There are often times in your life, when you start to think about the future in a more proactive way than normal, this is something I am very much doing at the moment, as I’m sure many thousands of other local government colleagues are doing. The team I am in are subject to a 50% reduction and that means that I need to do what is right for me and my family and consider all available options.
However in doing this I have started to think about what really motivates me, I mean really motivates me. The deep underlying reasons why I do what I do, I guess the inner strategy I follow to make the world I live and work in a better place.
When I started I naturally came to the obvious stuff like – “I want to make a difference”, Ok that is valid, but a bit lame to be honest, I’m sure most people want to make a difference in some way, then things like “Contribute to a positive future”, “Help improve the quality of life for people locally and nationally” . Then it dawned on me, I was almost reusing strategy lines from council documents, either I’ve worked in Local Government too long or I really believe all of that <I do believe all of that on some level, but I’ve translated these into more meaningful things.
So I started thinking a bit more, I wanted to get to some of the roots and then things started to make more sense and are really obvious really – “To inspire my children”, “to make my wife and family proud of me”, “to be happy and at peace, from the soul outwards”, “to know I’ve challenged myself to be a better person”.
I kind of knew these things but it is very reassuring to validate them in situations when you are considering your next move.
I then started to think about what actually interests me, I mean really interests me. This I found quite hard initially as so many things interest me, to be honest pretty much everything interests me at some level. But i refined those to what is really important to me.
But I am now at the point where I have some clarity and I know what interests me and how those things link to the things that really motivate me……..this may sound strange but I’m not going to share those things here just yet as they are very much informing my future direction and choices.
But what I will say is I hope you know what really motivates you.
A journey through life - Carl's Notepad 
Very thoughtful and thought provoking. Best thing I’ve read all day too! Thanks Carl.
Thanks Liz
It’s not often enough that we think about this kind of thing. Usually it happens when something in our lives makes us stop and take stock. I did this a lot when I lost my Dad to a brain tumour a couple of years ago.
Thanks Carl – reading this post had made me think about those important things all over again. I do hope people realise how passionate a lot of local government staff are about their jobs and life in general. Great read!