Today we’d like to introduce you to Sara Young Wang.
Sara, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I love connecting with people and having honest conversations about their work. We spend so much of our lives at work so I really think it should feel good and light us up. Because when it doesn’t it can affect everything in our life. Ultimately our happiness suffers and life is just too short for that.
I would never have thought I would be doing this kind of work, but it was born out of my own experiences with navigating career choices. I had what I think is a pretty common upbringing. I was encouraged to do well in school, get degrees, and strive for well respected, professional jobs. But the whole time (schooling included) I never really liked what I was doing and what I had to get up and do every day. In fact, what I liked or disliked or what I wanted never seemed to enter the picture or matter that much. I was immersed in many of our culture’s beliefs about work.
For example, that work involves sacrifice and pushing aside your own wants and needs. And that it should come first before your health and relationships. All because that hard work gets you results – accomplishment, power, wealth, status etc. And those things are thought to bring happiness. But the thing is, after all, that and what some may call “success,” I wasn’t happy.
Despite this though, I just kept going, ignoring all the warning signs that something wasn’t quite right. Until I just couldn’t take it anymore. All that stress caught up with me. I actually got very physically sick and it was my body that forced me to really look at what was going on inside.
I hired and started working with a coach myself and started to examine how I saw the world and take a look at all my ideas about how I thought I had to be. I was able to see my blinds spots, question and examine my fears, and get in touch with that inner voice I had been ignoring for so long.
I had to learn an entirely new way of navigating the world and making choices, for the first time doing things because I wanted to, not because I should. It sounds simple and obvious now, but we give so much of our lives over to ‘shoulds’ stopping that can be tricky. I had to learn what it feels like to do something out of genuine desire and have what I desire and what feels good to me be my guide. Because that’s sorta the goal of anything we do and all of this, right? Feeling good.
The more I did this the more I experienced an improvement in my health. And the more I create a life aligned with who I truly am and what I want, the happier and more successful (on my own terms) I am. This transformation in my own life has been so powerful I’ve wanted to share my experience and what I’ve learned. And I’ve discovered a lot of joy in helping others navigate their own path. It’s my greatest desire for my clients to get reconnected with themselves, uncover what they want, and go after it!
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
Of course, it hasn’t been easy, but I’ve struggled a lot less than I might have if I didn’t have the clarity that I have now around what really matters to me and what I value at the end of the day. This isn’t the first business I’ve started so I knew coming in a lot of the things an entrepreneur can experience and get stressed out about.
In fact, one group of clients I work with is stressed out entrepreneurs. But if you’re focused on what you’re in it for – to do something you enjoy – everything feels a lot better. I’m not saying there aren’t challenges, but the “struggle” and stress is often added by ourselves with our own thinking and is optional.
Please tell us about Sara Young Wang Career Coaching.
I provide one-on-one coaching to help people find happiness in their work. Specifically, I work with young to mid-career professionals and entrepreneurs or new grads who are finding themselves stressed out, overwhelmed, and don’t know what to do. Maybe they don’t know what they want to do. Or maybe they do know, but don’t know how to go after it. I can help them figure this out and find their way to work they love.
Some of my clients may be starting to realize that their situation isn’t sustainable (due to stress, unhappiness, exhaustion, or even feelings of disillusion). Or they may be starting to question how they got to where they are now when they thought it’s what they wanted, but the reality is, well…different. Or maybe they’re just feeling lost and don’t know what to do next. In any case, they’re pretty stressed and need help sorting this all out.
One thing that may set me apart from other coaches is that when I work with a client I tell them we’re going to really focus on you and uncovering what you want to do and what you want for your life – not what your family, peers, professors, work colleagues, or society is telling you to do. No more (or at least a lot less) living life based on ‘shoulds’ or making choices because of fear.
I have chosen to focus my coaching on the area of work as our career is often the linchpin that holds everything together in our mind – where we do the most striving, pushing for achievement, and harshest self-evaluations of worth. An unsustainable amount of effort is often involved. And if we were to remove our work from our lives our identity is often shaken.
So we can tend to hold on to some pretty unhappy situations and feel trapped. This was true for me. But if we take a look at what’s really going on there we have the opportunity to have clarity and create change for ourselves. Finding clarity is a cornerstone of the work that I do.
If you had to go back in time and start over, would you have done anything differently?
Honestly, starting out I wish I had been able to follow some of my own advice even more. Specifically, like many of us, I have been taught to “work hard” and place productivity and “getting things done” ahead of my own needs and wellness. Constant striving is part of my mental programming I’ve had to change.
And this hasn’t been the easiest. I’ve had lots of times in starting my coaching practice where that I’ve had to stop and check in with myself. I remind myself to go slow, relax, one thing at a time, there will always be a to-do list, enjoy your life, be here and present in what you’re doing right now. I’ve had to work at cultivating the calm, peaceful and chill vibes.
Contact Info:
- Address: 73 West Monore Street, Suite 510
Chicago, IL 60603 - Website: https://www.syoungwang.com/
- Email: sara@syoungwang.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sarayoungwang/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sarayoungwangcareercoaching/
Image Credit:
Amy Bone – Paw Prints Photography, Gaping Void, Amy Krouse Rosenthal
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