Purpose and Meaning – Lifting the fog to get to that crisp clear day

During a successful IT career, it’s common to find yourself questioning your sense of purpose. The leadership demands keep growing, the day job continues to ramp up, with a huge to-do list, and your own priorities stay towards the bottom.

This can feel frustrating. At worst that frustration can turn inwards and become self-critical.

The good news? The same skills that provided you with career success so far can help you move forwards here – it’s not a case of starting from the beginning but about redirecting those skills.

Here are some of the things I’ve seen that can help.

Awareness

Change often comes in a series of repeated tiny actions rather than one big step. It can be easy to overlook the tiny steps that may already be underway.

Thinking about a desired change, what tiny steps have you already taken, even if they may be a distant memory? Taking five minutes to list those out, much like having a done list, can bring reassurance and much needed energy to move forwards.

A Clear Vision

It can be helpful to have a clear vision in mind. Easily clouded by thinking. Emerging when you’re still.

In whatever way works best for you – whether that’s at breakfast time, going for a lunch time walk, or an unexpected break after a cancelled meeting – taking a moment to gain clarity on the mission can be hugely beneficial.

Intention

With a destination in mind you will find that things start showing up on your radar. Synergies that leave you thinking, “oh, that’s great timing” or “wow, great that showed up today”. It can be easy to dismiss these as accidental, nothing to do with you.

It’s like the time when you ordered a new car, and then suddenly saw that make of car everywhere, or the time where you wanted to buy new trainers and saw adverts for trainers everywhere.

Your brain is on your side – doing its work in the background, helping to filter out the things that are useful to you. With a clear intent, it can do some of the heavy sifting.

Using what you already know

In my corporate role, leading culture transformation, I was on a look out to amplify the things that were in support of the new culture.

Highlighting progress (“Moments that Matter”), bringing focus to and celebrating the small wins in the desired direction.

Being mindful of visible signs of change (“Symbols”) – the symbols that could be held up to show that change was taking place in-line with the desired positive direction – and reinforcing them.

They helped me to see, when it came to personal change, that I’d already learnt skills in my corporate role to help me move forwards.

Applying your skills

In the same way that you manage complex IT transformations at work, getting clear on the direction, keeping in mind the progress, being intentional about the steps required, you can apply this same thinking here.

What skills do you have from your corporate role that can support you when it comes to taking more intentional steps towards your mission?

I’m Graham Wright. I work with restless technology leaders wanting to make more of a difference in the world so that they can feel energised and inspired again.

DM me if I can support you.