PART TWO
When it hits us in life, that something needs to change drastically, it can come like an unexpected jolt. Whether it’s our location, our job, our relationships; this is nature’s way of giving us a big kick in the gusset, and it can become impossible to ignore what we may have been trying to suppress for a long time.
But what is that? Is that intuition? Gut Feeling? Fear? A breakdown? Or a combination of all the above?
For those who have experienced the force of that kick, it’s memorable and most certainly pivotal.
In the book we’re writing at the moment, titled “Social Starters: how to activate your true purpose and change the world” our co-founder and CEO Andrea spoke to five _SocialStarters alumni about the lead up to that life changing moment and what happened when it hit.
Justina Markeviciene, Head of Learning, Career Coach and _SocialStarters alumni 2016 was working for the civil service in the UK government in what she had thought on paper was her dream job, but something wasn’t right, she recalls,
“When I realized that I literally, like in summary, you know, reached my dream role, but realised I wasn’t happy. It was like, what the hell do I do now? I had a plan. I had a life plan. I was actually even good at it. I would get good feedback, get promotions… So it was hard to justify why I wanted to leave. But at the end of the day, I just had this feeling that something wasn’t quite right…I didn’t fit. It didn’t feel like I’m in the right place.”
Coming to terms with the fact that following her “life plan” would not result in making her happy, Justina was forced to reassess her whole career. She spent time up-skilling to find out what she really was meant to be doing.
“There are points in your life when you feel that change is coming. I don’t know if you’ve felt this before, when you have no idea what it is, but you get this rush of like, something will happen, I need to do something. And this was the end of 2016 for me. And so when I came across the [_SocialStarters] programme, I was like, right, that’s the thing that I’ve been having this feeling about… that I need to do something radical and something different.”
This acceptance led to a wealth of experiences for Justina, including working for impact organisations, resulting in her joining _SocialStarters itself as a Programme Manager, and then subsequently as Head of Learning, with a strong belief that there is no such thing as arrival in a dream role and the goal is to allow flexibility with our decisions and our life to give us the space to adapt and change with our ever evolving priorities and passions.
For Kavita Taylor (who graduated _SocialStarters alongside Justina in 2017) after graduating at LSE, landed herself with a role as a graduate project manager for a construction company, and a very corporate environment. Whilst it had ‘purposeful’ overtones, the reality of the company’s direction was that it was not impact-driven. This contradicted her innate desire to work with impact driven businesses especially after spending time abroad volunteering.
“I think I just felt very restless and something wasn’t quite sitting right. I was quite young. And I didn’t know I had this urge to figure out what else was out there.”
So even when her bosses wouldn’t grant her sabbatical, she handed in her notice and set off overseas to undertake the _SocialStarters programme, learning about the strength of her courage and determination to uncover what else is possible – even though she had fears that when she returned she would no longer have a job. Today, aged 27 and 6 years into her career, Kavita has moved into the purpose driven space working as a principal project manager at the Park Road Development Corporation, supporting and better enabling communities to thrive.
Are you a professional at a crossroads? Would you like to gain new skills, grow confidence and help a social impact organisation to thrive? There is still time to join the programme this June and work on tackling one of our 3 missions: inequality, climate change, or the economic crisis! Just 4 places left. Find out more here.
_SocialStarters Blog 