5 simple coaching exercises for everyday life
5 exercises to advance your career
Five practical exercises I regularly use with coaching clients – and how you can use them yourself to create more clarity, recognise your progress and keep moving towards what matters to you!
Coaching isn't just about what happens in a coaching session.
A lot of the useful exercises I use with clients are simple things that we can all build in our everyday life. They create a bit of space to step back and think more intentionally about what you want and what matters to you.
You don't need to be facing a major career decision to benefit from them. They can be useful when you're feeling stuck, overwhelmed, unmotivated or simply want to understand yourself a little better. Here are five exercises I regularly come back to:
Check in with your values
Our values can have a big influence on the choices we make, whether we consciously recognise them or not.
Values are the things that matter to us and influence how we want to live, work and interact with others. They might include helping people, fairness, creativity, independence, reducing inequality, making a difference, or having a sense of community.
One exercise I use with clients is to regularly set out their values and check in with how well they are reflecting them in their lives.
Ask yourself what matters most to me?
Then ask:
Where am I currently living or working in a way that reflects these values?
When have I recently felt that I was doing something that really mattered to me?
How did that make me feel?
Are there any values that aren't getting enough attention?
If I'm going off track, why might that be?
This isn't about making sure every decision perfectly reflects every value. It's about noticing when there is a gap between what we say matters to us and how we are actually spending our time and energy. And a gap can be useful information.
For example, if you value creativity but your current role leaves you with very little opportunity to use it, that might explain why you're feeling frustrated or unfulfilled. Equally, a values check-in can be particularly useful when you're considering a career change or making a big decision. Rather than simply asking "What should I do?", you can ask "Which option is most aligned with what matters to me?"
Set micro-goals
Big goals can be motivating, but they can also be overwhelming. You might decide that you want to change career, start a business, get a promotion, improve your confidence or finally tackle something you've been putting off.
The problem is that the gap between where you are now and where you want to be can feel enormous. When the goal feels too big, getting started can just feel like too much. You might put it off, do nothing, and then feel guilty that you're not making progress.
So, try breaking the goal down into micro-goals.
For example, if your bigger goal is:
"I want to change career."
Your micro-goals could be:
Spend 20 minutes researching one career that interests me.
Find two people on LinkedIn who have made a similar career move and look at their career paths.
Write down the skills I already have that could transfer to a new role.
Spend 30 minutes looking at job adverts to identify common requirements.
Contact one person in the sector to ask them about their experience.
Identify one skill I might need to develop and find a course, project or opportunity that could help.
You haven't changed career yet. But you are no longer standing still.
The same approach works for almost any goal. Want to improve your visibility at work? Your first step might simply be contributing one idea in your next meeting. Want to apply for a promotion? Your first micro-goal could be writing down three examples of where you've already demonstrated the skills required. Want to start exercising? Your first goal might be a 15-minute walk.
The point isn't to make your ambitions smaller. It's to make the next step feel manageable.
Keep a journal of what you notice
Don’t worry, if your daily journaling isn’t for you, you can adapt this exercise to suit you. It can simply be a way of keeping track of what you're noticing about yourself. You might write a few sentences, bullet points or simply a few words.
For example:
Monday: Felt energised after presenting an idea to the team.
Wednesday: Really frustrated by having to spend most of the day on repetitive admin.
Friday: Enjoyed helping a colleague work through a problem.
Over time, patterns can start to emerge.
Perhaps you notice that you consistently enjoy problem-solving but find repetitive work draining. Perhaps you feel more confident when you're working independently. Or maybe you realise that the conversations you find most satisfying are the ones where you're helping someone else.
These observations can be useful in your personal life, but they can also tell you a lot about your career. Rather than making a big decision based on one particularly good or bad day at work, journaling gives you a record of what you're experiencing over time.
It can also help you notice things that might otherwise pass you by.
A useful question to return to is: "What am I learning about myself from what I'm experiencing?"
Do an energy audit
We often think about what we’re good at or what we need to improve, but we don’t often ask ourselves what gives me energy? And equally, what drains it?
At the end of each day, or at the end of a week, write down one or two things that gave you energy and two things that drained it.
For example:
Gave me energy: Working through a problem with a colleague, presenting an idea, having a useful conversation.
Drained my energy: Repetitive admin, back-to-back meetings, having to work without enough information.
Don't worry about whether something should energise you. You're simply noticing what actually happens.
After a couple of weeks, look for patterns.
What activities consistently energise you?
What types of people or conversations do you enjoy?
What kinds of problems do you enjoy solving?
What leaves you feeling drained, even when you're good at it?
Are there things that energise you that you're not doing enough of?
Are there things that drain you that you could reduce, delegate or approach differently?
Sometimes the most useful career insight comes not from asking "What job should I do?" but from noticing "What kind of work brings out the best in me?"
Do a weekly look back
We're often much better at noticing what we still need to do than what we've already achieved.
At the end of a busy week, it can feel as though you've been running from one thing to another without actually getting anywhere.
A weekly look back can help change that.
Take 10–15 minutes at the end of each week and ask yourself: What have I achieved this week?
Don't just think about the big things. Include the small wins, difficult conversations, things you handled well and moments where you made progress.
Then ask:
What am I proud of?
What did I learn?
What did I handle better than I might have done previously?
Did I develop or use a skill?
What challenged me?
Is there anything I would do differently next time?
What do I want to carry into next week?
This can be a surprisingly powerful exercise because growth doesn't always feel obvious while we're experiencing it.
You might have become more confident speaking up in meetings, handled a difficult conversation more calmly, delegated something you would previously have taken on yourself, or finally started something you'd been avoiding. Those are achievements too.
There is also a practical benefit to keeping a record of them, particularly when it comes to your career.
I encourage clients to keep a running log of their achievements, positive feedback, projects, challenges they've overcome and skills they've developed. When it comes to writing a CV, preparing for an interview, completing an appraisal or making a case for promotion, you then have a bank of real examples to draw from rather than trying to remember everything at the last minute. Your weekly reflection becomes a record of your progress.
The aim isn't to have everything figured out. It's to create regular opportunities to pause, notice what's happening, and make more intentional choices about what comes next.
That is one of the things I value about coaching: creating the space to step back from the day-to-day, ask better questions and turn reflection into action.
You can do some of that yourself, too. Start with one exercise. Give it a try for a few weeks and see what you learn about yourself.
If you’d like to explore career coaching sessions to help you further, visit Karmjit’s coaching page.
