Spotlight: Laura Criscione
Business: Career Fulfillment Coach
Socials: @itsme.laurac
Degree Tracks: Marketing
At the end of last year, I started brainstorming topics that I wanted to share in 2023 – I love writing blogs that bring perspective, and that open the door to new connections and conversations. One of the first people & conversations I wanted to start was about Career Fulfillment with one of the best coaches around, Laura C!
Joining her first coaching program over 6 years ago, Laura fell in love with personal development, mindset work, and realized from that moment she had the power to change the course of her life. Stuck in a miserable job and feeling powerless, she knew something needed to shift which drew her to hire her first coach. After 9 months, Laura felt inspired and knew that coaching would also be in her path. She became a certified coach in 2020 and an ICF A.C.C Certified coach in 2022. She now helps women who feel unfulfilled in their 9-5 build confidence to pursue work they’re truly excited about (whatever that looks like)!
Did you know that only about 20% of people in the US actually feel passionate about their job? There’s differences between workplace satisfaction and workplace happiness as we know from my past blogs – and this is key to understand where career fulfillment ties in. You may not always feel passionate about the work you do, but knowing you have the choice to make changes and ensure you are doing work that aligns with your values will put you ahead.
Check out this post from Laura which goes into more detail about the 5 factors of a fulfilling career.
“Tying your work to who you are as a person: what is important to you, what contribution you want to make, what work is aligned with your lifestyle needs, values, strengths, mission and work that allows you to take care of yourself. You find fulfillment when all of these parts are aligned and in balance.”
I first met Laura while I was embarking on my own journey to create meaningful work. I’ve found meaning through this blog, and wanted to 10x times my impact through coaching so I joined a group program to help me build my business. We both had a life/career coaching business that we wanted to put more into, and we have remained connected since! I connected with Laura as we went through the similar struggles in our career journeys and it honestly had helped so much to have someone to lean on as a ‘solopreneuer’!
With coaching, one of the biggest blocks we can agree on are the misconceptions around it as not many understand what coaching is and how it can help them.
To Laura, another misconception people tend to have on Career Coaching specifically, is that Career Coaching does not only mean writing resumes and applying to jobs. It is much more focused on mindset work and planning a vision of where you want to be in your career. The very last step is when you focus on applying to new jobs, if that’s your end goal.
To sum it up in 3 questions, coaching is the partnership of a coach and client working together answering the following questions:
- Where are you now?
- Where do you want to be?
- What is getting in the way?
As a career coach, Laura advises the MOST important piece of the journey is mindset work and how you need to become an expert of who you are and learn what makes you tick! “That’s how you find fulfilling work, not mass applying to hundreds of jobs on LinkedIn (#guilty). Start looking internally rather than externally. Another huge challenge is not being aware of limiting beliefs and fears that are holding you back.”
“One of the biggest challenges people face when trying to find fulfilling work is thinking that the next job is just going to fix all their problems.”
Think these challenges may sound familiar? If you think you need to gain more clarity in your career journey, Laura offers the Career Clarity Creative– her signature one-on-one, 12 week coaching program designed to help women build confidence and clarity on fulfilling careers they love! It’s for the women who feel like they’re wasting their time and potential at work and want to create a more meaningful career that makes them feel confident and excited for your future!
If you’re curious to learn more and see if this program is right for you, email laura.c.criscione@gmail.com or send her a DM on Instagram!
Q: What would be your advice to anyone starting their career fulfillment journey?
A: Commit to your growth. Accept the fact that this will be an uncomfortable journey and commit to your long-term growth and fulfillment rather than short-term gratification. (I can’t stress this enough!)
Discover your strengths. Utilizing your natural strengths in life and work can result in more happiness, a higher level of well-being, more meaning and purpose. Get very clear on what your signature strengths are and focus on using those more often than “fixing” weaknesses.
Uncover your mission. You have to slow down in order to speed up. Before you quit your job, you have to do personal work first to understand yourself on a deeper level. Start thinking about what problem you want to dedicate your time towards solving. What is important to you? What kind of contribution do you want to make? Once you know this, you can take it with you to any job or company in the future.
Reframe your mindset. Start to question the limiting beliefs that have been dictating your behavior. You will face much resistance if your subconscious beliefs are still in charge of your actions, especially when you’re trying to make big changes. First, become aware of them, how often do you hear a disempowering belief/thought in your day? Write it down!
Get support. Have a group of like-minded people in your corner or people on the same journey as you. It is so difficult to make changes if you’re surrounded by people who don’t share the same beliefs and values as you. You need to be around others who believe in you, especially on the days when you don’t believe in yourself! This is why many people hire coaches and other support systems!
Q: Who inspires you?
“A couple of people that I look up to are Simon Sinek, who inspires me and my work as a coach, as well as Brene Brown. With their power to share their voice, beliefs and vulnerability on things that need change in the world, I feel empowered to do the same in my life and in my business.
I’m also inspired by the incredible coaches and entrepreneurs I’ve met on this journey, whether it was through my coaching certifications or business mentorship programs. This is not an easy journey but I see their courage to go through the ups and downs and it inspires me to do the same -Yvonne, Maddie and Aziza, I’m talking about you!” 🙂
When she’s not coaching, Laura loves to watch anime, play Animal Crossing, experience the outdoors, and might have more of an obsession than most with both pizza and sushi… who can relate? Continue to stay inspired with Laura on instagram, or sign up for coaching today!
Thank you, Laura!
-Ziz