Seek Your Fulfillment and Stick to It!

Over the past few months, I have been working with a mentee as part of our volunteer program "Fem:Go" at WorldTribe, which targets young women aged 17 to 37. I had already met this young woman last summer at a retreat. The day before her departure, she posed a question that concerned both herself and her professional life: Should she opt for money and career in order to spend a lot of time with her daughter later, because she would be financially independent? Or should she switch to a different job now, as she really disliked her current job and felt unappreciated? I would have liked to discuss this with her, but it took me too long to gather the courage to approach her. By the next morning when I was ready, she and her daughter had already departed. Her question haunted me for months. One evening during meditation, I realized that the underlying answer was not a concrete one, but another question that only she could answer herself.

Due to some detours and a nudge from fate, we made contact again shortly after this meditation. During our first conversation, she confessed that she had hoped I would reach out, and I told her that we were connected. Our first one-on-one conversation was rich with various topics. I shared my experiences as the daughter of a single mother and also my own career ambitions. However, our situations were hardly comparable. In this conversation, she asked me about the fulfillment I find in my work, and I told her that although I work a lot, I only engage in projects that fulfill me. This is especially important to me as I cherish the feeling of contributing and working with people. She said she found that beautiful, but it had never been a criterion for her. She also didn't know what could fulfill her.

Without going into much detail: Things simply went splendidly. Many conversations later, through the additional support of a coach specializing in career rediscovery and burnout, self-chosen literature, and renovations on her own house, we can say that this wonderful person has achieved a lot. She has quit her job, started a training program in a nature-related field, and the memories of what was important in her childhood are slowly returning. What my mentee will do now, we both still do not know, but confidence is building within her, and her passion is being reborn.

The moral of the story? "Seek your fulfillment and stick to it."