to not be perfect in very small ways to see how it feels (if it’s really that bad and if so, if she can get past it). Examples of things were: carry a purse that doesn’t match your shoes, bake a homemade cake that is imperfect (e.g., lopsided, whatever) and serve to her family…small things that are not life shattering or career limiting. She was a designer, so another test was to design something quickly and put it on Etsy to sell to see if people would buy it (and they did), which told her that other people may actually value her work, even when it’s not perfect. Other tests were to read about people who failed and how the failure served them to become even better in some way – e.g., Steve Jobs! On the indecisive client, having them see that not making a decision is actually making a decision can also be interesting for them. Safe tests might be to start with small decisions, like where to eat, what to buy, etc. S/he might also talk to people about decisions they made that entailed risk, and how it turned out – and when it didn’t turn out well, how did they recover, what did they learn from the experience, etc. Hope that helps…

Rebecca Zucker

June 18, 2015 at 3:23 pm #1965

Hi all, apologies for the delay. Thanks so much for all of your comments! When coming up with a safe test, I find that talking to other people to get their perspectives on their experiences can be really helpful – especially when it’s several data points. When I am working with folks in career transition, not everyone is able to formally get to the testing stage. I encourage people to use informational interviews to test their beliefs and hypotheses about things. ‘Sue’ in the above blog post ended up staying at her firm (which was very prestigious) so it met the high-powered requirement), but she was able to negotiate a flexible role that also allowed her to be a ‘good mom.’ However, without this flexibility, she would feel like she really had to choose between the two (having a high-powered job or being a good mom). As a test, she spoke with other moms she respected professionally who she didn’t necessarily have visibility into their lives to know if they were ‘good moms.’ After talking to them, she was able to see that these women set boundaries that worked for them so they could be there for their kids when they needed their mom to be there.

I had another career transition client who was very indecisive, which was keeping him stuck both personally and professionally. We did an ITC map where the goal was to be more decisive. His BA was, “If I do make a decision I regret, it will have negative and perhaps severe implications for my life and the damage will be severe or irreversible.” Seeing this was hugely liberating for him and it tied to events from his childhood, that he had not pieced together until we did his map. His test was to talk to other people who he respected and ask them about decisions they made in their lives/careers that didn’t turn out well and how they recovered from them (to see that one can, indeed, recover from the wrong decision). It’s not related to the “high-achieving” dilemma per se, but shows the applicability of ITC in career transition coaching.

Johannes, I incorporate ITC in career transition programs where I think it will be helpful. It’s not necessarily what each person needs.