Many people have made major career changes as a result of Covid. Whether because they have been personally impacted or simply stepped back to reflect on what’s important to them. Some have withdrawn from the job market, deciding life is too short and wanting to enjoy their retirement, perhaps earlier than originally planned. Some have made a shift into self-employment. Some are volunteering.
Some of you may have taken stock of your career to explore whether a different kind of work would enable you to make more of a difference to others.
What does ‘making a difference’ means to you? It’s an abstract concept that can benefit by being put under the spotlight with a series of concrete questions. There are infinite ways we can all find meaning and make valuable contributions. The following are by no means an exhaustive list; feel free to add you own ideas to those below.
Ask yourself:
1. Why do you want to make a difference?
Think about what presses your buttons and ask yourself: ‘what makes me angry or upsets me?’ This will highlight your values and where you may be willing to invest your time and effort.
2. Who or what do you want to make a difference to?
Consider whose lives you want to improve. For example, the young, the sick, the elderly, the marginalised? Perhaps you want to focus on animal welfare, the safety of others, on health, education or the environment?
3. What role do you see yourself playing?
When you imagine yourself ‘making a difference’ do you see yourself:
- Educating
- Organising
- Persuading
- Counselling
- Advocating
- Mentoring
- Caring
- Researching?
4. What skills and strengths do you have?
If you can identify what you’re good at and enjoy, it will be easier to identify where you can apply your skills and strengths. Would you prefer to:
- Apply your skills and energy directly to people
- Campaign through fundraising
- Get involved in local or national politics
- Use your practical skills
- Use engineering or design skills to invent devices that impact on the lives of others
- Undertake research into the causes of poverty, conflict, unemployment
- Apply your professional skills – an accountant working for a charity, an engineer working in renewables, a scientist developing life-saving drugs
- Develop strategies by working for a policy unit or think tank
- Analyse and interpret Big Data to shape the policy decisions of governments or NGOs?
5. Will it pay what you need?
You may need to undertake a complete change in order to reinvent yourself. Engaging in a course of study or taking a job will require a drop in salary or a sideways move in order to acquire the necessary skills needed to change direction. You may not be in a position to make such a substantial move. Perhaps you could explore making changes within the job you have. Is a project at work where you could make a contribution which would make you role more fulfilling?
Volunteering for a charity or worthwhile cause in your spare time may provide the payback and meaning you crave.
6. Where can I find out more?
Use resources such as Prospects to find out more about the jobs that interest you and how to get into them. Talk to people who do the work that interests you.
We all have a different perspective on what it means to make a difference. Use these questions to help identify how you might make your unique contribution.
It is better to have a meaningful life and to make a difference than to merely have a long life.
Bryant H McGill
