expatriate living coaching
HOW EXPATRIATE LIVING COACHING HELPS
Expatriate living coaching helps you focus on addressing the many challenges of living and working in a country that is not your country of origin… while at the same time making the most of the opportunity that you have been blessed with.
As a coach, my role is to help you reflect and become more self-aware. I will achieve this through a series of conversations focused on exploring what led you to become an expatriate, challenging limiting beliefs which may hinder your adaptation to new cultures, and encouraging you to thoughtful and heartfelt action to make the most of expatriate life.
These are some of the areas my clients focus expatriate living coaching on...
Adapting to New Cultures
Constantly adapting to new cultures is perhaps the greatest challenge that expatriates face. Cultural expectations people have of you won’t necessarily change just because you aren’t aware of them – often you have to rely on non-verbal communication to understand what is going on. The problem is that body language, posture, facial expressions, type of eye contact and tone of voice vary significantly from culture to culture. Coaching can help you understand how your own non-verbal communication can impact others. It can also help you recognize and understand what other people don’t say yet feel strongly about.
Achieving Work-Life Balance
Do you find you are constantly sacrificing your personal time to meet professional demands? Or perhaps you can never quite let go of work when you are not working? Achieving work-life balance is difficult enough in an environment you know well… let alone as an expatriate not understanding the unwritten expectations at work. And yet not finding a balance will significantly increase your day-to-day stress – at work and at home. Learning to set boundaries, to yourself and to others, can help you find that balance.
Promoting Family Bliss
An expatriate who is busy at work seldom finds time to really make the most of discovering a new country. A trailing spouse who isn’t working full time typically finds it hard to feel fulfilled. Children often find it difficult to integrate at school or establish a satisfying social life. These common situations for expatriates create frustrations that can easily result in family tension. Learning how to recognize and talk about these tensions will help promote happiness at home.
Keeping in Touch with Your Roots
A busy life in a country distant from where you have your roots makes it hard to keep in touch. You might also have the feeling that you simply can’t relate to family and friends from your pre-expatriate life. And you are probably trying to build up a social network at your host location anyway. And yet, keeping ties with people back home is crucial in maintaining your sense of identity. Reflecting on how you imagine your life unfolding and on the importance of your support network across the world will help you achieve a better balance between keeping in touch with newer and older friends.
Preparing for Another Move
Moving is always a stressful time for an expatriate, whether you are going back home or on a subsequent assignment. Quite apart from all the logistical matters you have to handle, you probably have mixed feelings of loss, anxiety, frustration and excitement. If you are repatriating for good, you may also worry about integrating back home and about the loss of your expatriate benefits. Coaching can help you accept and understand these feelings, and seek ways to capitalize on them to make the most of your expatriate experience.
This is what you can expect from expatriate living coaching with me...
Coaching Experience
I am a qualified coach with significant experience coaching in leadership roles within large multinational corporations. I have a Diploma in Transformational Coaching.
Expatriate Experience
I grew-up bilingual in a multicultural environment. I have been an expatriate for 20+ years, living in 8 countries and 4 continents. I also led the global mobility function at a large multinational corporation with a huge expatriate population.
Empathy
I know first-hand the challenges an expatriate faces, and I can help you look at things from multiple perspectives to find solutions that work for you. I can relate to you: “I love being an expatriate, I’ve been through the pain, I’ve reaped the benefits!”