As you navigate the road toward expatriation, you’ll have lots of questions. It’s an exciting, energizing journey, but you’ll also find roadblocks, detours, big boulders in your way, and lots of obstacles.
An expat coach can help you prepare for your move, and can help with your adjustment to life in a new country after you land.
I recently interviewed a group of six expat coaches. You can learn more about them here.
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The base of all coaching relationships is life and relationship challenges, coach Heather Markel explained. Expat coaching zeroes in on the specific challenges you face in your overseas relocation.
Some of the areas where coaching can help include:
- Work-life balance.
- Handling culture shock
- Relocation decision
- Preparation for the move
- Overwhelm
- Cross cultural understanding
- Coping with children and their relocation and adaptation issues
- Career/job search
- Starting a business
- Family issues
- Transition issues
- Self-esteem
- Identity crisis
If you’re in a situation where your company is relocating you, a coach can also help your spouse or partner. Evelyn Simpson told me:
“Any accompanying partner can feel lost as they embark on life in an unfamiliar country and culture without their support systems of family and friends. Their partners go off to work their children go to school and there they are in a sea of boxes with no friends.”
Coaching can also be a wonderful career for an expat who wants to develop work that’s not tied to a specific location.
Here are a few resources to help you learn more about coaching and what it can do for you:
Socialnaire is a 12-week program to help you make friends overseas
What Is Coaching?
The Expat Coach Directory
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Have you worked with an expat coach? Did it help? Why or why not?
Hi Susanna,
Perfect timing for this post , I just made a presentation this morning for HR managers in Brussels about training and coaching expatriates. I can send you the slides if you need them. I thank you very much for being a great advocate of expat coaching. Coaching is by definition highly personalized and you made a great list about specific issues to focus on.
Thank you
Anne
Anne, I’d love to see the slides. Can you email them to me? Glad this was helpful to you. 🙂
I think coaches are picking up a lot of the slack and drawbacks of modern psychology. So I definitely welcome the presence of more coaches and more people to seek their guidance!