Helping Therapy Clients (and YOU!) Find Career Clarity and Purpose ft. Suzy Welch

Helping Therapy Clients (and YOU!) Find Career Clarity and Purpose ft. Suzy Welch

You’re a therapist, not a career strategist, right? That’s what I told myself for years—until the zillionth client sat across from me, looked me dead in the eye, and asked, “What should I do with my life?” Cue the record scratch. Let’s talk about why it’s time to add “career strategist” to your repoitiore… whether you ever planned to or not.

In a recent episode of the Love, Happiness and Success for Therapists podcast, I had the absolute joy of speaking with bestselling author, professor, and Oprah-favorite Suzy Welch about something we therapists are asked to do every day but were never really trained for: coaching therapy clients on what they want professionally and how to go get it.

Becoming a Career Strategist Inadvertently 

Let’s be real. We’re trained to diagnose and treat mental health conditions. Anxiety? Depression? PTSD? That’s our lane. But clients don’t come in saying, “Hi, I’d like a DSM-5-coded intervention today.” They say things like:

• “I’m miserable in my job.”
  
• “I feel like I’m not living my purpose.”
  
• “Should I go back to school?”
  
• “Why do I keep getting passed up for promotions?”
  

These are not pathology. These are existential dilemmas, deeply intertwined with identity, values, and—yep—career development. Enter: the work of a career and life coach… and the need for therapists to learn coaching skills.

Becoming You: The Framework Therapists Need to Know

What Suzy Welch has created in Becoming You isn’t just a book—it’s a map for purpose-driven career discovery. And best of all, it’s something you can use right now in your sessions.

Here’s the essence of her framework:

Step 1: Values Discovery

Most clients (and let’s be honest—most of us therapists too) aren’t walking around with a crystal-clear list of our core values. And yet, those values are the key to making aligned decisions. 

Suzy’s methodology includes a powerful tool called the Values Bridge, which helps clients identify what they truly care about—and, crucially, how much of that value is actually present in their current work or life.

This is huge for therapy clients who feel stuck but can’t articulate why. When a client discovers that their top value is “belonging,” but they work in a cold, cutthroat corporate environment, suddenly they realize there’s a values-conflict and everything clicks.

Step 2: Aptitude Awareness

Suzy introduces eight cognitive aptitudes that strongly influence how people thrive at work, such as:

• Generalist vs. Specialist thinking
• Brainstormer vs. Idea Contributor
• Future Focused vs. Process-Oriented

Knowing your therapy client’s strengths and preferences helps you name the mismatch when something’s off. Are they a creative brainstormer trapped in a hyper-structured role? Are they a deep-diving specialist being asked to “just wear all the hats”? This knowledge doesn’t just validate their experience—it points the way toward better fit and hope.

Step 3: Closing the Gap

The magic happens when clients compare their values and aptitudes with the reality of their current professional life. That’s where the “aha” moments live. The framework supports clients in making small pivots—or sometimes bold leaps—toward more purpose-aligned paths.

And here’s where we come in: as therapists, we can support clients not only in uncovering this insight but also in working through the emotional resistance, fear, imposter syndrome, and identity shifts that inevitably show up when someone starts making real change.