People tend to talk more or only about the bright side of the life of expat wives, but there actually are many difficulties and challenges they need to face.
One of the biggest reasons why is that many of them are restricted from working full time abroad.
While more and more women work just like men do in many countries, they find it unfair to need to give up their own careers back home to follow their partners’ overseas assignments.
Living abroad where they can’t speak local languages or feeling anxious about their future career after expat life ends make expat wives even more worried.
Living away from their friends or family back home, they tend to suffer alone too.
If you were one of them, one possible solution is to ask for coaching from professional coaches.
What is Coaching?
The words “coach” or “coaching” are strongly associated with sports, but the concept is actually applied in many other areas such as business or education.
The English word “coach” came from a horse-drawn carriage, as you might be familiar with the bag brand’s name.
The word became to mean “to train”or “to instruct” because the purpose of horse-carriages was to bring or guide something important to the right destination.
International Coaching Community’s definition of coaching is…
Coaching has been defined in many ways. The essence of coaching is:
・To help a person change in the way they wish and helping them go in the direction they want to go.
・Coaching supports a person at every level in becoming who they want to be.
・Coaching builds awareness empowers choice and leads to change.
Coaching is not really about giving a top-down direction but rather running side by side with the clients and guiding them to a better direction.
There are coaches for expat wives
As there are many expat wives who are struggling in their new lives abroad, there not surprisingly are many coaches for them in several countries.
While it’s not that common in Japan, you can still find a few of them online.
In the US or some other countries where coaching is more common, it shouldn’t be too difficult to find one in your neighborhood.
One of the coaches who happened to live in the Chicago area just like we do is Kate.
She is a German who moved to Chicago for her partner’s expat assignment after giving up her own promising career back home, and now started her own business here in Chicago supporting expat wives from all over the world.
You can visit her website here.
I personally always get inspired by her attitude or information/know-how she provides on her website and workbook!
Interview with Kate, the expat entrepreneur/coach
Luckily living in the same city, we were able to meet her in person and hear about many things about her life, vision or advice for expat wives.
Being “Expat wife × Entrepreneur × Coach“, Kate is one of my role models and I’m confident that what we heard from her will be useful for many other expat wives too.
I’m happy we can share the knowledge (or share the love!) with our readers in the next several posts with “Interview with Kate” series.
While it’s ideal to receive coaching directly and individually, we are hoping that contents and tips on this site will be useful for your life as forward-thinking and happy expat partner!
Stay tuned….!
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