How do you know if you’re on the right career path, and what should you do if you come to the realisation that something needs to change before the wheels fall off? 

Global lockdowns and the pandemic created a shift in behaviour, and a vital need to find that elusive work-life balance. But for some, the split between working from home and the office isn’t enough to cut the mustard, no matter how you spread it. 

If you’re at a loss, and your job is leaving you feeling dead inside and stuck in a void that is impossible to escape, then read on. 

For Sydney-based Yu Dan Shi, a behavioural science and executive coach at CoachHub, hitting a crisis point in her own life allowed her to pull the brakes on her own career to pursue something that felt more purposeful. 

In Channel News Asia (CNZ) podcast Work It presented by Adrian Tan and Crispina Robert, career coach Yu Dan Shi shares how a life-changing moment illuminated the importance of finding a job that matches your personality. 

A high level international executive for a Fortune 100 company, Shi was in her early thirties pushing herself to her limits. On a trip to Sydney she urged a taxi driver to stop the car, informing him she was about to black out.

She woke up in a hospital emergency department. “I did get sick quite often before the episode,” she tells the Work It hosts. 

Shi would go through bouts of repeated illness, going through cycles of getting sick and recovering. The day she ended up in hospital, Shi felt an agonising short pain in the right hand side of her body. She was told by the doctors that she had gall stones in her bladder. They had become so enlarged that an operation had to be performed before it burst. 

“It was actually very life threatening… [if my gallbladder burst] it would poison my blood stream…and I would have died,” Shi says.

Only 32-years-old with two young children, she was informed that this type of health issue normally presents in older people. Without any family history of the disease, the only cause was due to her fast-paced, stressful lifestyle. 

“I never knew stress could have caused disease,” the career coach says. 

The event was a wake up call that left the young executive questioning her whole career path, but it also created a sense of guilt that she wasn’t and hadn’t been fully there for her kids.

After seeking out a career coach, she discovered that her job was a mismatch with her personality. Where she had previously thought she was an ‘extrovert’, instead, she was more comfortable working at a slower and considered pace, rather than being immersed in an intense work environment with constant pressure to be social and to perform. 

Shi says adapting her personality to fit into an environment always felt unnatural and created additional stress.

As soon as she found a career coach, Shi decidedshe wanted to become one herself.

Shi says some of the other reasons people seek out a career coach can be when they are experiencing burnout, and wellbeing becomes the focus. Career coaches can also be useful for leaders who are navigating different approaches and ways to engage with their staff.

There are two different types of coaching according to Shi including ‘trainers’ offering a one-size-fits all approach to how things are done, while career coaches address one-on-one solutions and look at roles that will align more closely with your personality, motivations, strengths and needs.

“Coaching is more focused on challenging our own barriers, your own values and beliefs.” she says.

Listen to the episode above to find out how to get the most out of a coaching session.