Since she began training as a coach/counsellor, Isabelle Kohler has gone through extensive self-introspection. During this journey, she came across the mantra ‘trust the process’. It resonated with many aspects of her life, including her career. In this column, Isabelle invites young scientists to be open to the unexpected in their careers and to trust the process.

Last October on a Saturday morning, I found myself sitting in front of my computer, eagerly awaiting the first online session of my year-long coaching and counselling course. I wanted to do this course to gain sufficient skills and learn appropriate methodologies that I could use when supporting and guiding (PhD) students and postdocs. Little did I know that I would learn much more about myself than I realised.

The profound self-introspection I went through during the course has been extremely useful – but also very intense. Like my fellow students, I’ve sometimes doubted my ability to be a good coach/counsellor. When I shared these doubts with our teacher, she often repeated the phrase: ‘Trust the process’. Trust the process? At first, this mantra seemed like a cliché – until I realised that it was not only relevant to learning how to become a coach/counsellor, but that it could be applied to various aspects of my life, especially my career.