I am not going to give you my top seven tips on how you discover whether you really fulfil your public service calling to positively impact the lives of others.
The mere fact that you are asking yourself this question is a sign. Sign that you feel like you’re not. There’s probably a voice within you asking for a fuller self-expression, more authentic career path, more focused attention to communities and causes close to your heart, and more targeted use of your superskills, talents or passions.
Which one sounds like your voice?
It’s ok to admit it to yourself. It’s ok to admit it to ourselves. I have been there too. And since I have started opening up about my story of listening to that voice, finding peace with it and turning it into a real force for good (for the world and myself, too), I keep being amazed at how many people start opening up with their story too. Those are stories of staying true to our noble goal of service AND stories of learning to serve ourselves first.
How to centre yourself
My journey of self-discovery and wonderment about what really fuels my sense of service was anchored in over a decade of high-profile EU civil service. It is also a journey that ultimately fuelled my courage to expand my impact area beyond my job and to redesign my career around being a voice for truly purposeful careers.
I became a career coach specialising in fulfilment as my proprietary framework for coaching civil servants, activists and political candidates. It is all about creating fulfilling and impactful careers, catalysing one’s feminine energy, and doing it while in flow — without burning out, feeling drained, out of alignment or pursuing somebody else’s definition of success (and of making a difference).
Let me share the most important elements from the journey I went through and that have been catalysing breakthroughs for my clients ever since. Hopefully it will become a source of inspiration, support or wonderment for you too so that we can continue discussing it beyond this article.
- It starts with (re)connecting to your purpose, values and bigger why — not through over-intellectualising it, but through deeply embodied practices. Dropping from your supercomputer brain into your heart, emotions, body and intuition. If you don’t feel where you desire to go, the matrix will get you where it’s convenient for the system.
- It continues with clarifying your own definition of public service success and how you would know if you were creating the impact you truly desire, on your own terms. Without falling for the definition that you downloaded from others as you were growing up and building your career.
- It includes redesigning your own in-come & out-come indicators, admitting what you want to assess and who it actually matters to. Process innovation, policy delivery or stakeholder engagement matter — that’s what the internet will give you as indicators of knowing if you make a difference. But so does your own well-BE-ing, the feeling of authenticity, excitement and sustainability of your effort. Which are your soul’s KPIs?
- It also generates a sense of re-WRITING your future. Unless you radically change how you go about experiencing current public service reality, you are most likely heading towards a very predictable degree of (un)happiness, fulfilment and excitement. Is there a full 100% YES for the life and impact you are creating? What would it take to re-write this almost predictable future?
- It leads to re-FRESH-ing or even reviving your public service network, because it can make or break your sense of genuine success, impact and purpose. There’s the large constituency we serve, and then there’s the community that helps us be inspired, challenged and nourished so that we can serve. The energy exchange is not always fair so our job is to mindfully manage it — ideally not on our own — and figure out how to reconcile our need to be nice, kind and well-connected with a deep desire to also be surrounded by a network that keeps us in FLOW.
This is where it gets most exciting. However, it can also get very overwhelming — especially if you are surrounded by people telling you all is well, to be happy with what you’ve got and that the geopolitical context is too complex to even dare desire more. That’s where the guides you meet on your way can sabotage or fuel it.
Asking more powerful questions
I told you how I think you can know that you are not truly making a difference that would be on your own terms. What I feel is an even more powerful question you can ask is what next?
How do you not stay stuck in this feeling of unfulfillment but convert it into an opportunity to upgrade your career?
It’s not about a career coaching experience nudging you into a job change. Nor is it about toxic positivity nudging you to shift your mindset with gratitude and mindfulness. It is about all of the above. Far from generic ChatGPT content. It is all at your arm’s length if you choose to look outside of the usual sources. For my network, for example, much of this inquiry is led throughout our mentoring circles. Consider yourself invited, if this resonates.
Three months from now, if you join, you will be blown away by the shift you will have achieved in how energised, aligned and authentic you feel in making a difference — on your own terms, in effortless flow and with a tangible impact that makes your heart (not just your CV) sing.
It all starts with honouring the voice within you. If you are still reading this, it is clearly nudging you to give yourself the permission to wonder more, to engage differently, to brainstorm the unthinkable, to complete some chapters in order to create space for some others. It is messy, unorthodox and uncomfortable but also rewarding and potentially catalysing the genuine difference you (can) make. Are you ready?
This article is reproduced from Apolitical.
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